HUNTER: What is chatty Ghislaine Maxwell playing all of a sudden?

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“Not an ounce of remorse or decency in Ghislaine Maxwell’s interview. To read how he struggles with his own perceived victimization is sickening. — Barry Levin, The Spider: In the Web of Crime by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell

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My old friend Barry Levine is right.

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In hundreds of words, journalist Daphne Barak stars as the 60-year-old convicted sex trafficker’s stenographer as the disgraced publishing heiress tells her tale of woe behind bars at a Florida federal prison.

Maxwell, of course, was the boyfriend, second banana, and facilitator of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his pervert friends’ heinous sexual abuse of underage girls. On some occasions, Maxwell joined in on the fun.

But all good things come to an end, as happened to Maxwell when she was convicted on sex-trafficking charges in December and sentenced to 20 years in prison last June.

Maxwell never said peep. He never named a single one. And now she speaks. The obvious questions are why and why now?

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Veteran Toronto criminal lawyer Monte McGregor wondered if the interview was a signal that maybe, just maybe, Maxwell was ready to point the finger at Epstein’s circle of rich and powerful friends.

“As a lawyer, you never want your client to say anything, no matter how good they think their story is – not to their friends, not to the public, not to the police, not to court,” McGregor said The Toronto Sun.

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“Anything they say can be used against them and can cause irreparable damage. If a lawyer speaks on their behalf, it can’t be repeated in court, so you minimize the risk by speaking on their behalf.”

Of course, once the publicity-shy pariah goes public, it’s almost certain that she’s playing an angle. There’s definitely something about her.

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“If Maxwell has agreed to talk, it could be based on a plea deal to reduce her sentence,” McGregor said. “Usually any deal is based on the nature and quality of what evidence can be provided and how useful it is in catching others.”

Of course, in the course of the navel-gazing interview, she name-checks her “dear friend” Prince Andrew and treats the whole affair as a terrible misunderstanding. Mistrials are not in short supply in the US

Tell that to the guys who get 20 years for a penny, or a decade for stealing baby milk, or worse, the men on death row who were 100 miles away when the murder they were charged with was committed.

No, Ghislaine Maxwell does not actually rank among the great injustices of our time. Her protests ring hollow.

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But no matter how many times Maxwell goes public, her sins will never be washed away. For decades, we’ve watched with slack jaws as the rich and powerful skated away on countless crimes.

Epstein and Maxwell almost got away with it, but this time the public outrage wasn’t going to be quelled with a slap on the wrist.

“I can’t imagine that she will ever wash away the moral repugnance she harbors – as a facilitator of such widespread, rampant abuse of young girls, her time in custody is likely to be horrific and punishing on a daily basis,” McGregor said.

“She will never regain her stature, nor will she deserve sympathy.”

True, but it’s also unlikely that Maxwell will ever deviate from the narrative she’s created for herself.

A victim, a hero, a caring friend with a big heart, a woman who is only guilty of loving too much.

For us plebs, we have a better description of the disgraced heiress.

We call her a monster.

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@HunterTOSun