Jeffrey Epstein’s Estate to Pay $105 Million to US Virgin Islands

(Left) Jeffrey Epstein, in a booking photo in Palm Beach, Fla., on July 27, 2006. (Palm Beach Sheriff's Office) (Right) Little Saint James Island, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a property purchased by Epstein more than two decades ago. Gianfranco Gaglione/AP Photo

The estate of Jeffrey Epstein has agreed to pay the U.S. Virgin Islands government $105 million and half of the proceeds from the sale of his Little St. James private island to settle criminal, sex trafficking, and child exploitation legal action.

Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George said the settlement resolves the legal action her office took in 2020 against Epstein’s estate, co-defendants Darren K. Indyke and Richard D. Kahn—co-executors of the estate—and ten Epstein-created entities.

The legal action was taken under the Virgin Islands’ anti-criminal enterprise, anti-sex trafficking, anti-child exploitation, and anti-fraud laws, resulting in the largest settlement in the history of the Virgin Islands.

“The action was based on findings of our investigation that revealed that Epstein and his co-defendants carried out an expansive criminal enterprise through which dozens of young women and children were trafficked to the Virgin Islands, raped, sexually exploited, and held captive on Epstein’s secluded private island, Little St. James, over a period of 15 years,” George said in a video statement.

George filed the legal action under the Criminally Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (CICO), the Virgin Islands’ equivalent of the United States’ Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) laws.

George said CICO gave her the power to bring civil enforcement actions against Epstein’s estate and the co-defendants, which included the forfeiture of their assets and the imposition of civil penalties and damages, consistent with the law’s purpose to curtail their criminal activity and economic and political power in the Virgin Islands.

“That is our solemn responsibility as a government, separate and independent of any claims filed by individual survivors,” the attorney general said.

According to George, the estate will also cease operating its businesses in the Virgin Islands and continue to assist the government’s inquiries.

Sale of Epstein’s Islands

The final settlement amount will be decided within a year of the sale of the islands, according to George. 

The funds raised by the sale of Little St. James will be put into a fund that will help locals and those who have been victims of sex abuse and sex trafficking, George said. Some of the settlement funds will be given to the attorney general’s office to support its ongoing operations.

Epstein’s estate also agreed to pay $450,000 to remedy the effects from razing the remnants of centuries-old historical structures of enslaved workers to make way for his development on Great St. James, another Epstein-owned island.

“This settlement restores the faith of the People of the Virgin Islands that its laws will be enforced, without fear or favor, against those who break them. We are sending a clear message that the Virgin Islands will not serve as a haven for human trafficking,” George said in a statement.

“Through this lawsuit and settlement, the Attorney General’s Office, acting on behalf of the Government, is using its authority to enforce the laws of the Virgin Islands against criminal enterprises and to protect public safety.”

The estate, executors, and other defendants did not admit any wrongdoing in reaching a settlement, according to Epstein estate lawyer Daniel Weiner, who said the settlement was in the best interest of the estate, victims, and creditors “to avoid the time, expense, and inherent uncertainties of protracted litigation.”