Ghislaine Maxwell’s niece has resigned from her top role at a school after the Epstein files exposed that she wrote a letter in support of her sex trafficking aunt to a federal judge.
Matilda Munro, 41, stepped down as governor of London’s Columbia Primary School, which admits children ages three to 11, after a letter unsealed as part of the Justice Department’s Epstein Files release showed her proclaiming that Maxwell posed “no danger to the public” and complaining about her prison conditions, the Daily Mail reports.
“Her treatment to date feels punitive and unjust,” Munro wrote in the letter, sent to the New York District Court in November 2020, four months after Ghislaine was arrested and charged with helping Jeffrey Epstein recruit and abuse underage girls as part of his sex-trafficking ring.
Munro, the daughter of Maxwell’s brother Kevin Maxwell, said it was “deeply troubling that a person - though innocent until proven guilty - can be treated in a way that on any measure is inhumane and degrading.” Maxwell was confined in New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center at the time.
Munro waxed poetic about how the “loss of all our liberties” during the COVID-19 pandemic made her reflect on “the ability to see our families and friends,” and argued that Maxwell—who groomed girls as young as 14—“should be allowed to have the support of friends and family as she prepares her defence.”
One local told the Mail that most parents at the Columbia School, where Munro served as chair of the Local Governing Board for four years, did not know she was related to Epstein’s accomplice until the letter came to light.
When reached for comment by the Daily Beast, a spokesperson for the LETTA Trust, which runs the school in London’s Tower Hamlets borough, told the Daily Beast that Munro resigned on March 27.
“No parents were in touch with the school or the trust about Tilly Munro prior to her resignation,” the spokesperson said. “Anita Barzey, former vice chair, is in post as the acting chair of the local governing board for the remainder of the school year. We continue to work together to ensure that Columbia Primary provides an excellent education in the local community.”
The school also announced Munro’s resignation in a newsletter to parents, thanking her for being a “star governor” and for her “dedicated service,” according to the Mail.
Maxwell, now 64, was never granted bail despite Munro’s letter, amid fears she would escape to France or the U.K. and go into hiding, according to the Mail.
In December 2021, a federal jury found the disgraced socialite guilty of sex trafficking and other charges for recruiting and grooming teenagers for Epstein between 1999 and 2007. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022.
Maxwell was held in a federal prison in Florida until she was moved to the lower-security, all-women’s Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas near her family in July of last year, following two days of talks with then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche—Donald Trump’s former personal attorney—about her connections to Epstein. The extraordinary move sparked speculation about a possible deal with Trump, a former friend of Epstein.
Maxwell apparently has no complaints about her dorm-style prison facility, which touts numerous amenities, including a study, a game room, yoga sessions, and arts-and-crafts classes.
“I feel like I have dropped through Alice in Wonderlands looking glass,” Maxwell wrote to an undisclosed relative in an email obtained by NBC News last November. “I am much much happier here and more importantly safe.”
