Reading the indictment, a few facts stand out.
1. The events took place 1994-7. This doesn't make them non-criminal. But it also doesn't make her the madam behind Epstein's decades-long crime spree as she is usually portrayed.
2. Getting reliable evidence of crimes committed 23-26 years ago (including reliable witness statements) will be difficult. Particularly for the defence. The key witness is dead.
3. The lack of claims against her from 1998 to the present is unimpressive. If Maxwell is an evil criminal mastermind, where are the cases after her relationship with Epstein ended. This tends to support her claim that she was under his influence, and so his victim, as she claims.
4. The allegation against victim 1 was that she was "approximately" 14 when they met, but the claim only says the abuse happened while she was a minor, which means under the age of 18. The approximately is a hopeless foundation. The indictment in this example is stronger on the subject of Maxwell knowing and participating in sexual acts, although it isn't clear if victim 1 was a minor in the states in which the events occurred. Presumably Maxwell will claim that Epstein facilitated the travel and she was unaware of the reason for Epstein moving these teenagers to different places (and thus the mens rea, the criminal intent, belonged to him).
5. In the next example, Epstein, not Maxwell, clearly invited victim 2 to cross state lines into a territory in which she wasn't a minor. Maxwell will likely argue she was not aware of this fact and understood she was dealing with a capable adult. The claims about the topless massage are absurd: massages are almost always done when a person is topless. Usually they are lying on their stomachs. The way this is presented, it is made to sound like a sex act.
6. One of the claims about victim 3 is that she was groomed and abused when she was under the age of 18, the events occurring in London, England. 18 is not the age of consent in the UK. This suggests the DOJ is making an extra-territorial claim about US law, which should not apply to events that occurred in the UK. The fact they included it in the indictment suggests they believe their case is otherwise weak. [Prince Andrew will read this and know he will not go to the US under any circumstances now he knows that the US is making such claims].
7. The claim that Epstein spirited his victims across state lines to places that the age of consent is lower tells us that the law in various states would not treat the victims as minors. If Maxwell is guilty of child abuse, so is the law in the states in which consent is permitted below the age of 18.
8. This isn't pedophilia, which involves prepubescent sex. It's in the transitional zone between ages 16 and 18 in which most people are sexually curious, and in which states and countries reasonably differ about the age at which a person is capable of giving their consent.
This reads to me exactly the way I feared. The case is fairly weak. It hinges on the removal of people from states in which they were minors to others in which they were not. It fails to show that Maxwell was responsible for these removals. Maxwell comes across as a fairly minor actor in Epstein's drama. The DOJ is trying to save face because it let the prime perpetrator commit suicide. They wouldn't have bothered to charge her with these crimes if Epstein was alive. She would have been a witness. Part of what is occurring is DOJ trying to restore the damage to its reputation sustained in its handling of the Epstein case. But in doing so, it is reaching.
As is often the case, this doesn't mean things are moral. Epstein was loathesome and was certainly criminal. He knew what he was doing in removing these young people from states in which they were understood to be minors. He appears to have raped some of them. It just isn't clear to me from the indictment that Maxwell was his partner in crime.
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