News Americas, NEW YORK, NY., Thurs. Jan. 16, 2020: The U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General, Denise N. George, on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands division of St. Thomas and St. John, on behalf of the islands’ government against the estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein, his 1953 trust and five associated entities that are alleged to have conspired with him in carrying out an expansive scheme of human trafficking and sexually abusing young women and underage girls in the Virgin Islands. Here are five claims the lawsuit makes that you should know:
1: The USVI government complaint alleges that Epstein anchored a criminal enterprise, the “Epstein Enterprise.” Through this enterprise numerous young women and female children have been sex trafficked, raped, sexually assaulted and held captive in the Virgin Islands at Epstein’s secluded private island of Little St. James.
2: That participants in the Epstein Enterprise used deception, fraud and coercion to entice and lure vulnerable girls, some as young as 13-years-old, into human sex trafficking, with promises to help them and their families pay for school, health care, or other financial needs. Epstein, along with other associates, carried out and concealed his scheme.
3: The lawsuit also alleges that once the girls and young women were recruited and transported to the U.S. Virgin Islands by private plane, they were held captive on his private island and sexually abused by Epstein and his associates. The Epstein Enterprise enforced victims’ sexual servitude by confiscating passports, controlling communications, and threatening violence.
4: The complaint alleges the Enterprise violated the Virgin Islands Uniform Prevention of and Remedies for Human Trafficking Act, and the Virgin Islands’ Criminally Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Acts (CICO).
5: The complaint also asserts that in 1998, Epstein purchased the island of Little St. James in the Virgin Islands. Then in 2016, Epstein purchased another island in the Virgin Islands, Great St. James. Epstein used and intended to use his Virgin Island properties to plan, carry out and conceal the activities of the Epstein Enterprise.
WHAT THE USVI GOVERNMENT WANTS
The Government of the Virgin Islands seeks civil sanctions and remedies to extinguish and recoup any and all financial and other benefits that flowed to Epstein and his associates as a result of their operations in the Virgin Islands.
They also seek to obtain a civil forfeiture or divestiture of any and all properties and instrumentalities used by the Epstein Enterprise to implement the criminal pattern of sex trafficking and sexual abuse, including the islands of Little St. James and Great St. James.
SEE JEFFREY EPSTEIN USVI ISLAND HERE
