Ghislaine Maxwell's Prison Privilege Exposed: Former Inmates Recall Being Punished for Speaking Out Against Jeffrey Epstein's Co-Conspirator

Ghislaine Maxwell's prison privilege is more intense than the public may have thought.

In a bombshell new report from CNN, several former inmates claimed they were punished for speaking to press about what it was like staying at the same jail as Jeffrey Epstein's convicted trafficking co-conspirator after she was transferred from low-security Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Tallahassee in Florida to minimum-security Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Bryan in Texas on August 1, 2025.

The main former prisoner to be featured in the news outlet's exposé is a woman named Julie Howell — who faced unfortunate consequences after spilling information to a Telegraph reporter following Maxwell's transfer last year.

Howell's problems began when her husband notified her via email that a journalist had reached out in search of insider information from an inmate at Maxwell's new prison.

At the time, Howell had recently started serving a one-year prison sentence for stealing almost $1 million from Tarleton State University, where she was an associate professor. After reviewing the prison handbook and asking another inmate to confirm she was legally OK to speak to press, Howell wrote a message for her husband to pass along to the reporter about her experience with Maxwell thus far.

Her note to the reporter, per a copy obtained by CNN, read: "Every inmate l’ve heard from is upset she’s here. This facility is supposed to house non-violent offenders. Human trafficking is a violent crime. She helped find, groom, and traffick [sic] children for Epstein."

“We have heard there are threats against her life and many of us are worried about our own safety because she’s here. We had to be locked down in our units with the blinds closed because she’s here so she’s causing us to lose the little freedom we have in here, all because she’s cooperating with authorities," Howell continued.

Several days after her husband forwarded the email to the reporter, Howell was reprimanded.

One day, after finishing up a puppy training program, Howell was brought to the lieutenant's office by a prison guard and asked if she knew the name "Cameron Henderson" — the reporter her spouse had sent her message to.

According to Howell, the officer said: "It’s all over the world wide web.’ He just kept saying, ‘This is above me.’”

After being held in a cell for about an hour, FPC Bryan's warden Tanisha Hall appeared for a conversation.

"She came in and asked what I was thinking, said that her phone was blowing up all weekend; I ruined her weekend; I shouldn’t have talked to them," Howell recalled, noting she apologized to the warden and said she'd felt upset by Maxwell's transfer, as her own daughter was a victim of s-- trafficking.

“[Hall] rolled her eyes and flipped her hair back and she was like, ‘It’s too late for apologies,’ and walked out,” she revealed. Later that same day, Howell was transferred to a federal detention center in Houston.

In response to CNN's report, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons stated the bureau doesn't discuss information involving any inmate and it is "committed to maintaining the highest standards of integrity, impartiality, and professionalism in the operation of its facilities."

The BOP rep claimed inmates can speak to press if granted prior approval and denied claims of staffers "providing preferential treatment to any inmate."

Howell ultimately received official documentation of her punishment, with a BOP incident report dated August 7 accusing her of disruptive conduct, mail abuse and contacting the public without authorization after her message to the journalist was "published on news/media outlets world-wide containing sensitive information involving FPC Bryan’s security operations and information about high-profile inmates."

During her time at the Houston facility, Howell said she spoke with several other inmates who had been transferred after speaking to media about Maxwell.

One, who opted to remain anonymous while speaking to CNN, told of a separate incident in which prisoners faced push back from guards for talking negatively about Maxwell.

"Somebody in my [dorm] made a comment: ‘You know, this is what happens when you bring a p-------- to a camp.’ And [the warden] started screaming: ‘Don’t ever make that comment. I never want to hear you say that again,’” the former inmate recounted.

The unidentified inmate told CNN she spoke to a reporter one month after Howell's incident and was careful not to criticize Maxwell. Still, she was reprimanded and called to the lieutenant's office roughly one hour after her phone call with the journalist, but ran into the camp's warden along the way.

"I was diverted to listen to the warden scream at me in front of the main cafeteria area," she explained. “I told her I wasn’t sharing her business, I was speaking on my behalf. And she just basically berated me there and told me that I was jeopardizing the safety of her staff and interfering with an FBI investigation, of which I knew nothing about.”

The anonymous individual was then cited for contacting the public without authorization, per an incident report obtained by the news outlet. She too was ultimately transferred to the Houston prison.