Why Ghislaine Maxwell's Transfer to a Minimum-Security Prison Camp Stinks
Sex offenders are supposed to be ineligible for minimum-security federal prison camps, but the rule was waived for Maxwell.
Last week, Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted coconspirator of deceased billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, was quietly transferred from a federal penitentiary in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp after sitting down for an interview with President Donald Trump's former defense lawyer, now a deputy attorney general at the Justice Department.
Maxwell's transfer raised eyebrows not only because it appeared to be part of an obvious quid pro quo between a rather infamous public figure and a president trying to downplay his connections to Epstein, but because it's practically unheard of for a federal inmate with Maxwell's record to get transferred to a minimum-security camp after serving only a fraction of their sentence.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has a classification system to determine custody levels, and Maxwell's status as a sex offender would normally make her ineligible for minimum security.
A jury convicted Maxwell in 2021 of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors to participate in illegal sex acts, transporting a minor to participate in illegal sex acts, sex trafficking conspiracy, and sex trafficking of a minor. She was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
According to the BOP's publicly available policies, any offender convicted of a sex offense must be housed in at least a low-security facility unless that public safety factor has been waived.
But such a waiver would be extraordinarily unusual, and it would have to be approved by the administrator of the BOP's Designation and Sentence Computation Center.
Multiple former BOP officials say they've never seen anything like it.
Paul Gibson retired from the BOP after 36 years and is currently the chief operating officer for the Prison Education and Reform Alliance, a nonprofit group working to improve conditions in the federal prison system.
"I did a lot of classification in case management. I was a case management coordinator, camp administrator, and then associate warden," Gibson says. "During that time, I've never seen them waive a sex offense public safety factor for a transfer to a minimum-security camp."
Likewise, Vito Maraviglia, a retired federal prison special investigative agent, said in an interview with NBC News that he couldn't recall an instance in which a sex offender was moved to a prison camp in his 27 years at the BOP.
Other types of waivers are more common. Gibson says offenders sentenced to life in prison are automatically classified as high-security inmates, but if they adjust well, they're often waived down to medium security. But that only happens after ten or more years in a high-security penitentiary.
Robert Hood, a former Bureau of Prisons chief of internal affairs, said in an email to NBC News that Maxwell's transfer was a "travesty of justice."
"To relocate a sex offender serving 20 years to a country club setting is offensive to victims and others serving similar crimes," Hood wrote.
The BOP's minimum-security camps, often referred to by tabloids as "Club Fed," are as nice as it gets in federal prison. They don't have perimeter fences, and inmates are sometimes allowed outside for jobs and community service projects.
As such, the camps are limited to the BOP's lowest-risk inmates—typically white-collar criminals and first-time nonviolent offenders with short sentences, or those nearing the end of their sentences who've maintained clean disciplinary records.
For example, Federal Prison Camp Bryan, the camp in Texas where Maxwell was transferred, currently houses former The Real Housewives star Jen Shah and disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.
The BOP policy specifically says that public safety factors "are applied to inmates who are not appropriate for placement at an institution which would permit inmate access to the community (i.e., MINIMUM security)."
The Bureau of Prisons did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why Maxwell was approved for a transfer.
However, a spokesperson for the agency told USA TODAY, while declining to comment specifically on Maxwell's case, that the "BOP designates individuals to institutions based on several factors."
"Those factors include the level of security and supervision the inmate requires, any medical or programming needs, separation, and security measures to ensure the individual's protection, and other considerations, including proximity to an individual's release residence," the spokesperson continued. "The same criteria apply when making decisions for both initial designations and redesignations for transfer to a new facility."
It's understandable why Maxwell would want out of her previous location, Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Tallahassee, a low-security women's prison in Florida. In 2023, the Justice Department Office of Inspector General performed an unannounced inspection of FCI Tallahassee and found moldy, bug-infested food and leaking roofs. That same year, The Appeal reported rampant sexual abuse at the prison.
Maxwell, like every other incarcerated person, has the right under the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution to adequate living conditions and freedom from brutality. But she is not entitled to special treatment offered to no one else, solely because of her political utility to Trump.
The family of Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein victim who committed suicide in April, released a statement to USA TODAY, cosigned by two other victims of Maxwell and Epstein, denouncing the transfer.
"It is with horror and outrage that we object to the preferential treatment convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has received," the statement said. "Ghislaine Maxwell is a sexual predator who physically assaulted minor children on multiple occasions, and she should never be shown any leniency."
