The estate of dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein is attempting to shortchange the government of the Virgin Islands, according to the U.S. colony’s top law enforcement officer.
Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George filed a blistering series of court documents on Monday and Tuesday which accused the Epstein estate and other assorted professional hangers-on attached to the Epstein orbit of trying to game the system through the use off-base legal claims and dishonest attacks on her own office.
In one such filing, George moved to broaden an enforcement against Epstein’s estate by adding the dead pedophile’s Southern Trust Co. as a co-defendant for “fraudulently obtaining benefits from the government of the Virgin Islands in violation of its laws and regulations and as part of the alleged Epstein enterprise.”
Earlier this week, Epstein attorney Bennet Moskowitz accused George’s office of putting up red tape to stall disbursements to Epstein’s numerous victims. In turn, George also moved to legally bar Epstein’s estate from their controversial bid to personally design and administer the eventual victims’ fund.
“My Office has been clear that it is important for Jeffrey Epstein’s victims to have access to an expedited, non-public claims process for those who wish to participate, but that the process must be fair, just, and independent,” George said in a statement.
The attorney general continued:
The victims’ compensation fund proposed by the Estate does not meet those standards. The Attorney General’s Office has opposed the approval of the fund as currently proposed because it lacks fairness, accountability, impartiality and sensitivity to victims at a level they deserve. The design and administration of the fund must be fully independent of the Estate, and the administrative costs should be limited and transparent. Further, victims who have not yet come forward or who may not wish to use the fund must be supported and protected, with funds for counseling and for their claims, too. Pursuant to my responsibility to the laws of the Virgin Islands, there must be full accountability, not only of the Estate, but those who participated in, facilitated, and covered up Epstein’s crimes.
“The fund, as the Estate conceded at last week’s hearing in the Virgin Islands, for example, cannot seek to impose broad releases that run counter to that important purpose,” George continued. “These requirements were laid out in detail in my letter to the Estate, which was sent Monday.”
In that letter, George notes that the Epstein estate’s “executors are directly associated with entities that are defendants” in her office’s ongoing criminal complaint and that they “allegedly facilitated or participated in Epstein’s criminal activity.” Such people, George argues, “should play no role” in the victim compensation process.
The attorney general also slams the proposal for, among other reasons, their plan for “the program administrator [to] have full authority to evaluate and set claim amounts [and] the fact that the administrators were chosen by, advised by and would be paid handsomely by the Estate.”
George also calls into question the basic competence of Epstein’s attorneys in a reply brief filed Tuesday. Responding to the estate’s audacious request that her previously entered criminal activity lien be revoked, the attorney general rubbishes the request as baseless.
“The Court should deny the Co-Executors’ request for a judgment extinguishing the Government’s Criminal Activity Liens because the Court has no authority to grant this relief and the arguments the Co-Executors make are legally incorrect and misleading,” George’s introduction begins—and only amps up her attacks on Epstein’s legal team from there.
From that brief:
The Probate Court lacks authority to extinguish the Criminal Activity Liens while the Government’s Criminally Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“CICO”) action…is pending against the Epstein Estate. Under CICO, when the Attorney General files a Criminal Activity Lien Notice upon commencement of an action, the lien attaches as of the filing and “shall continue thereafter until expiration, termination, or release as provided herein.”…The sole exception where a court may release or extinguish a Criminal Activity Lien arises “[i]f no criminal or civil proceeding or action…is then pending against the person named in a Criminal Activity Lien notice.” That exception clearly does not apply here because the Government’s CICO action is pending against the Epstein estate.
“Even if the Court had this authority (which it does not), the [Epstein estate executors] fail to raise any legal basis for this relief,” George continues later on—before ultimately concluding: “Regardless of the [Epstein estate executors] arguments, the law is clear that the Government’s Criminal Activity Liens are enforceable against the Epstein Estate.”
[image via Miami Herald screengrab]
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