Bomb shell little black book WILL GHISLAINE PLAY HER TRUMP CARD?

The fallen socialite has the option of naming names to get out of jail early

As Ghislaine Maxwell stares at the walls of her shabby New York jail cell, awaiting sentencing for her crimes, it seems any hopes she had of resuming her free-wheeling life of glamour, power and privilege have become vanishingly small.

Instead, the British-born socialite, who once travelled the world by private jet and mixed with everyone from presidents to princes, is staring down the barrel of a possible 60-year prison sentence and is passing her time in her 3m x 3.6m cell, working her way through a pile of paperback novels.

For months Ghislaine, the youngest daughter of the late media mogul Robert Maxwell, had declared confidently that she would be cleared of all the charges she faced for recruiting and trafficking young girls in the 1990s and early 2000s so they could be sexually abused by her billionaire former lover Jeffrey Epstein.

But on December 29 a jury returned a verdict of guilty. Her lawyers immediately lodged an appeal, but legal commentators say only one thing can save Ghislaine, 60, now – she needs to open her little black book and spill the beans on who else was involved in Epstein’s network of sexual predators.

Ghislaine’s family insists she is innocent and has no intention of naming names, but doing so could shave serious time off her sentence, with some legal experts suggesting that if she cooperates with prosecutors, she could be out of prison in seven years with good behaviour.