EFTA00154475.pdf

Exhibit C EFTA00154475 CHRISTINE MALINA-MAXWELL 30th November 2020 The Honorable Alison J. Nathan United States District Court Southern District of New York United States Courthouse 40 Foley Square New York, NY 10007 Dear Judge Nathan: I am Christine Yvonne Malina-Maxwell, one of Ghislaine Maxwell's three sisters. I turned 70 years old in August of 2020. A US Citizen FOR OVER 30 years. I have been married to Roger Malina, an endowed professor of Physics and Art & Technology, for 34 years. We have three grown children: an emergency medicine doctor, a healthcare entrepreneur, and a data scientist. Following in my mother's footsteps, I am presently a doctoral candidate in Holocaust Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas. Professionally, I have taught grade school, worked in publishing as an editor and marketing director, and served as President & CEO of an information broker company. In the early 1990s I co-founded one of the first online search engines known as "Magellan" that was featured on the Home Page of Netscape, the Internet's then principal `Internet entry platform'. As an Internet content pioneer, I am a longstanding member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and was inducted into the Internet Protocol v6 Hall of Fame in 2019 for "extraordinary contributions to the design and large- scale deployment of IPv6 around the world". Today, I am co-founder and CEO of Techtonic Insight, Inc, an internet search start-up company, that strives to "power the discovery of actionable insight for a better, safer, smarter world". As one of her six surviving siblings, I have known Ghislaine (11 years my junior) all her life. We have always been a very close-knit family and Ghislaine and I have always enjoyed sharing the personal experience of our lives with each other. As the youngest child she was full of 'vim and vigor' and always just lovely to be with. As adults, she and I have seen our relationship strengthen through shared common interests. In particular, Ghislaine's passion for making a positive difference in the world, notably through her creation of the non-profit TerraMar Project focusing on the protection of the world's oceans, gave me a deeply-rooted opportunity to support her in this important work. Although always in touch we have talked and met up much more consistently over the past seven years since I moved back to the United States from France (where my husband and I raised our three children). It is a joy to be both her loving sister and one of her best friends. Two days after Ghislaine was born on Christmas Day 1961, our eldest brother, Michael, then aged 15, was critically injured as a passenger in a car crash and rendered unconscious; he was to remain in a coma from which he was never to recover for another 7 years before he died. This terrible accident followed barely four years after the death of our sister Karine aged four from leukaemia and my parents and we children were all suffering, so Ghislaine was in many fl EFTA00154476 CHRISTINE MALINA-MAXWELL ways a gift of life and a positive impetus for our grieving family. When Ghislaine was 10 or II, she decided she wanted to go to the same boarding school that all her brothers had attended which by then had become co-educational. I remember how happy she was there and how quickly she made new and lasting friendships. Throughout her school life Ghislaine always had friends and seemed to be genuinely grounded in her love of life and learning. We were all quite proud when she graduated from Oxford with her Bachelor's degree. She, like me and our brothers and sisters, learned early on the value of hard work as modelled by both our parents. We did not grow up wanting for anything, but we each independently made our own way in the world. None of us were handed the proverbial 'silver spoon'. On the contrary, our father told all of us, together in a family meeting, that he would be leaving his entire wealth to science (which had been the source of it) when he died. So that was what we all believed would be the case. Around 1990, Ghislaine came to live in New York to continue Maxwell Corporate Gifts, a successful company she had founded in the UK which was subsequently absorbed into one of our father's own businesses. (I had already moved back to the United States and was working as CEO of an information broker business in Berkeley California.) After the death of our father, Robert Maxwell, in 1991, Ghislaine had to rely on her personal compass, inner resilience and sheer determination to build a fresh life for herself. Her prior 'big picture' experience, top-level entertaining skills and talent for organizing, coupled with her multi-cultural and multi-lingual sophistication, opened doors into New York society. Although it is true that for many years Ghislaine was frequently involved in high society and attended fashionable social gatherings; what irks me greatly is the press's one dimensional 'socialite' focus on Ghislaine, that completely denies and refuses to acknowledge the very serious, highly intellectual and passionate caring sides of Ghislaine. For example, since 2003, Ghislaine devoted all her energy, her own financial resources and intellectual skills to helping save the Oceans, through her establishment of the not-for-profit company, The Terramar Project Ghislaine's deep knowledge and appreciation of the significant role the oceans play in our world's fragile ecosystem enabled her to work with key partners to influence the United Nations in 2014 in enunciating its Sustainable Development Goal 15 "To conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development." Indeed, it seemed so clear to me that this mission encompassed her life's passion and offered a way for her proactively to give something back of real value to society. Ghislaine showed a huge amount of courage and forbearance in the face of great adversity when our father died and in the years that followed. I have seen this strength more than ever during the times I have spent with her on and off between August and December of 2019. Despite the tremendous daily pressures she has been under, notably from the world's media, universally hostile to her, she has shown simultaneously a deal of humility and fortitude. She has the profoundly deep conviction (through every fibre of her being) of her innocence in the face of all the unsupported accusations and criminal charges latterly filed against her. To the best of my knowledge and belief, my sister Ghislaine has never been brought in for questioning, arrested, or charged with any criminal offense by law enforcement until now. Notwithstanding the seriousness of the offenses with which she has been charged, as a US Citizen, she has the constitutional right to the presumption of innocence and a fair trial. For the purpose of increasing their profits by boosting TV ratings and / or newspaper readership, the world's media has aired or printed the most heinous accusations against her, in some cases for years now, that have never been cross-examined in a criminal court in front of an Wage EFTA00154477 CHRISTINE MALINA-MAXWELL independent judge and jury. Ghislaine is not a malicious or jealous person. In all the 58 years I have known her, I have never seen her be violent or act inappropriately against anyone, let alone young adults or children as has been alleged. I know that my family stands behind Ghislaine because we believe in her innocence. I know she would never do anything to put my life or my family's life in jeopardy in any way, which is why I have no hesitation in placing the one property that I own — which is my only nest- egg for my retirement—up as part of her bail application. The value is $1.5 Million dollars. I do not have any other savings and it would be completely devastating financially and in every way to my own family were the house to be taken over by the Government due to a breach of my sister's bail conditions. I know in every fibre of my being that my sister Ghislaine will never try to flee and will absolutely turn up to her trial, to have the opportunity to fight the charges against her. Based on my deep knowledge and experience with Ghislaine over 50 years, I totally trust and believe that I do not have to worry in any way about my home being put up as a part of her bail application. Until her arrest, I spoke often with Ghislaine over the phone and in the early summer of this year, two to four times a week. At her request I also stayed with her on the East Coast on two occasions each over a period of several days in August 2019 and for a week in December 2019. I witnessed how hard she worked every day and well into the nights going through the ever-growing tsunami of press clippings, videos, audio files, etc, that so gravely traduced her and continue to do so. Ghislaine is completely horrified and flabbergasted by these unfounded and completely horrendous accusations, as indeed am I. I feel totally safe around Ghislaine, in fact, I feel safer with her. I have never had any hesitation in my children visiting her or being with her — as they have been — both as young children and now they are older. Neither they nor I have ever seen any signs or signals of the alleged criminal conduct. I personally witnessed her be a warm, lovely, understanding and caring mother-figure to young children. When visiting Ghislaine more recently as well as in the past (when at least two of her long-term partners had minor children of their own), I was impressed by her interaction with them and by their evident trust in and great affection for her which was entirely natural and unforced. Every exchange was totally normal and just lovely to watch how each of these young people clearly liked my sister and she them. Although Ghislaine was certainly part of the New York social scene in the past, for many years, it had become clear to me that she was happy in a long-term loving relationship with her previous partner of over 7 years far away from the New York scene and with his young children, leading a happy family life with people she loved and trusted and who were similarly equally loving and trusting of her. I saw the same pattern of strong domesticity and family happiness with her spouse and his two young children. I have personally witnessed how much they love being with and being loved by Ghislaine. In terms of character, Ghislaine is compassionate, capable, and proactive. Ghislaine is very kind and caring. She brought our elderly mother and her sister (Ghislaine's aunt) to stay with her in New York for extended periods so that they could spend quality time together. She took them all around the US to see the sights and to visit with family and friends. Even under the terrible weight of her present circumstances, she has consistently demonstrated her consideration for others. Whenever we spoke, she asked about my children and my husband. The fact that she could care enough and not just be thinking only of herself at this impossible time remains deeply moving to me. Wage EFTA00154478 CHRISTINE MALINA-MAXWELL. My sister has called the United States her home for almost 30 years. She has deep affective family ties here in this country — where both my twin sister Isabel and I live. Most of all, her own husband and children are here. During the past 18 months in particular Ghislaine has gone out of her way to continue to stay in the United States expressly so that she could put her case forward in a court of law should it ever come to that. I therefore feel great consternation and deep shock and sadness when I hear about the conditions of her present incarceration, which include over 150 days of solitary confinement and other extreme deprivations and restrictions. The great toll that this physical, mental, and emotional stress is taking on my sister, makes it even more impossible for her to adequately prepare her defence from inside jail. If she is granted bail, I will be in continuous touch with her during the weeks and months leading up to her trial, providing whatever support I can while she has the chance to fairly prepare for her upcoming trial and fight for her innocence. I am grateful for the opportunity to provide this statement. Sincerely, Christine Malina-Maxwell 4IPage EFTA00154479