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Virgin Islands allege Jeffrey Epstein trafficked girls as young as 11 as recently as 2018
By Emily Michot | Marta Oliver Craviotto
13-16 minutes
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Nearly two dozen victims of Jeffrey Epstein voiced their outrage at a hearing in Manhattan on Aug. 27, 2019. By
Emily Michot |
Marta Oliver Craviotto
A lawsuit filed Wednesday by the top law enforcement officer in the U.S. Virgin Islands alleges that multimillionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually trafficked hundreds of young women and girls on his private island as recently as 2018 by using a web of shell companies to carry out and conceal his crimes.
The allegations, if validated, broaden the scope of Epstein’s sexual trafficking, and shed new light on the tactics Epstein used to hide his illicit activities.
Epstein, who was found dead in a Manhattan jail cell last year,
allegedly brought girls as young as 11 to his private island, known as Little St. James, and maintained a database to track their availability and movements, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit, first reported by The New York Times, was filed by Denise George, attorney general of the Virgin Islands.
George alleged in the lawsuit that Epstein used a network of shell companies to hold properties, including Little St. James and Great St. James, at which the former financier engaged in human trafficking, forced labor, sexual servitude and other criminal behavior.
Most of the companies were created in 2011 and 2012, soon after Epstein registered as a sex offender in the Virgin Islands following his 2008 guilty plea to prostitution charges in Palm Beach County, the lawsuit said.
That 2008 plea came about after Epstein received a controversial non-prosecution agreement from then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta. The deal shelved a federal sex trafficking indictment that could have put Epstein away for life. Instead he served a year in the Palm Beach County stockade, enjoying liberal work release privileges.
The lawsuit adds to the criminal allegations against Epstein, who had been charged by Manhattan prosecutors in July with sexually exploiting dozens of women and girls in New York and Florida.
It is the first lawsuit to allege that Epstein continued to commit crimes after 2005.
In August, Epstein was found dead in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he had been awaiting trial on the renewed federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges. Corrections officers failed to check on Epstein regularly on the night he died, and then allegedly lied about their own negligence. Two officers have been criminally charged.
Prior to his death, Epstein and his attorneys had denied the criminal charges. Epstein’s attorneys had said previously that he had not broken the law since his 2008 conviction in Florida.
But the lawsuit filed Wednesday alleged that Epstein not only sexually trafficked women and young girls after his Florida conviction — he intended to expand his illicit operation in the Virgin Islands for years to come by purchasing Great St. James, the island closest to Little St. James, to conceal his conduct from public view and to evade oversight by the police.
Using Little St. James, the lawsuit said, “Epstein and his associates could avoid detection of their illegal activity from Virgin Islands and federal law enforcement and prevent these young women and underage girls from leaving freely and escaping the abuse.”
Epstein’s shell companies also were used to hold private airplanes and helicopters that Epstein used to transport young women and girls to and from the Virgin Island, the lawsuit said.
Flight logs and other sources cited in the lawsuit established that between 2001 and 2018, Epstein’s companies were used to transport underage girls and young women to the Virgin Islands, then take them via helicopter or private boat to Little St. James, where they would be abused and trafficked, the lawsuit said.
Girls between the ages of 12 and 17 years old were lured and recruited on the pretext of modeling opportunities, careers and contracts, the lawsuit said.
As recently as 2018, air traffic controllers and airport workers reported seeing Epstein leave his plane with young girls, some of whom appeared to be between the ages of 11 and 18 years old, according to the allegations.
One 15-year-old victim was forced to have sex with Epstein and others and then tried to escape by swimming off the Little St. James island, the lawsuit said, but Epstein and others organized a search party and found the girl.
They kept the girl captive and confiscated her passport, the lawsuit said.
Another victim, first hired to give massages to Epstein, was forced to perform sex acts at Little St. James, the lawsuit said. When she attempted to escape the private island, Epstein and a search party found her, returned her to his house and suggested they would physically restrain her if she did not cooperate, the lawsuit said.
Little St. James, which Epstein’s companies bought in 1998, is described in the lawsuit as the “perfect hideaway and haven for trafficking young women and underage girls for sexual servitude, child abuse and sexual assault.”
The secluded, private island is about two miles from St. Thomas and has no other residents. It can be visited only by private boat or helicopter as there is no public or commercial transportation available or bridge to allow public access.
In 2016, the lawsuit alleges, Epstein’s companies used a straw buyer to cloak the former financier’s identity and purchase Great St. James for more than $20 million. By then, Epstein was a convicted sex offender.
Buying Great St. James afforded Epstein privacy for his illicit activities, and prevented those held against their will on Little St. James from escaping or finding help, the lawsuit said.
The two islands owned by Epstein’s estate are also considered environmentally sensitive, with native coral and protected wildlife. Virgin Islands authorities repeatedly issued citations and assessed thousands of dollars of fines for violations of the U.S. territory’s construction code and environmental protection laws, the lawsuit said, but the fines had little effect in curbing or stopping Epstein’s illicit conduct.
The lawsuit said
Epstein’s estate continues to attempt to prevent or limit Virgin Islands authorities from conducting random inspections on Little St. James and Great St. James, and that employees of Epstein’s companies were required to sign confidentiality agreements that prohibited them from cooperating with law enforcement.
Monitoring a registered sex offender with his own private islands and the resources to fly victims in and out on private planes and helicopters also posed a challenge for Virgin Islands law enforcement, the lawsuit said.
Registered sex offenders in the Virgin Islands are required to make periodic personal appearances to verify and update their information, the lawsuit states.
At his last verification in July 2018, the lawsuit said, Epstein refused to allow Virgin Islands investigators, accompanied by U.S. Marshals, from entering Little St. James beyond its dock — claiming that the dock was his “front door.” Instead, the lawsuit said, Epstein arranged to meet with investigators at his office on St. Thomas.
Through the lawsuit, the territory seeks to have Epstein’s properties forfeited, including Little St. James and his second private island, Great St. James, and to dissolve the shell companies associated with the islands.
The lawsuit charges Epstein’s estate, his companies and other individuals identified only as John and Jane Does with eight counts of human trafficking; two counts of child abuse and neglect; two counts of aggravated rape; two counts of second-degree rape; two counts of unlawful sexual contact; two counts of prostitution and keeping a house of prostitution; one count of sex offender registry violation; two counts of fraudulent conveyance; and one count of civil conspiracy.
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