(MENAFN- Live Mint) Convicted child sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role as a central accomplice to the late, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein , seems to have become the center of another controversy, this time, involving her incarceration.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Maxwell, who was recently shifted to the minimum-security Federal Prison Camp Bryan weeks after an interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, has reportedly been receiving "unusually favourable treatment", leading to unwelcome changes in the prison's usually-relaxed atmosphere.

One particular instance cited by the WSJ pertains to a mid-August meeting between Maxwell and unknown visitors, for which the entire facility was put on lockdown.

While inmates at Federal Prison Camp Bryan were confined to their quarters after breakfast, Maxwell entertained several visitors in the prison camp's chapel, with prisoners attributing the impromptu lockdown to the importance of Maxwell's guests.

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As per the publication, one inmate even recalled seeing the convicted sex offender return to her quarters that day "with a smile on her face", and when asked about the meeting, Maxwell said that it went well, without furnishing other details.

Less than a week after the mid-August meet that sent the prison camp into lockdown, the transcript of Blanche's interview with Maxwell was released, wherein the convict said she had never seen US President Donald Trump do anything inappropriate or illegal during his association with Epstein.

The WSJ further reported that Maxwell's transfer to Federal Prison Camp Bryan was somewhat of a departure from procedure: the US Bureau of Prisons' policies prohibit sex offenders from serving time in minimum-security facilities such as Bryan sans a special waiver.

'Someone important'

Following Blanche's interview with Maxwell in March, prison inmates at Bryan's Madison unit were asked to do a deep clean of the entire dormitory for "someone important".

Shortly after, Maxwell was transferred to the unit, for reasons no one seems to know.

"She had said she didn't know why they moved her. She said one night they just told her to get up and they brought her," the WSJ quoted an inmate as saying.

While most inmates at Bryan are white-collar criminals serving short sentences or considered low flight-risk, Maxwell has the fourth-longest sentence among the 600 inmates incarcerated at Bryan.

The publication reported that Maxwell was initially met with a certain degree of hostility by the other inmates, who called her a pedophile and other slurs used to describe child molesters.

Shortly afterwards, the warden of Federal Prison Camp Bryan called a "town meeting", wherein inmates were warned against making threats to Maxwell, endangering her, or talking to the press about her.

While Maxwell would initially keep to herself and not go out of the dormitory unit, she began to venture out after black tarps went up blocking outside views of the prison.

"She got her hair done-a cut just above the shoulder, a dark mahogany dye job and a blow out-at the facility's prisoner-run salon where inmates can earn credit toward cosmetology certificates. She began visiting the cafeteria, where she received vegetarian meals, most of which she gave away to other inmates. She said she couldn't eat the food, one inmate recalled," the WSJ report noted.

Things also escalated on 9 August, a week after Maxwell's arrival, when gunshots were heard outside Bryan.

While inmates were ordered to go into lockdown, guards reportedly rushed Maxwell out of her dorm to an undisclosed location, before bringing her back the next morning.

Although police reports described the incident as a gang-related shooting, inmates told WSJ that they were apprehensive that an attempt at Maxwell's life could cost them theirs.

A minimum-security prison, Bryan offers a higher level of freedom than other, higher security prisons, in addition to job training and vocational training facilities.

'Appeal denied'

The WSJ report on the prison conditions facing Maxwell comes a week after the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by the convicted sex offender against her sentence, leaving a presidential pardon as the only option on her table.

Asked about his views on the same, US President Donald Trump at the time had said,“I'd have to take a look at it”.

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