Chilling photos have emerged showing Ghislaine Maxwell, the alleged former madam of the late billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, attending a fundraiser that aimed to help young girls fleeing sex traffickers. This came years before Maxwell herself was arrested for allegedly grooming young girls for sex with Epstein, and sometimes participating in the abuse herself.

The photos, which were obtained by The Sun, show Maxwell attending a 2013 drinks reception for Stop the Trafficking of People (Stop) in New York City. The British socialite looks to be having a ball as she poses next to then-French Ambassador to the US François Delattre and Stop founder Celhia de Lavarene. Also pictures is French fashion designer Catherine Malandrino, who hosted the fundraiser at her store in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District.

Ghislaine Maxwell pictured at charity event to stop sex trafficking, before being arrested for sex trafficking. pic.twitter.com/i9FjQhf3CN

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) October 11, 2020

“She’s got some nerve. But I am not surprised,” de Lavarene said after the photos came to light. “I’ve come to realise that these people need to appear to be doing good and make people believe it.”

Delattre, who went on to become France’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, gave an impassioned speech during the event on how important it is to fight human trafficking. Maxwell looked on as he explained that de Lavarene is raising money for rescue centers for girls and women who manage to escape sex traffickers. The goal of these centers is that the women do not end up back on the streets.

“The French Ambassador made a speech in which he explained what my organisation has been doing for years,” de Lavarene recalled. “He asked for money for us to open a rescue centre in some countries where girls are forced and sold into prostitution. He told how they were raped and beaten.”

Epstein committed suicide in prison last year while awaiting trial on various sex charges. Maxwell was arrested back in July and was subsequently remanded to prison until her trial, which is scheduled for July of 2021, after a judge ruled that she is a flight risk given her immense wealth and international connections.

Epstein’s alleged victims have placed much of the blame for what happened to them on Maxwell.

“She was pulling the strings,” Epstein’s alleged former “sex slave” Virginia Roberts Giuffre told “CBS This Morning,” referring to Maxwell. She went on to refer to the 58 year-old British socialite as a mastermind and a “monster.”

“Jeffrey was a sick pedophile, but she was the mastermind,” Giuffre said. “Put it this way, Epstein was Pinocchio and she was Geppetto. She was pulling the strings, she had his money, he had her contacts – but Ghislaine was much more conniving and smart than Epstein ever was.”

Not stopping there, she held nothing back in her criticisms of Maxwell’s character.

“She is a monster. She’s worse than Epstein,” Giuffre said. “She did things even worse than Epstein did. She was vicious. She was evil. And she’s a woman.”