A Virgin Islands attorney has objected to a proposed settlement of all sexual assault and trafficking suits against the estate of Jeffrey Epstein. The agreement would also block any future suits related to Epstein’s abuse of women and girls while setting aside tens of millions for Epstein’s friends and heirs.
A federal judge in New York preliminarily approved the proposed settlement, brought by Florida-based attorneys for the lead plaintiff in a class-action suit against Epstein’s estate, in February, setting a timeline for details to be hammered out through the summer.
The settlement would cover all sex-crime claims against Epstein between Jan. 1, 1995, and Aug. 10, 2019, when Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell at 66. It would release Epstein’s estate — estimated to have dwindled to around $120 million — as well as its managers, longtime attorney and accountant for the sex offender Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, from the current litigation and any future legal action related to Epstein’s crimes, many of which allegedly took place in the territory.
St. Croix attorney Russell Pate, who has represented Virgin Islanders in suits against tobacco, oil, and other industries, wrote to the court expressing his objection. The settlement would reserve $80 million to be distributed as Epstein laid out in his will — potentially rewarding people who aided and abetted the financier’s notorious sex crimes, Pate said.
Pate wrote to the court Friday, saying he had just learned of the settlement plan. If it took a docket-watching attorney months to hear of the plan, what hope would a nonlawyer have, he asked.
He planned to be at the Sept. 16 hearing.
“There could be dozens of unknown victims, who never receive actual notice of this class-action settlement, but would have their claims extinguished even though these victims may have timely claims pursuant to statute-of-limitations tolling available in the U.S. Virgin Islands or their home court jurisdictions. This is a Due Process problem,” he wrote to the court Friday.
The agreement should be altered, Pate said, to allow any potential victim to join the class action suit and not shield the estate from future suits. Further, the deal made in New York would undermine legal proceedings underway in the Virgin Islands, where the estate is situated.
“The Epstein Estate, however, is a Virgin Islands entity administered under Virgin Islands law, and the situs of the Estate – including its approximately $120 million in remaining assets – is in a U.S. Virgin Islands’ probate proceeding. The proposed Judgment from this Court would effectively adjudicate the rights of present and future tort claimants against the Epstein Estate, including those who might sue in the Virgin Islands,” Pate wrote.
A key difference is how the wealth of a deceased person is treated in New York — where named Epstein plaintiff could see $875,000 — versus the Virgin Islands, where Pate estimated those same women could be estimated to millions.
“New York follows an archaic legal principle that when a defendant dies, like Jeffrey Epstein, victims can no longer seek punitive damages, despite Epstein’s outrageous, egregious, and reprehensible intentional conduct. The Virgin Islands, like Pennsylvania, Ohio and a minority of other States, follows a more enlightened approach: That the death of a defendant changes nothing in the case; not the claims or the damages. Essentially, Jeffery Epstein’s Estate inherits the same liability and damages as every claim ‘survives’ to his Estate, including punitive damages,” Pate wrote.
“Further, it makes little sense to bar unknown victims who may live anywhere in the world from coming forward in the future. She may decide to come to the U.S. Virgin Islands to sue Epstein’s Estate in its home forum,” Pate wrote to the court. “New York should not rob that victim of pursuing punitive damages against Epstein’s Estate under U.S. Virgin Islands law; the law that Jeffrey Epstein chose to live under, and that his Estate exists under.”
The court should set aside the $80 for future claimants rather than pay out Epstein’s heir and enablers, Pate argued.
“In the plainest English possible: This settlement provides absolute immunity to the Epstein Estate from any future victim’s lawsuit, which, logically will protect tens of millions of dollars in Epstein’s Estate. The Epstein Estate will then distribute this excess money to Indyke and Kahn as Epstein’s heirs. This result is perverse,” he wrote. “Further, this class-action settlement robs victims who may come forward of going to the best venue possible for justice, the U.S. Virgin Islands.”
The Southern District of New York court planned a teleconference for Tuesday afternoon, but under the proposed agreement, the time for other victims to come forward has already passed.
In order to receive funds from the settlement, women who were part of the class action suit must have filled out a questionnaire and other forms by May 12.
