Jeffrey Epstein, with the help of a slew of shell companies and unknown associates, used his private island in the Virgin Islands as a "perfect hideaway and haven" for sex trafficking girls as young as 12 years old as recently as 2018, a new lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges.
Various shell companies listed as defendants in the new suit owned airplanes and helicopters, which Epstein would allegedly use to transport hundreds of young women and children to and from the Virgin Islands. The illegal sex abuse scheme—the "Epstein Enterprise"—would lure girls with promises of modeling opportunities, school and healthcare, according to Virgin Islands prosecutors.
"The conduct of Epstein and his associates shocks the conscience and betrays the deepest principles and laws of the Virgin Islands," Attorney General Denise N. George said in a statement.
The companies and the island were used to veil a system to provide a "steady supply of vulnerable female children and young women into sexual servitude in service of Epstein's desires, and those of his associates," according to the lawsuit. George's office alleges his victims tried to escape the island—including a 15-year-old girl who tried to swim away, but was recaptured and had her passport confiscated.
"The Virgin Islands is not, and will not be, a safe haven for human trafficking and sexual exploitation," George said. "We will hold accountable those who break our laws regardless of political, social or economic status."
Epstein purchased Little St. James island in 1998, according to George's office. In 2016, he purchased another island with the intent to expand his "trafficking pyramid scheme," as the lawsuit describes it. Epstein—who was a registered sex offender in the Virgin Islands—had been seen with girls who appeared as young as 11 as recently as 2018 leaving his plane.
The latest allegations build on sex trafficking allegations against the billionaire pedophile in Florida and Manhattan. Last summer, he pleaded not guilty in Manhattan to charges of sex trafficking in the early 2000s and luring girls to his homes in the Upper East Side and Palm Beach. While awaiting trial in a Manhattan jail, Epstein, 66, was found dead in his cell; the Medical Examiner determined that he committed suicide by hanging. (Two federal corrections officers who were supposed to be monitoring Epstein were later arrested for fabricating prison to falsely indicate that they were watching him.)
Two days before Epstein died, he had filed a will in the Virgin Islands.
The executive director of the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency Coalition Clark Gascoigne told the Miami Herald that the case "highlights how sex traffickers—like all organized criminal enterprises—thrive on the secrecy provided by anonymous shell companies."
Attorney General George filed the complaint against Epstein's estate, his 1953 trust, a handful of limited liability companies, and unknown associates on more than 20 counts of human trafficking, child abuse and neglect, rape, unlawful sexual contact, prostitution, violating rules under the sex offender registry, fraud, and conspiracy. The Virgin Islands is seeking to "recoup any and all financial and other benefits that flowed to Epstein and his associates as a result of their operations in the Virgin Islands," according to the attorney general's announcement.
