The federal prison camp in central Texas where Ghislaine Maxwell was transferred to last week has increased security measures in response to her arrival, according to a senior law enforcement official.
While the official attributes the enhanced security to Maxwell’s presence, they could not say if there have been any direct threats to her, other inmates or Federal Prison Camp Bryan itself.
Members of the federal Bureau of Prisons’ Special Operations Response Team have been positioned outside the front entrance to FPC Bryan since the weekend to check IDs and wave people through, two current employees told NBC News.
They say it’s an unfamiliar sight at the all-women, minimum-security camp where staff and visitors can generally enter the grounds without going through rigorous security protocol, the employees said. The camp, which houses about 635 prisoners and is set in a residential neighborhood, has wrought-iron fencing out front as well as chain-link fencing around the perimeter.
The security is “not like ones at the penitentiary or medium [security],” one employee, who asked not to be named for fear of job reprisal, told NBC News last week.
Members of the special operations team are highly trained to respond to disturbances and security breaches at federal prisons and are deputized by the U.S. Marshals Service. They were deployed to anti-police brutality protests during the first Trump administration, and most recently, helped in the response to the deadly July 4 flooding in Texas Hill Country.
A BOP spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests about the increased security at FPC Bryan and whether it is connected to Maxwell, who was transferred from a low-security facility in Tallahassee, Florida, to FPC Bryan overnight Friday.
Maxwell’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, also didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Markus has also not responded to previous questions about Maxwell’s safety and details surrounding her transfer.
Maxwell, 63, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in recruiting and trafficking minors for sex as a co-conspirator and confidant to wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein. In 2019, Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell while facing charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy.
But his case has come under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks after the Trump administration decided not to release all federal files related to Epstein, prompting outcry from parts of the president’s base who have fueled conspiracies and pushed unfounded narratives surrounding Epstein’s death.
Maxwell, too, returned to the spotlight when it was revealed that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with her last month for nine hours over two days in a federal courthouse in Tallahassee.
A source familiar with the matter told NBC News on Tuesday that the Trump administration is considering releasing a transcript from the interview.
But it remains unclear as to why Maxwell, just days after the meeting with the Department of Justice’s second-in-command, was transferred to FPC Bryan, where employees say inmates are granted more freedoms in dormitory-style housing in which inmates’ rooms aren’t locked and they can roam outdoor and recreational spaces.
Trump told reporters Tuesday that he was unaware that Maxwell had been moved to the Texas camp until after it occurred, and that transfers like Maxwell’s were common.
But the BOP’s own policy indicates Maxwell should be ineligible to be housed at a minimum-security prison camp because she is a convicted sex offender.
Sex offenders must be in at least a low-level security prison like the one Maxwell was housed in previously, unless a waiver is granted by the administrator of the BOP’s Designation and Sentence Computation Center.
Maxwell’s presence at FPC Bryan has stoked outrage among some current and former BOP employees who are questioning why she would be placed there given her sex offense charges and the level of security she would require. The majority of inmates at the camp are serving time for nonviolent offenses and white-collar crimes.
The family of Epstein abuse survivor Virginia Giuffre, joined by Epstein and Maxwell accusers Annie and Maria Farmer, have also criticized Maxwell’s move and said in a statement that “she should never be shown any leniency” as a convicted sex offender.
Charles Lockett, a former federal prison warden who spent 31 years with the BOP, said he would have never approved the transfer of such a high-profile inmate to a place like FPC Bryan.
Lockett said he’d be especially concerned about the safety risks posed to Maxwell as well as those who work there.
“They don’t have the manpower there to deal with such people, and they don’t have the hardened structure,” said Lockett, who oversaw the Florida prison where Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger was held prior to his doomed transfer to a facility in West Virginia. “I just find it unbelievable.”
