This article contains reference to sexual abuse.
British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell has been found guilty by a United States jury of helping her ex-partner, financier Jeffrey Epstein, sexually abuse teenage girls.
Maxwell was found guilty by a 12-person jury in New York of five of the six counts she was facing and could potentially spend the rest of her life behind bars.
The charges she was found guilty of include the most serious - sex trafficking a minor. That carries a maximum 40-year sentence.
The lesser charges have terms of five or 10 years.
Maxwell, 60, was accused of recruiting and grooming four teenagers for Epstein between 1994 and 2004.
Two of Epstein's alleged victims said they were as young as 14 when Maxwell allegedly began grooming them and arranging for them to give massages to Epstein that ended in sexual activity.
She sat passively in the Manhattan courtroom, slowly removing her mask to take sips of water, as Judge Alison Nathan read out the verdicts for each of the six counts.
No date was set for her sentencing.
Maxwell's attorney said her legal team was already working on an appeal.
"We firmly believe in Ghislaine’s innocence. Obviously we are very disappointed with the verdict," her lawyer Bobbi Sternheim told reporters outside the courthouse.
"We have already started working on the appeal and we are confident that she will be vindicated," she said.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial on sex abuse charges of his own.
Along with the trials of movie producer Harvey Weinstein and singer R. Kelly, Maxwell's case is among the highest-profile trials to take place in the wake of the #MeToo movement, which encouraged women to speak out about sexual abuse by famous and powerful people.
During the trial's closing arguments in federal court in Manhattan, a prosecutor said Maxwell was Epstein's "partner in crime".
"Ghislaine Maxwell made her own choices. She committed crimes hand in hand with Jeffrey Epstein. She was a grown woman who knew exactly what she was doing," Assistant US Attorney Alison Moe said.
Maxwell's lawyers argued she was being used as a scapegoat for Epstein and sought to portray the accounts of her four accusers as not credible, saying their memories had been corrupted over the decades and that they were motivated by money.
"Epstein's death left a gaping hole in the pursuit of justice for many of these women," Maxwell's defence lawyer Bobbi Sternheim said.
"She's filling that hole, and filling that empty chair."
Anyone seeking information or support relating to sexual abuse can contact Bravehearts on 1800 272 831 or Blue Knot on 1300 657 380.
Readers seeking support can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 and Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 (for young people aged 5 to 25). More information is available at and .
