Epstein estate’s first legal bill in fight against accusers: $90,000
The federal criminal case against Jeffrey Epstein ended with his death two months ago, but the legal battles by his estate are poised to go on for months to come.
Last week, lawyers for Epstein’s estate asked a judge in the Virgin Islands to allow the payment of $90,000 in fees to a New York law firm that is defending it against a half-dozen lawsuits filed by some of the financier’s alleged victims. The week before, it sent lawyers from another firm to court against the state of New Mexico over public grazing rights for livestock at Zorro Ranch, the nearly 10,000-acre property Epstein owned outside Santa Fe.
Legal maneuvering is not unusual when wealthy estates are involved — Epstein’s assets were estimated at more than $577 million — but the complicated court actions may have only just begun. Lawyers for some accusers have named dozens of companies Epstein was associated with as defendants.
The firm representing the estate against Epstein’s accusers, Troutman Sanders, billed for one conversation Aug. 10, after Epstein was found dead in a New York City jail cell while he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges. The month’s worth of legal fees also includes work for an ongoing “federal regulatory matter” that began before Epstein’s death, although the filing did not offer details.
Epstein’s other enterprises are still up and running, too. Employees continue to come to work at the offices of Southern Trust, his main company in the Virgin Islands, which operates out of a marina and office complex on St. Thomas. And boats he owned are still shuttling people to the two private islands he owned nearby.
Epstein’s will, filed in the Virgin Islands and signed two days before he killed himself, put his estate into a trust, which would most likely cloak the eventual disbursements in secrecy. The mix of real estate and companies in the estate reflects the closely held nature of the sprawling operations Epstein ran over the past two decades.
The New York Times previously reported that Southern Trust made at least $200 million in net profits from 2013-17, a financial rebound that began five years after Epstein’s conviction in Florida for soliciting sex from an underage girl. Unaudited financial statements, obtained from the island territory’s Division of Corporations and Trademarks, revealed that Southern Trust began making money after Epstein’s former money management firm, Financial Trust, posted years of losses beginning with the financial crisis.
Alan Jagolinzer, director of the Cambridge Centre for Financial Reporting & Accountability at the University of Cambridge in England, said the statements raised “way too many questions.”