Deal reached to compensate victims of Jeffrey Epstein
The estate of Jeffrey Epstein and the attorney general of the U..S. Virgin Islands announced Friday that they have reached tentative agreement on a longdelayed compensation fund for sexual abuse victims of the disgraced financier.
Executors of Epstein’s estate — two of his longtime lawyers — had proposed last November the creation of a fund to pay victims who might want to remain unidentified. But Attorney General Denise George thwarted those plans, raising concerns that the estate might be closing off avenues of redress to Epstein’s victims. In January she filed a civil enforcement action, later labeling the estate a criminal enterprise, and slapped liens on the late Epstein’s properties, ratcheting up pressure by making it hard to pay employees and bills.
In recent months the two sides battled it out via court filings to the probate court in the Virgin Islands, location of Epstein’s main residence among his many properties in the United States and abroad. Each side asked a judge to intervene, claiming the other side was intransigent. Then Friday afternoon, the attorney general issued a news release saying the two sides had reached agreement on the fund.
“The Attorney General’s Office, working closely with Epstein’s victims and their counsel, have now reached an agreement upon the terms of the fund, which include a set of reforms that provide a process that will be more fair, credible, and victimoriented,” the statement from George’s office read. “Through the discussions, the Attorney General made clear her support of a compensation fund that would allow victims to avoid the publicity and trauma of a trial and provide them, promptly, with a measure of justice and closure.”
The statement signaled that the probate court must still okay the agreement, and George did not include any comments from the Epstein estate in her news release.
In a statement to the Miami Herald, the co-executors of Epstein’s estate — Darren K. Indyke and Richard Kahn — confirmed her broad outline.