WASHINGTON _ Lawyers representing the estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein started the new year facing a new lawsuit from an alleged sexual-abuse victim in what could herald the start of a new cascade of litigation by women who came forward at the urging of federal prosecutors after the multimillionaire's arrest and death in a New York City jail cell.
Around the Christmas holiday, Fort Lauderdale attorney Bradley J. Edwards electronically filed a new civil suit against Epstein lawyers Darren K. Indyke and Richard D. Kahn, who are settling the Epstein estate in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein lived part time on a private island until his arrest in July 2019 in New Jersey and his death in a New York City jail on Aug. 10.
The accuser is described only as JJ Doe and the nine-page complaint describes her as a then-14-year-old resident of Palm Beach County when she was brought to Epstein's waterfront Palm Beach mansion in 2003. That was several years before Epstein was arrested in Palm Beach but escaped serious punishment in a 2008 deal with the South Florida U.S. Attorney's Office that spared him federal sex trafficking charges in exchange for pleading guilty to prostitution charges in state court. Instead of what could have been life in prison, he served roughly a year in the local jail.
