Epstein’s lawyer says estate can’t release money to victim fund, as Virgin Islands attorney general says approving fund would skirt accountability.George brought charges against Epstein’s estate and alleged that his lawyers, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, may have been part of Epstein’s alleged fraud. George also put claims on Epstein’s two islands. Epstein named Indyke and Kahn as his executors to a will he modified so that it would be executed in the Caribbean territory two days before he was found dead in a Manhattan jail cell on 10 August.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/12/jeffrey-epstein-lawyers-dispute-virgin-islands-settlements-victims
The estate of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein has been officially valued at $636.1 million, according to a new, verified inventory filed Friday in his probate case in the Virgin Islands.
Epstein’s finances, once the subject of mystery and speculation, are being laid bare as various parties, including those who were sexually abused by the multimillionaire, stake their claims to a portion of his assets.
The 100-page document from Epstein’s estate included a listing of 15 wholly owned limited liability companies, which are designed to disclose little public information and were valued at $201.5 million.
Drone video shows just how close Jeffrey Epstein’s private island of Little St. James in the U.S. Virgin Islands is to its neighboring island Great St. James. Epstein is believed to own both islands.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/article235553757.html
Jeffrey Epstein company ripped us off, Virgin Islands attorney general says
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/investigations/article240208677.html
Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George ratcheted up pressure on the executors of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, amending the civil enforcement action she brought last month to name the disgraced financier’s lawyers as co-defendants.
And in another shot across the bow, George sought to add Epstein’s main island company, Southern Trust Co., as a co-defendant in the enforcement action for “fraudulently obtaining benefits from the government of the Virgin Islands in violation of its laws and regulations and as part of the alleged Epstein enterprise.”
In December of 2012, he went before the islands’ Economic Development Authority (EDA), where Gov. Bryan was the chairman at the time, to ask for tax breaks for Southern Trust Co.
The U.S. Virgin Islands opened up a new and explosive front in the battle over Jeffery Epstein’s $600 million estate this week when it included one of the sex offender’s companies, Southern Trust, as a co-defendant in the case. According to Epstein, the company would build a “cutting edge consulting service” that would mine DNA and financial data for a global clientele. Among other things, the database would allow pharmaceutical companies and doctors to use his mathematical models to test drug protocols. After agreeing to make a $50,000-a-year charitable donation and support the island’s scholarship fund, Southern Trust was given a 90 percent exemption from its income tax and a 100 percent exemption from gross receipts, excise and withholding taxes.
According to minutes from that 2012 meeting, Epstein was never questioned about his sex offender status.
Even so, the lucrative deal allowed Southern Trust to avoid paying $73.6 million in taxes from 2013 to 2017 on aggregate income of $656 million, according to court documents. It also allowed Epstein, personally, to avoid an additional $71.3 million in taxes.
With that late amendment, the attorney general’s office seemed to be painting a target on some of the island’s most prominent figures, including Gov. Albert Bryan Jr., and a former first lady, Cecile de Jongh.
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/crime/article240300016.html