Jeffrey Epstein’s property has agreed to pay the US Virgin Islands greater than $105m (£86.8m) as a part of a settlement in a intercourse trafficking and youngster exploitation case.
As a part of the settlement, the property can even pay the US territory half the proceeds from the sale of Little St James, Epstein’s personal island which he purchased in 1998 and allegedly used for a lot of of his sexual crimes.
It can pay an extra $450,000 (£372,000) to handle damages on a separate island owned by the disgraced financier – with NBC quoting the US Department of Justice as saying he had “razed the remains of centuries-old historical structures of enslaved workers to make room for his development” there.
The settlement – which doesn’t embody any admission of wrongdoing – contains the return of greater than $80m ($66m) in financial growth tax advantages that Epstein and others had “fraudulently obtained to fuel his criminal enterprise”.
Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George stated in a information launch: “This settlement restores the religion of the folks of the Virgin Islands that its legal guidelines will likely be enforced, with out worry or favour, in opposition to those that break them.
“We are sending a clear message that the Virgin Islands will not serve as a haven for human trafficking.”
In an announcement reported by NBC, Epstein property lawyer Daniel Weiner stated: “The co-executors in the end concluded that the settlement is in the perfect pursuits of the property, together with its collectors and claimants, to keep away from the time, expense and inherent uncertainties of protracted litigation.
“The settlement is consistent with the co-executors’ stated intent and practice since their appointments to those roles – to resolve claims related to any misconduct by Jeffrey Epstein in a manner sensitive to those who suffered harm.”
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Mr Weiner additionally stated the property intends to “wind down its remaining activities” within the islands “as soon as practicable” and that $121m (£100m) had been paid in compensation to 136 folks over Epstein’s actions.
The Virgin Islands introduced a civil declare in opposition to Epstein’s property in 2020, alleging he was behind a felony enterprise by means of which younger ladies and ladies had been trafficked, raped, sexually assaulted and held captive at Little St James.
Epstein was 66 when he killed himself in a Manhattan jail in 2019, a month after his arrest on intercourse trafficking fees.
That got here greater than a decade after his conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor, for which he grew to become a registered intercourse offender.
Last yr, his former associate Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of recruiting teenage ladies for him to sexually abuse between 1994 and 2004.
She was sentenced to twenty years in jail.
Source: information.sky.com”