IT’S JUST SLEAZY MONEY
Pervy Epstein tried to buy off witnesses: feds
Millionaire convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein has already tried to buy the silence of two potential witnesses against him, Manhattan prosecutors charged Friday.
The former hedge-fund manager — who was arrested last week on child sex-trafficking charges — doled out a total of at least $350,000 to two people last year, federal prosecutors said in new court papers.
The money — $250,000 in one case and $100,000 in the other — was secretly funneled to the potential witnesses, identified in the documents as “possible co-conspirator[s],’’ at around the same time the Miami Herald unleashed a series of exposés about the perverted financier, the feds said.
The person who was wired the $250,000 was identified as “one of the defendant’s employees.”
“Neither of these payments appears to be recurring or repeating during the approximately five years of bank records available to the government,’’ the documents said.
“This course of action, and in particular its timing, suggests the defendant was attempting to further influence co-conspirators who might provide information against him.’’
And “Epstein’s efforts to influence witnesses continue to this day,” the prosecutors added.
The feds pointed to an allegation that Epstein — whose fortune was estimated at $500 million in court papers — tried to pay off one of his victims to keep her quiet during a 2006 investigation into his pedophilia.
The prosecutors cite a police report from Palm Beach County, Fla., that states an associate of Epstein tracked down the young woman while she was home from college on spring break, telling her that Epstein would pay for her silence.
The Epstein associate told the girl, “Those who help him will be compensated and those who hurt him will be dealt with,” according to the police report.
In another Palm Beach police report, one of Epstein’s victims told police that Epstein had hired private investigators who were terrorizing her family — in one case driving one of her parents off the road during a car pursuit.
Details of the alleged payoffs and harassment surfaced as prosecutors insisted that Epstein should continue to be held without bail.
He is currently at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan — three cell doors down from drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo’’ Guzman — awaiting another bail hearing next week.
In the court papers filed Friday, prosecutors argued Epstein should not be released, in part, because his primary residence in the United States is a private island in the US Virgin Islands.
“The defendant’s primary residence is a private island in the US Virgin Islands, a place where any sort of meaningful supervision would be all but impossible,” they wrote.
The island is near the tropical community of St. Thomas — where locals never welcomed the pervy mogul anyway.
“Everybody called it ‘Pedophile Island,’ ” Kevin Goodrich, a charter boat operator from St. Thomas, said.
“It’s our dark corner,” he added.
Epstein’s island features a stone mansion with a turquoise-colored roof, as well as several other structures, including maids quarters and another square-shaped mansion that features a gold dome.
Workers believed the temple-like structure was used as a music room and was built with acoustic walls.
Epstein’s former employees on the island described an odd working environment to Bloomberg News — including that they were not supposed to be seen by the pedophile millionaire when he was there.
It was also revealed on Friday that among Epstein’s many donations to schools in the US and abroad was a $15,000 gift — to the prestigious, and all-girls, Hewitt School just four blocks north of his Upper East Side mansion.
Adminstrators said the money was returned several months ago after they learned it was connected to him.
Epstein’s lawyers have offered to put up his $77 million, 21,000square-foot townhouse — where the feds say he sexually abused minor girls and kept a trove of suspected child porn — and his private plane as collateral if he gets bail.
They also say Epstein would wear an ankle monitor if he gets home detention, as well as install surveillance cameras and ground his private jet.
Epstein is even willing to pay for round-the-clock armed security to keep an eye on him, his lawyers said.
Epstein’s lawyers did not return messages seeking comment.