New York (AFP) – Ghislaine Maxwell cited a traumatic childhood and vulnerability to Jeffrey Epstein in a plea for leniency two weeks before her scheduled court sentencing for child sex trafficking. In a brief filed Wednesday evening, Maxwell’s lawyers urged Judge Alison Nathan to sentence the disgraced British socialite to less than the probation department’s recommended 20 years. Maxwell, 60, was convicted late last year of recruiting and grooming young girls to be sexually abused by the late US financier Epstein. A jury found her guilty on five of six counts, the most serious for sex traffic…