Fool For Love
Recap of a seaside escape, secret marriage, and the missing millions that led to Ghislaine Maxwell's penniless pursuit for appeal
No one I've written about has embraced more variations in life than Ghislaine Maxwell. Reinventing herself repeatedly as eras and circumstances shift, she is, for better or worse, a dedicated survivalist. In this series — to be shared in fragmented slices over the next few weeks, when and where I can squeeze them in — we will begin at the end and work our way back through the chapters that transpired in the decade after Epstein, starting with the events leading up to her arrest: a short-lived seaside escape, an affair, a secret marriage, a reinvented identity, life on the lam, a dramatic arrest, a breakup by phone call, millions missing, stolen jewelry, and an unexpected home tour.
By now, we know the Ghislaine Maxwell saga begins with promise: A girl born into extreme privilege who flourished under the pressure of her father's grand expectations and grew up in a glittering mansion on a hill amongst the monied elite in England; She had everything she needed to secure what should have been an extraordinary future. Given her foundation, built on obscene wealth and the outstretched opportunities it entailed, she was supposed to chase something spectacular. At the very least, she was expected to marry someone with a pedigree to enhance her family's own remarkable legacy. A Kennedy, if her father could choose. But a prince or potential president would do.
Concluding chapters, however, would take a dismal turn when, after a decade of servitude to a man who replaced both her father's dynamic and overbearing role in her life, Robert Maxwell's most cherished child was reduced to a hated, hunted woman.
Focus shifted to Ghislaine immediately following Epstein's death. By then, she had finally pulled herself away from his orbit and moved into a chapter of quiet domesticity, settling down with a man 14 years her junior.
Despite her reputation as a beguiling seductress, Ghislaine always imagined herself as someone's wife. At one point, she was desperate and determined to tie down Jefferey; years later, even more hopeful with Ted.
Scott Borgerson, the man she finally secured, was a peculiar choice. A Coast Guardsman with a successful data analytics company that operates in maritime shipping and trading (and a history of hard drinking and tempered outbursts), his status did not match her other, more established past love interests. But when it came to rebranding lovers, Ghislaine loved a challenge. Molding men with promise into elegantly suited billionaires was her specialty— a role she would reprise consistently throughout her life, teaching them to harness and weaponize wealth to their (and her) benefit. In this role, she was of greatest value to them.
Overnight, everything changed.
The once-powerful socialite - a dazzling fixture at the center of high society's most prominent events for nearly three decades - post-Epstein (and post the San Diego heartbreak that came after Epstein) had only recently settled into a slower pace in a small coastal town, referred to as the “Beverly Hills of Massachusetts,” when her world came crashing down. The domestic reset she had worked hard to establish would prove short-lived.
After Epstein's death, she was transformed into a frantic fugitive dodging authorities who were determined to bring her to justice for her part in facilitating her ex-lover's sordid sex crimes as a polished procurer who fed his insatiable fetish for teenage girls.
Before this shocking turn of events, she had no reason to believe she might be dodging federal charges. With a nonprosecution deal in the works, she never expected a so-called "suicide" by shredded bedsheets would trail Epstein's plea dealings. By her own account, she expected him to get off again like he always did. For over a decade, his status managed to eclipse legal consequence.
When news of his death broke, she fled.
What transpired was a scattered year on the run. Chaotic and exhausting, bouncing between hotels and friend's houses, never staying in one place longer than a week to evade the hounding media scrutiny that ignited after Epstein's death, she changed her phone constantly to avoid being tracked, paid for everything in cash, and wore a large patterned blanket pulled tightly around her face and draped across her shoulders whenever she went out. She smiled politely and talked very little. Everything she did and said became a strategic attempt to blend in.
Her brother Kevin took extra measures by employing the British security expert Matt Hellyer, a decorated former paratrooper who headed a security team staffed with ex-SAS members to guard her for that year.
According to Hellyer, a humble man with a penchant for inspiring wounded war heroes to tackle intimidating feats, hiring doubles to distract the media was his idea.
"We went to an agency in France. A security collaborating agency. They found us two people who resembled Ghislaine and her brother Kevin. They strolled around Paris for a few days, and we leaked it to a newspaper. That is how we distracted the attention away from where Ghislaine really was. She was in the US at all times."
Maxwell had to be shuttled to rotating locations out of fear for her life, reportedly with one of her twin sisters often in tow.
"She had been moving from safehouse to safehouse. Obviously, she never had a security team until all the focus landed on her, so it was a shock."
"Ghislaine lived in real fear something might happen to her, and with good reason. There were a lot of death threats and hostility," Hellyer explained.
"And, you know, many people don't believe Epstein killed himself. So we were also hired to protect her from a potential killer."
"She could be anywhere," said one person familiar with the lengths people went to track her down. "Russia, China, Singapore, the Middle East, England. She's in some friend's castle in the middle of nowhere. Or in a tent somewhere deep in some desert. Wherever she is, she's on the down low." - VF
“Everyone loved the Paris sighting,’ said a source close to the case. ‘Sometimes it’s a matter of giving the people what they want. The sighting kept everyone happy for a while and sent the dogs barking down the wrong trail. She never left America."
"The ruse was a good one. Epstein owned an apartment on Avenue Foch near the Arc de Triomphe. It is now on the market for £10 million. Ghislaine’s mother is French, and Ghislaine was born in France and has French citizenship.” - Daily Mail
‘We did not hide her from the authorities. They knew that at any point if they wanted to talk to Ghislaine, we would bring her safely to them.”
“The day before Epstein committed suicide, a federal court unsealed 2,000 pages of evidence from the defamation case brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Maxwell strides through the pages, accused of being Epstein’s madam and mistress: allegedly recruiting girls to satiate what Epstein called his required three orgasms a day (“It was biological, like eating,” one of his victims testified), instructing the girls on the fine art of erotic massage (“She was implying that I did not get Jeffrey off, and so she had to do it,” the same victim said); and allegedly even participating in sex acts along with Epstein. Her name appeared on message slips investigators pulled from Epstein’s trash in Palm Beach and on the flight manifests of Epstein’s Boeing 727, dubbed “the Lolita Express.
If ever there were a day for Maxwell to lie low and stay out of sight, it was Monday, August 12, a day when her name was being featured prominently in headlines and news broadcasts worldwide. “The death of Jeffrey Epstein is putting new attention on his alleged coconspirators, who could still face charges,” CBS reported that day. “The number one person on that list is Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s accused of finding teenage girls for Epstein and his friends.” - VF
Sources who defend Maxwell insist she was cooperating with the FBI all along. They say this is why she never fled the country, despite having the money and means to do so. Fluent in several languages, with access to countries without extradition laws, escaping the States would have been a tempting and feasible solution for anyone facing such hefty federal charges.
When the mystery of her whereabouts continued to gain momentum, some media outlets even began offering “'bounties”' to anyone who could provide them with the first pictures of “'Ghislaine on the run.”' The Sun offered 10,000 pounds for information about her location. Shortly after, the infamous In-N-Out burger shot appeared with a location suggesting Maxwell was in LA. The most bizarre detail? The title of the book she was photographed reading: 'The Book of Honour: The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives."
Like a scene torn from a Tarantino script (imagine blaring surf rock kicking in at the scene's end), a stunned diner approached her on the patio that day, asking, “Are you who I think you are?”' to which she dryly replied, “'Yes, I am.”
A Flight Sighting
“Ghislaine, is that you?" The woman making her way into the first-class cabin of a commercial flight from Miami to New York City was almost unrecognizable. Her attire, once stylish and attention-grabbing, now seemed designed to deflect notice; her face, usually painted to perfection, was devoid of makeup. There was a hint of gray in her signature black bob, and her days of starvation diets and charity-circuit appearances seemed far behind her. Wearing no traces of her glamorous New York life—, - much of it once provided by Jeffrey Epstein— -, Ghislaine Maxwell could have been anybody. Or nobody.
It was the spring of 2018, and it had been a decade since Maxwell's former best friend and lover had served 13 months in a Palm Beach jail, (with time free on work release) after pleading guilty to two charges, including soliciting a minor for prostitution. Maxwell, who had sold her Manhattan home—a 5-five-story, 7,000-square-foot townhouse on East 65th Street—was essentially homeless. "No fixed address," someone claiming firsthand knowledge of her situation would later say. She might have spent the flight in anonymity had she not been spotted by a friend from New York who was sitting just behind her in the second row. "I was so shocked by her look," the friend recalls. "I didn't recognize her." - VF
During the shuffle to stay constantly on the go, she, Scott, and his kids reunited on the weekends.
"We brought the family to her home, her animals. They were able to be a real, loving family," Hellyer said.
But as the year came to a head, the routine started to exhaust her. "She missed her family. She was getting tired. She needed a home. I told her we could fly her out of the country immediately. She refused," Hellyer reportedly said, insisting that the security team did not hide her from the authorities.
"Enough running," she finally told him.
With this surrender, surveillance tightened.
"Now she was back on the tabloid radar. The Daily Mail would soon dispatch a team to Manchester-by-the-Sea on a tip that Maxwell was living there. Helicopters hovered over the village. Neighbors faced media interrogations. Maxwell's older sister, Christine, was photographed packing bags into a car. Scott Borgerson was snapped walking a dog believed to belong to ‘G’: a vizsla, the aristocratic breed of Hungarian sporting dog Maxwell had once shown at Westminster. ‘"I'm home alone with my cat,’" Borgerson told the New York Post. ‘She's not here. I have no idea where she is.… Nobody wants to be close to this radioactive situation." - VF
The headline said it all: "Ghislaine Maxwell's downcast lover Scott Borgerson is spotted for first time since her arrest - still looking after her faithful dog."
Marriage (after) Affair — Borgerson’s History of Abuse
An affair took shape quickly after Ghislaine and Scott met. She was distraught over her recent breakup with a tech billionaire based in San Diego, a man she had hoped to marry. His marriage was steadily falling apart.
Unnamed acquaintances say Scott was taken with Ghislaine instantly -impressed by her power, connections, and confidence.
"When Scott told his parents of his relationship with this woman, I didn't know who she was. I don't think he told them of her background or what she'd been accused of. I just know he described her as a high-profile woman. I thought she was a model or something. She spoke different languages, and he seemed very impressed by her."
Sometime in 2015, Borgerson allegedly told his wife Rebecca he was going to London on business. He promised to send videos to keep in touch.
He sent the wrong ones.
"Rebecca received a video of him and Ghislaine together," a source told the Daily Mail. "Although he said he would be in London, he was actually in Miami with his new mistress. Rebecca was sitting there with her two young children watching this video of Scott and Ghislaine hugging and kissing one another." Rebecca was devastated. Things quickly fell apart after that. Scott moved out; Rebecca had to get a job as a caregiver to keep things afloat.
Tensions between the couple were already brewing before Scott met Ghislaine. Court records paint a disturbing picture accusing him of being physically violent, abusive, “'extremely controlling,”' and having an alcohol problem that fueled enraged outbursts. He physically attacked Rebecca in June 2014 and was later charged with assault and domestic battery. The two divorced months later.
"During the marriage, the husband was extremely controlling, and the husband has continued to exhibit disturbing behavior throughout this litigation,”' court papers state."
Rebecca claimed their son began “'hurting himself and exhibiting anger,”' while their daughter began to wet the bed and became “'withdrawn,” forcing her to put the kids in therapy. In the documents, she accused Borgerson of having an “'alcohol problem.”' One incident details him being “'blacked out drunk” in front of the children in 2012.
In a separate incident, Borgerson reportedly called their daughter, age 3, “'fat” and threatened to hit Rebecca when she asked him to stop speaking that way around the children.
Records show that Rebecca had a restraining order against her estranged husband, which was later thrown out. "My husband has a history of control issues," she wrote. "I'm afraid of him and what he'll do next."
Shortly after her arrest, a relative interviewed about the situation said, "My family is already traumatized. This is never something I would wish on a family."
G & S pictured speaking at the Arctic Circle conference in Reykjavik in 2014.
Before Arrest, A Second Seaside Escape
Before consequences caught up to her, Ghislaine had happily adjusted to life holed up in a secluded ocean-front property in Manchester-by-the-Sea, surrounded by dense foliage and a ruggedly stunning coastline that opened up to a sprawling lot of rock parted by the ocean at the end of their private trail. The path cut straight through the brush from their house to the sea, exposing a tranquil haven where Scott could fish and she could relax. The setting was a far cry from the bustling rhythm of her previous big city persona, but elegantly refined to suit life in extended exile.
Around town, she drove a black Cadillac Escalade. Scott sported a dark-colored Mercedes. They appeared, by most accounts, an ordinary couple. Maxwell would often visit Borgerson at his CargoMetrics office in Boston with their dogs in tow and accompany him to social events for work. On the surface, they were nearly indistinguishable from other townsfolk. She became a homebody who rarely ventured out, stayed active by jogging on the beach, cooked, kept her mouth shut, and tried her best to fly under the radar and blend in.
"She is somewhat attractive, still very slim but very reserved. She doesn't look like a local. She dresses like she comes from money, the way that the British Royals do when they are not at a formal function. Her English accent is still noticeable but has become more Americanized," a local source recalled for the Daily Mail.
Another bonding factor was the couple's shared love of purebred vizslas.
In 2015, Borgerson and Maxwell flew to Michigan to meet their new puppy, sired by Maxwell's show dog, a purebred Vizsla named Captain Nemo.
"They were like a couple of kids, crawling around on the floor and playing with puppies," Nancy Heinold, the breeder, said.
Maxwell had previously spent thousands of dollars to buy Captain Nemo, with dreams of winning the Westminster Kennel Club dog show one day. Nemo won several titles but never reached Maxwell's dream of "best in show.” So Maxwell set a new goal to breed vizslas. She lent Nemo to the Michigan breeder in exchange for the pick of the litter.
News of her marriage stunned both the court and the Maxwells. Her siblings later commented that they had no idea she had tied the knot. They learned of this development with the rest of the public when documents in court were unsealed, unveiling details of her finances concerning her current husband.
The union might have been motivated as much by money as love. After this secret wedding, Ghislaine made a decision she would come to sharply regret two years later. In an attempt to protect her money from the onslaught of new lawsuits from Epstein victims, she transferred all of her assets over to Scott—an amass of wealth stemming from the sale of the NYC townhouse gifted to her by Epstein.
The couple, it was reported, hid millions in assets through shell companies.
Scott, like most men in her life, was more infatuated with her connections that her charm. One of them being Bill Clinton. According to one person who attended a local mixer, Maxwell politely introduced herself before heading to the bar. Borgerson used the opportunity to brag to this acquaintance about a private meal he had recently enjoyed with Maxwell and former President Clinton. “It was lunch with just the three of them,"the person told The Daily Beast of Borgerson. "He was trying to impress me. He's famous for name-dropping."
Residents recall Borgerson and Maxwell appeared to be a "nice couple," often spotted jogging together and using the community beach and tennis courts on the weekends. However, when they realized who Maxwell was, the trustees were revolted.
"They wanted to ostracize them as much as possible and make them feel they weren't welcome on Sharksmouth or in Manchester."
In April 2019, Borgerson's Tidewood LLC, used to purchase Phippein House, sued the trust in Massachusetts Land Court over the use of the privileges, according to documents obtained by the Mail.
When he purchased the 7 bedroom house in 2016, Scott assumed he would have the same privileges as his neighbors, which included direct access to the beach, tennis courts, and pathways. But the trust took issue once Maxwell's past was uncovered by a suspicious local.
"Someone told one of the trustees that they should look into her background, and as soon as they did, they decided to act," an anonymous resident explained.
What came next was a small-town legal war between the parties. They sought to strip Maxwell and Borgerson of their private beach access. The trustees countersued but ended up losing the court battle with Scott.
In the end, they were able to keep their private jagged beach pathway, but news of Ghislaine's real identity was out and spreading quickly.
Maxwell Becomes Marshall
As town gossip heated up, Ghislaine found shelter in another (less drastic) relocation for a few months before her arrest. She moved out of Scott's mansion to a charming 3 bed, 1 bath cottage appropriately called "Tucked away," hidden on 158 acres in Bradford, New Hampshire, and reinvented herself as "Jen Marshall," a British journalist looking for privacy with her husband, Scott Marshall, a retired British military vet.
“Once their home had been discovered, she left, mostly to protect the children. They were being teased at school. Anyone associated with Ghislaine finds they become toxic," a source noted.
"Maxwell moved from place to place but acquired ‘Tuckedaway,’ a home in Bradford, New Hampshire, for $1 million cash at the start of 2020. There, Borgerson and his children would visit."
The couple wanted to purchase the property quickly, through a wire. They purchased a $1 million home in an all-cash deal using an anonymized LLC called Granite Reality. Records show that LLC was formed by a lawyer at Nutter McClennen & Fish. Lawyers at the same firm signed the documents for at least 5five of the 13 LLCs and trusts that were part of a complex network of shell companies designed to keep Borgerson and Maxwell's assets private. Those assets were worth $22.5 million at the time and included 4 properties, a fortune held entirely in Scott's name since 2019.
Details of this transaction under aliases were revealed by federal prosecutors at Maxwell's arraignment when recounting the story of the real estate agent who contacted the FBI after realizing that Jen Marshall was actually Ghislaine Maxwell. The real estate agent realized Jen Marshall's identity after seeing a picture of Maxwell on the news. The agent told the FBI that the buyers introduced themselves as Scott and Jennifer Marshall. Both, she noted, had British accents.
The Arrest
The first time the paparazzi surrounded his seaside mansion, Scott Borgerson reportedly “reacted like a soldier under siege.” After the incident, he blanketed the house with security cameras and put up "No Trespassing" signs down the length of the driveway. He then contacted the chief of police, Todd Fitzgerald, asking what he was (legally) allowed to do if the trespassing continued.
"What I would like to do is to detain them and call [the police] once the subject is ‘secured’... I am thinking of level 4 use of force.* I am starting physical patrols of my property today on a random and rotating schedule.”
*Level 4 use of force: a term used in law enforcement to refer to physical action, such as the use of a taser, hair pulling, pepper spray, canine bites, strikes to the head, neck holds, and other weaponless defense techniques. It also encompasses knocking someone to the ground and actions that result in a loss of consciousness.
His attempts to ward off journalists might have aided their privacy for a short time, but ultimately all precautions failed once the FBI, who had been tracking Maxwell via an espionage device known as a "Stingray,” closed in on an arrest.
Stingrays are a type of invasive cell phone surveillance equipment that "mimic cell phone towers and send out signals to “trick” cell phones in the area into transmitting their locations and identifying information,
Maxwell had recently opened a new cell phone account under the moniker "G Max," with a Northeastern Massachusetts area code.
With that information in hand, the authorities were able to track Maxwell's location within a radius of approximately one square miles. But that wasn't specific enough, according to the affidavit, because the FBI didn't know which building Maxwell was living in at the time.
On the balmy morning of July 2, in a quaint corner of New Hampshire, helicopters appeared hovering over the home of Ghislaine Maxwell. The scene, reminiscent of Bbond-style theatrics, included half a dozen federal agents busting through the front doors of Maxwell's house as she reportedly tried to run into another room as they entered.
Details of her arrest made global headlines.
A cell phone covered in tin foil, seemingly a misguided effort to evade detection by law enforcement, was notoriously detailed in court documents and became one of several bizarre details the Internet mulled over in following weeks.
As news of her arrest spread, locals in the tight-knit Bradford community were left bewildered by the events that unfolded in their own backyard, where unbeknownst to most of them, America's most wanted woman had been hiding out all along.
The first time Ghislaine appeared in court, Scott was a no-show. Most speculated he would appear in a show of support at some point, but in 6 weeks of trial, he never once made it.
After the trial wrapped, the reason was exposed.
Sometime in the first weeks following her conviction, it was reported that Scott called her in prison to break things off. He also revealed he had moved on with someone else. "Scott told her he had moved on and was seeing someone else. He told her the marriage was over. But the marriage was over before the trial even started."
Shortly following this news, photos of his new girlfriend — described as a “yoga-loving mum of two,”appeared in the tabloids. Kris McGinn, a journalist at the local newspaper, The Manchester Cricket, covered food and culture reviews for the area.
"There was a dramatic phone call between them while she was in jail in solitary confinement. It became confrontational," the source shared.
The breakup was only the beginning of a bitter feud that escalated in the following months when Ghislaine needed money to pay lawyers suing her for overdue funds from trial expenses unpaid.
Scott blamed her brothers for failing to pay. Maxwell claimed her ex was withholding $1 million in attorney bills, despite holding access to the £20 million trust she had set aside before her arrest. The delay nearly forced Maxwell to miss the January deadline for her appeal, a factor Borgerson leveraged in their pending divorce dealings, knowing how desperate she was to fund this last-ditch effort to reverse a conviction and reclaim her freedom.
The delay was intentional, to keep as much of her trust as possible, and it worked. Because she was fighting from jail, Scott knew the ball was in his court.
"He thought if he dragged it out, she would give him most of the money," one of Maxwell's friends told the Daily Mail.
In the end, Ghislaine ended up with $1 million out of her 20 million. Just enough to push her appeal forward.
Last week, another financial blow was reported by the Daily Mail. The estate Scott and Ghislaine once shared in Manchester-By-The-Sea, on the market for nearly 3 years, sold for over $5 million. Profit Scott will pocket entirely, though Maxwell insists her money was used to purchase the property. But because it was legally under the name of a company controlled by Scott, she has no claim to it.
To top things off, Maxwell is now claiming her jewelry and valuables have vanished from her home in Bradford since her arrest.
A source told the Daily Mail, “Ghislaine's jewelry has vanished. The FBI broke down the doors when she was arrested, and the house was trampled through by who knows who? 'There were security people, maids, cops, the FBI. All she knows is that a million dollars worth of jewels have disappeared.”
Sources allege that Scott cleaned out the house immediately following her arrest. “At that point, no one knew they were married; he intended to show up and strip any connection to him from the house.”
The scene described to me involved a frantic late-night drive to her property to rid the home of any traces of him.
Where the jewelry went is still unexplained.
As it stands now, Ghislaine, by her own admission, is too broke to pay for her appeal. Without any way to fund further legal fees, she is considering the prospect of spearheading her next legal fight on her own, representing herself in the fight for appeal that is expected to make it all the way to the Supreme Court.
"She's incredibly bright. Obviously, she doesn't want to have to represent herself, but if there is no money to pay lawyers, she could end up fronting her own appeal,” a source explained.
“If Epstein had lived, Ghislaine would never be where she is today,' a friend said. ‘It is very telling that of all the people in Epstein's world, she is the only person in jail.”
Nice journalism! I am with you in finding her very intriguing. Her biggest flaw is the men she has chosen to be in her life. Obviously a pattern and sad.... and so many of us women have done the same. They have used her and she let them just to be loved. (That doesn't make her role in finding teen girls for Epstein forgivable but maybe more relatable by obviously losing some judgement because of love.)
Just goes to show that it’s not money that makes a person intelligent and happy. She’s a therapists dream client, digging through the layers of her brain would be fascinating. I’m not one for titillation. Humans do stupid things, but getting to the why they make the choices they do is much more interesting. Goes right back to “be curious, not judgmental”.
I’m looking forward to the whole write up. Thank you Jessica. 👏