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Ghislaine Maxwell’s former Bradford, N.H. hideout is back on the market, this time the 156-acre estate is selling for $2.495 million. Maxwell was arrested there in 2020. Boundless Estates photo
By RAY CARBONE, InDepthNH.org
BRADFORD – The latest information released by the US Department of Justice this week reveal new details about how Ghislaine Maxwell purchased a mountaintop residence here and what happened the day she was finally arrested.
Maxwell was the longtime associate of notorious financier and child sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein, who died of suicide in jail awaiting trial in 2019.
Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking and other related offenses and is now serving a 20-year prison sentence and is seeking a new trial.
Authorities say that she was seeking to evade capture when she purchased the 156-acre estate in a sparely populated area of Bradford.
Documents released under the federal Epstein Files Transparency Act shortly after midnight Tuesday morning say that Maxwell bought the property under a false name; earlier information said that the deal was actually made using a limited liability company or LLC, a business entity that can protect the identity of owners or investors.
The new documents state that a local realtor met Maxwell and a male companion, who identified themselves as Scott and Janet Marshall. The couple had British accents and said Janet Maxwell was a journalist who highly valued her privacy.
It wasn’t until after the arrest that the realtor recognized Maxwell’s face and notified authorities.
The documents also add some details about Maxwell’s arrest the morning of July 2, 2020. Authorities say they knocked on the door of her mansion on East Washington Road in Bradford around 8:30 a.m. but when no one answered, they forced it open. Maxwell then ran to an interior room where she was found and taken into custody.
A cell phone on a nearby desk was wrapped in tin foil, an apparent attempt to neutralize the exact tracking system that led investigations to her location.
Like most people in Bradford, Police Chief Ed Shaughnessy said he wasn’t aware of Maxwell’s stay in his town before the 2020 arrest. “Do you think that if I knew she was there, I wouldn’t have come up to get her,” he asked rhetorically, reflecting on her apprehension.
Shaughnessy may have been the only local person who was at the scene that day. He said he received a phone call at 4:30 a.m. that muggy morning telling him about the pending arrest and inviting him to take part in Maxwell’s capture.
“I didn’t know a lot about her at the time,” he recalled. “Then I got up and googled
her.”
Shaughnessy drove his cruiser eastwards to the Market Basket parking lot in Warner, where he met up with other law enforcement officials for a pre-arrest briefing. Then his vehicle led about 14 others in a caravan heading westward on the two-lane Rte. 103 about 30 minutes back into Bradford, up Center and West roads, and then left onto East Washington Road.
Shaughnessy said that when he arrived around 8:30 a.m., about 30 law enforcement aircrafts overhead. “I don’t know if they were small planes or helicopters,” he said, but the they were definitely related to the police activity and not to the media that flooded the town later that day.
The large police presence was likely related to court records showing that officials believed Maxwell had both the financial resources and social mobility to flee the country if she wasn’t arrested.
Much of what happened during Maxwell’s arrest wasn’t initially made public. Official reports said that she was taken into custody “without incident,” but later information said that she refused to open the front door and she was seen through a window fleeing into an interior room. Officers forced their way into the
home and then into the room where they found Maxwell.
Chief Shaughnessy said that his local department had no role in the arrest but he did see officers escorting Maxwell into a cruiser. She was held at the Merrimack County Corrections Facility in Boscawen for several days before being sent to New York where she stood trial for her crimes.
That morning, the chief also learned that members of Maxwell’s onsite security team were former British secret service personnel. They said she never left the Bradford property. “Her security team did the food shopping, ran the errands,” the chief recalled.
The former Maxwell estate is for sale again. This summer Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty-New Hampshire listed the property at $2,495,000. Maxwell purchased the residence in 2019 for $1 million in cash using a limited liability company, according to paperwork filed by federal prosecutors.
Town records recently listed the property assessment at $1,829,005 with an annual tax of $30,353. The asking price on the land was recently dropped $30,000 to $2,365,000.
The mountaintop estate is not visible from the road but a careful observer can find the dirt road entrance off East Washington Road, across from a modest brown home and adjacent to a utility pole.
About one-quarter of the way up the incline a wire fence blocks traffic and announces that one should “Beware of Dog.”
A security keypad sits a few feet in front of the fence. The newly released documents say that there was a full security system in operation when Maxwell lived there.
On various real estate websites, photographs and descriptions depict an extravagant estate. One realtor called it a “privacy lovers dream.”
The main 4,365-sq ft. residence is a timber-framed two-story structure that includes a Great
Room with a fieldstone fireplace and floor-to-ceiling windows. A second structure is a 1800s cape house, with a barn and fireplace. Spectacular views abound and one description calls it the dream of a “hunter, farmer, horse lover, (or) hiker.”
This is not the first time Maxwell’s former residence has been sold. A couple purchased the property last year but later decided to resell it. One local woman said the couple from southern New England might have found central New Hampshire winters too severe.
The newly released photos and documents have been made public because of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which President Trump signed into law last month.
One released photo of New Hampshire businessman and entrepreneur Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, showed Kamen sitting with businessman Richard Branson and Epstein walking behind them. Another more recently released photo showed Kamen and Ghislaine Maxwell riding a Segway. Kamen has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the Epstein matter.
Kamen, the founder of DEKA Research and Development, told WMUR that he was a speaker at the TED Conference in Monterey, California a number of times, including February 2002 (https://www.ted.com/talks/dean_kamen_to_invent_is_to_give).
Kamen told WMUR: “If I had to guess, based in part on helpful reminders from friends, I would say that this photo was taken at that conference (or some similar conference) shortly after the launch of Segway where I gave I rides to many, if not most, of the TED conference attendees.
“Unfortunately, Jeffrey Epstein was a central figure in the TED community for many years. I have no specific memory of this photo or any other interaction with Ghislaine Maxwell and had only limited interactions with Jeffrey Epstein. I hope that it goes without saying that those interactions in no way involved any wrong-doing and, in hindsight with what I now know, I regret even those limited interactions. Again, I have no knowledge of any of the horrific actions of Jeffrey Epstein (or Ghislaine Maxwell) other than what I have learned from news reports,” Kamen said.
Local News
A new photo has been released of the victim in a nearly 30-year-long unsolved murder case, in the hope of finding any new potential witnesses in the cold case, New Hampshire officials said.
“Our family wants to know what happened, who did this and why,” the family of Rosalie Miller said in a press release. “We miss her and want to give her peace.”
Miller was last seen on December 8, 1996 at her apartment in Manchester. At the time of her disappearance, Miller had plans on meeting friends in the Auburn, New Hampshire area, officials said.
Her body was found on January 20, 1997 in a partially wooded spot on a residential lot along the Londonderry Turnpike in Auburn, officials said in the release.
The autopsy report declared Miller’s death a homicide by asphyxiation due to ligature strangulation, N.H. officials wrote.
As part of a new effort to garner public help with the case, an “uncirculated” photo of Miller, 36, is being distributed “in hopes it may jog the memory of someone who saw or spoke with her in the winter of 1996,” Attorney General John M. Formella and New Hampshire State Police Colonel Mark B. Hall announced on behalf of the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit in a joint press release.
Investigators are especially hoping to talk to anyone who was in contact with Miller in December of 1996 or anyone “who may have seen her in the vicinity of the Londonderry Turnpike in Auburn during that time,” officials said in the release.
“We are releasing this new photograph today because we believe someone out there has information, perhaps a detail they thought was insignificant at the time, that could be the key to solving this case and bringing justice for Rosalie and those who loved her,” Senior Assistant Attorney General R. Christopher Knowles, New Hampshire Cold Case Unit Chief said in the release.
The New Hampshire Cold Case Unit encourages anyone with any amount of information to contact the group at [email protected] or (603) 271-2663.
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A Massachusetts man was flown to the hospital after he was struck by a car when he stepped out of his vehicle in the breakdown lane of Interstate 93 in Londonderry, New Hampshire, on Saturday morning.
State police say 40-year-old Felix Matos Medina, of Lawrence, had stopped on the right side of I-93 south at Exit 5 just before 11 a.m. to investigate a possible mechanical issue. He was struck shortly after he stepped out of his vehicle by a Chevrolet Malibu and sustained serious injuries.
Medina was taken by medical helicopter to Lahey Hospital and Medical Center in Burlington, Mass., police said. There was no immediate update on his condition.
I-93 southbound was closed near Exit 5 for about 30 minutes to facilitate the medical helicopter’s landing. One lane remained closed for several hours to accommodate crash reconstruction and on-scene investigation.
The driver who struck Medina, identified as David Jodoin, stopped at the scene and is cooperating with investigators, according to police. No charges have been filed at this time, but all aspects of the crash remain under investigation at this time.
Anyone with information that may assist the investigation is asked to contact Trooper Evan Puopolo at 603-451-9784.
State police are also reminding all New Hampshire drivers that Sherrill’s Law requires motorists approaching a stopped vehicle displaying warning signals to slow down and give plenty of space. Drivers are also required to move out of partially or wholly blocked lanes when it’s safe to do so.
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