Little St. James Island, certainly one of the properties of financier Jeffrey Epstein, is seen in an aerial view near Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands July 21, 2019.
Marco Bello | Reuters
An investment firm led by the billionaire Stephen Deckoff has bought two private islands in the united statesVirgin Islands previously owned by the late notorious sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, Deckoff confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday.
Forbes first reported that Deckoff, the founding father of the private equity firm Black Diamond Capital Management, purchased the 2 islands for $60 million, lower than half of their initial asking price.
One among the islands was utilized by Epstein to sexually abuse young women for years, in keeping with court filings.
“Mr. Deckoff plans to develop a state-of-the-art, five-star, world-class luxury 25-room resort that can help bolster tourism, create jobs, and spur economic development within the region, while respecting and preserving the vital environment of the islands,” in keeping with a press release concerning the sale.
SD Investments, which is led by Deckoff, announced the acquisition.
“A significant slice of the sale proceeds are being paid to the Government of the U.S. Virgin Islands under a previously announced settlement agreement between the federal government and Mr. Epstein’s estate,” the discharge said.
Epstein’s estate and related entities in November agreed to pay the federal government of the Virgin Islands greater than $105 million to settle claims of sex trafficking and child exploitation. That deal required the estate to pay the Virgin Islands half of the proceeds of the sale of the islands, Little St. James and Great St. James, and one other $450,000 to handle damages on Great St. James, where Epstein had razed the remnants of structures that were tons of of years told to make room for development.
During a temporary phone interview with CNBC, Deckoff confirmed he had bought the islands.
“No comment,” he said when asked about his plans for it.
Deckoff then hung up.
Little St. James covers greater than 70 acres, and Great St. James is greater than double the scale of its neighbor.
The acquisition was reported on the identical day that CNBC revealed that lawyers for the U.S. Virgin Islands and an accuser of Epstein’s will depose JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon starting on May 26.
The USVI and the anonymous woman accused JPMorgan in civil federal lawsuits of benefiting from Epstein’s sex trafficking of young women at his Virgin Islands property. Epstein was for years a customer of JPMorgan Chase, and had thousands and thousands of dollars in deposits there.
The bank denies the allegations within the lawsuits. But it surely kept Epstein as a customer until 2013, five years after he pleaded guilty to a Florida state court charge of soliciting sex for money from an underage girl.
Multiple women have said they were raped or sexually assaulted on Little St. James, where Epstein had a mansion. They included Virginia Giuffre, who has alleged she was sexually abused there, and in other locations, by Prince Andrew, the younger brother of King Charles of Great Britain.
Andrew has denied her claim, but in February 2022 agreed to a confidential settlement with Giuffre to finish a civil lawsuit against him in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
The USVI’s lawsuit against JPMorgan notes that Epstein “was a resident of the Virgin Islands and he maintained a residence on Little St. James, which he acquired in 1998 and in 2016 he also purchased Great St. James.”
The islands were collectively valued at $86 million after Epstein’s death in August 2019, when the previous friend of Donald Trump and Bill Clinton committed suicide in a Manhattan jail a month after being arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges.
“The Epstein Enterprise in 1998 acquired Little St. James within the Virgin Islands as the proper hideaway and haven for trafficking young women and underage girls for sexual servitude, child abuse and sexual assault,” the suit says.
“Little St. James is a secluded, private island, nearly two miles from St. Thomas with no other residents,” the suit noted. “It could actually be visited only by private boat or helicopter … Epstein had easy accessibility to Little St. James from the private airfield on St. Thomas, only 10 minutes away by his private helicopter, but the ladies and youngsters he trafficked, abused, and held there have been not capable of leave without his permission and assistance, because it was too far and dangerous to swim to St. Thomas.”
The lawsuit goes on to say that in 2016, Epstein used a straw purchaser to cover Epstein’s identity and purchased Great St. James the closest island to Little St. James.
“By then, Epstein was a convicted sex offender,” the suit says. “The Epstein Enterprise purchased the island for greater than $20 million because its participants desired to be sure that the island didn’t grow to be a base from which others could view their activities or visitors.”
It adds: “By acquiring ownership and control of Great St. James to the exclusion of others, the Epstein Enterprise created additional barriers to forestall those held involuntarily on Little St. James from escaping or obtaining help from others.”
Epstein’s former paramour and longtime procurer Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced last June to twenty years in prison for recruiting and grooming teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein.
