Virginia Guiffre's statement to Ghislane Maxwell, read by Guiffre's attorney in court the day Maxwell was sentenced, June 28, 2022. "Twenty-two years ago, in the summer of 2000, you spotted me at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, and you made a choice: You chose to follow me and procure me for Epstein. Just hours later, you and he abused me together for the first time. Together you damaged me physically, mentally, sexually and emotionally. Together you did unthinkable things that still have a corrosive impact on me to this day. I want to be clear about one thing: Without question, Jeffrey Epstein was a terrible pedophile, but I never would have met Jeffrey Epstein if not for you. “For me, and for so many others, you opened the door to hell, and then, Ghislaine, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you used your femininity to betray us and you led us all through it. When you did that, you changed the course of our lives forever. “You joked that you were like a new mother to us. As a woman, I think you understood the damage that you were causing, the price you were making us victims pay. You could have put an end to the rapes, the molestation, the sickening manipulation that you arranged, witnessed, and even took part in. You could have called the authorities and reported that you were part of something awful. “I was young and naïve when we met, but you knew that. In fact, you were counting on it. My life as a young person was just beginning. You robbed me of that by exploiting my hopes and ambitions. “Ghislaine, the pain you have caused me is almost indescribable. Because of your choices and the world you brought me into, I don’t sleep. Nightmares wake me at all hours. In those dreams, I relive the awful things that you and others did to me and the things that you forced me to do. Those memories will never go away. I have trouble meeting new people without questioning if somehow they’re going to hurt me, too. There is not a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t ask why. Why did you enjoy hurting us so much? “I worry every single day and night that you will get away with it and evade being punished. I will worry about that until you’re brought to justice. And what should that justice look like? Ghislaine, you deserve to spend the rest of your life in prison in a jail cell.” She added, “You deserve to be trapped in a cage forever just like you trapped your victims.”