Ghislaine Maxwell has hired a New York lawyer, Bobbi Sternheim, who previously represented one of Osama bin Laden's henchmen, in a bid to bolster her legal team ahead of her of sex trafficking and abuse trial next year, it follows from court papers obtained by The Daily Mirror. The files suggest that Sternheim "hereby appears as counsel for defendant Ghislaine Maxwell".
Bobbi Sternheim is described on the website of her law firm, Fasulo Braverman & Di Maggio, as a "recognised leader" in "litigating difficult and complex cases", who has previously dealt with international organised crime and racketeering conspiracies, international terrorism offences, international telemarketing fraud, and so on. She is also depicted as holding Top Secret/SCI Clearance.
Among her most infamous clients is Khaled al-Fawwaz, who prosecutors called "a top al-Qaida terrorist".
She represented him during his 2015 trial on charges of conspiracy that led to twin embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, which killed 224 people.
Manhattan prosecutors said that al-Fawwaz "worked for years, directly and personally for Osama bin Laden" stressing that the lawyer's client "helped Osama bin Laden declare his bloody war on Americans". Al-Fawwaz was sentenced to life in prison.
Another high-profile case involving Sternheim involved Vietnamese man Minh Quang Pham, 33, who was sentenced by a Manhattan judge to 40 years in jail in March 2016, after pleading guilty to charges he provided material support to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and proved to have been instructed to carry out a suicide attack at London's Heathrow Airport. The culprit admitted he helped prepare the Islamist militant group's online propaganda magazine, Inspire, and received military-type training.
Maxwell, who has been kept in a Brooklyn jail since her arrest in New Hampshire in early July, is awaiting trial on six federal charges brought against her, including perjury in earlier testimonies, direct involvement in child sex abuse, and the procurement of underage girls for her billionaire pal Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in his prison cell last year. If found guilty, Maxwell, who denies any wrongdoing and says she had distanced herself from the convicted paedophile more than a dozen years ago, will face 35 years behind bars.
