The late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was a man who without blinking an eye could cut a check to buy an island in the Caribbean or a private jet or a sprawling ranch. Those left to clean up his affairs now claim they can't pay the bills to keep the lights on.
Lawyers for Epstein's $600 million estate told a U.S. Virgin Islands court this week that liens imposed by the local attorney general leave them unable to compensate workers spread across the disgraced financier's U.S. properties, a situation they say is hobbling efforts to sell off assets.
The Thursday filing to the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, where probate matters are being settled, became public on Friday. The lawyers asked the court to strike down liens, or at minimum allow expenses of estate administration to take priority.
As a result of the criminal-activity liens, wrote lawyers on behalf of estate co-executors Darren K. Indyke and Richard D. Kahn, they have "had returned for 'insufficient funds' multiple payments for upkeep of the Estate's properties (including electric bills and pest-control services), been unable to pay the salaries of caretakers for the estate's residences in Florida, New Mexico and New York" or provide maintenance to aircraft and vehicles.
"The harm caused by the Government's Lien-imposed freeze on the Estate's account at FirstBank is no longer theoretical _ it is now immediate and real," the lawyers wrote, noting that checks to pay employee health insurance coverage have bounced and that power may soon be turned off at properties.
In the filing, lawyers for Indyke and Kahn alleged that because of the liens imposed by Attorney General Denise George on Jan. 31, they "can no longer pay for the defense of the twenty-two (22) lawsuits pending against the Estate arising from claims of sexual abuse by Mr. Epstein, including the forfeiture action asserted by the Government as the basis for the imposition of the Liens."
George placed liens on the estate as part of a civil enforcement action she brought in January, which she expanded this month to name Indyke and Kahn as co-conspirators. She alleges they together engaged in a criminal conspiracy to facilitate Epstein's exploitation of minors, and she wants them to be barred from involvement in a proposed victims' compensation fund.
The Epstein estate proposed the fund late last year as a way to quickly provide funds for those who have accused Epstein of sexual abuse, but George fears that the estate's lawyers will try to drain it before making restitution in the Virgin Islands, where she says some victims as young as 12 were harmed. The attorney general hopes to claw back two local islands owned by Epstein through shell companies.
The amended enforcement action by George also alleges that Epstein's lawyers were involved in fraudulent misrepresentation to win tax breaks after Epstein began living there most of the time following his release from a Florida jail in 2009 after serving a short stint for prostitution charges. He pleaded guilty to state charges after the financier was given federal immunity from sex trafficking charges despite accusations from nearly three dozen underage girls.
The tax breaks went to Southern Trust, Epstein's purported data-mining company, where one of the managers was Cecile de Jongh, the politically connected wife of the two-term former governor, John de Jongh.
In a recent interview with the Miami Herald, George defended the freeze imposed on the estate by the liens, saying it was also necessary in part to get a complete inventory of the estate's assets and expenses.
