Ghislaine and Golubski: Occasionally, even those with important friends have to pay
Convicted spider Ghislaine Maxwell — and yes, it feels good to say that — could still help herself by telling what she knows about Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and other frequent flyers on Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express.”
She won’t, having made a career of smoothing the way for predators. Which is why her whole faux feminist defense strategy — that she was just another victim of drive-by sexism, and the scapegoat of “a man who behaved badly” — was so cynical that the jury said nah, don’t think so.
A “man who behaved badly” is somebody who talked over you during a meeting, or treated minimum-wage workers rudely, or cut in line, because don’t you know who he is? To write off the sexual exploitation of adolescents as “behaving badly” gives me a goodly amount of agita.
But I hope that what Maxwell’s conviction for trafficking girls as young as 14 says to the world is that ever so occasionally, even those with resources and important friends are held to account. And that complicity in crimes against the vulnerable can also be punished.
Which is important, because behind every monster there is a whole support network of other, smaller, but in a way even more ghoulish monsters, who don’t have the excuse of being so sick that they can’t help doing what they do.
We don’t know what 60-year-old Maxwell thinks when she looks back on her life. “I have not committed any crimes,” she told the court.
Her attorney, Bobbi Sternheim, adhered to tradition and blamed her client’s victims. She said that the trial was about memory, manipulation and money. Which is true, though not in the way she meant it.
Maxwell “is a scapegoat for a man who behaved badly,” Sternheim said. “She is a target, a bull’s eye of anger for women who were or otherwise believe they were victimized by Epstein. Epstein’s death left a gaping hole in the pursuit of justice for many of these women.”
Yes, woe unto those angry women who “otherwise believe they were victimized.” Despite all we know about Epstein, Sternheim was arguing both that his victims are money-grubbing liars and that her client was the world’s most clueless partner.
Closer to home, I hope what Wednesday’s verdict says to both the victims of former Kansas City, Kansas, police detective Roger Golubski and all of his many facilitators is that justice is still possible. Maybe even when she shows up so late and out of breath that the main malefactor is dead.
Maxwell was only found guilty because of the tenacity and courage of those girls who were treated like Christmas toys by the “British socialite” and her whatever-he-was. (“Longtime paramour” The Washington Post said, romanticizing the dead pedophile even now. Because Golubski is not as Palm Beach soigné as Epstein, no one will ever call the police captain connected to a bunch of poor Black women who were never seen again anybody’s paramour.)
But when Golubski and his many downmarket Maxwells are someday, and may it be soon, brought to account, it will likewise be because women with nothing but their own refusal to be permanently silenced by threats dared to stand up.
This story was originally published December 30, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
