A shocking new lawsuit claims that New York financier Jeffrey Epstein trafficked girls as young as eleven and twelve years old for his perverted pals, and may have been an active abuser and trafficker as recently as 2018.
Epstein, a convicted sex offender, killed himself in a Manhattan jail late last year as he awaited trial on a host of Federal charges, including claims that he trafficked and sexually abused minor children. Those charges, though, only covered incidents that took place before 2005.
The new claim, filed in court on Wednesday, “significantly expands” on an already active case against Epstein, filed by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands, seeking forefieture of Epstien’s several estates and the “dissolution of numerous shell companies he established in the territory that officials have said acted as fronts for his sex trafficking enterprise,” per the New York Times. It includes new evidence, the NYT also reports, that suggests Epstein may have been running his “pedophile ring,” centered out of the Virgin Islands, well into the 2010s and, perhaps, as recently as 2018.
“New evidence shows Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused and trafficked hundreds of young women and girls on his private Caribbean island,” according to the NYT. Epstein “was bringing girls as young as 11 and 12 to his secluded estate in the Virgin Islands, known as Little Saint James, and kept a computerized database to track the availability and movements of women and girls, the lawsuit said.”
The Virgin Islands, the lawsuit says, was the “nexus” of Epstein’s operation and, based on new evidence, was used for years to coordinate Epstein’s activities and those of his sex trafficking ring. Attorney general Denise N. George wants to reclaim the property Epstein used as his headquarters, sell the assets, and redirect the funds to women who were victimized as part of Epstein’s horrific program.
George’s office went above and beyond the work of American Federal prosecutors, the NYT says, acting on existing evidence, consolidating open cases, investigating claims, and, eventually, piecing together the bones of an alleged criminal enterprise extending to all corners of the globe — not just New York and Florida, where Federal investigators concentrated their efforts.
“Epstein clearly used the Virgin Islands and his residence in the U.S. Virgin Islands at Little Saint James as a way to be able to conceal and to be able to expand his activity here,” George said in a statement released after the lawsuit was filed.
“We will not remain complacent, and we will enforce our laws whatever way we can,” George added. “It doesn’t matter the social status of the person. It’s that the laws apply equally.”
Epstein’s assets in the Virgin Islands could total more than $500 million, though it still remains to be seen whether the Virgin Islands can recover. So far, there’s no concrete plan to redistribute Epstein’s wealth to his allged victims, but that’s what George plans to do with the money if she’s able to seize and sell Epstein’s two estates and pull money from his shell corporations.
Although Epstein is dead, a number of questions remain about how he conducted his business, and Federal agents anticipate further charges, perhaps against several of Epstein’s “clients” and his alleged madam, socialite Ghislaine Maxwell. Recent reports suggest that big names, like Britian’s Prince Andrew and former president Bill Clinton could be named in the Federal government’s trove of documents related to the Epstein case, but a New York judge ruled last week that those documents will remain under seal.