Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George ratcheted up pressure on the executors of Jeffrey Epstein's estate, amending the civil enforcement action she brought last month to name the disgraced financier's lawyers as co-defendants.
George filed the court documents Monday and Tuesday, and made them public Tuesday night, also telling Epstein's lawyers she intends to fight his estate's involvement in creating a compensation fund for victims.
And in another shot across the bow, George sought to add Epstein's main island company, Southern Trust Co., as a co-defendant in the enforcement action 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."
The company won a controversial 10-year tax break to reportedly create a large data-mining operation in the islands, although it is unclear how or even if that happened. A related Southern Company International was granted a banking license, quietly becoming the first Virgin Islands bank authorized to deal exclusively with offshore clients.
The release of documents Tuesday night followed action in a New York courtroom earlier in the day, where Bennet Moskowitz, a lawyer representing the Epstein estate, accused George of standing in the way of funds for Epstein victims.
In a letter dated Monday to Christopher A. Kroblin, the attorney in the Virgin Islands representing executors settling Epstein's estate, George said that she intends to prevent the executors from designing any compensation fund.
Since the Miami Herald's series Perversion of Justice more women have come forward to allege that Epstein sexually abused them when they were minors. Some have come forward to George, leading to her local charges.
In a civil enforcement action on Jan. 15, George brought charges against Epstein's estate and alleged that his lawyers, Darren K. Indyke and Richard D. Kahn, may have been parties to what she labeled Epstein's criminal enterprise. She also put a claim on Epstein's two islands there, Little St. James and Great St. James.
Now she's filed a motion to amend that complaint before the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands to name Indyke and Kahn as co-defendants and is using liens put on Epstein's two islands last month as leverage.
In emails released by George, Kroblin has complained that the liens imposed by George are making it difficult to maintain Epstein's palatial island estates and have caused FirstBank to freeze the estate's accounts until receiving a court order mandating otherwise.
Indyke and Kahn were named executors in Epstein's will, which was modified two days before he was reported dead from suicide on Aug. 10 in a Manhattan jail cell. Epstein sought probate in the Virgin Islands, where he spent most of his time after release from a Florida jail in 2009 following a controversial sentence for solicitation of prostitution from a minor.
Indyke did not respond to a request for comment.
George's letter to Kroblin said the pair should not have a role in creating a compensation committee and funding it because it would lead to an "unavoidable appearance of impropriety." The attorney general supported a fund in concept but set up by parties outside the Epstein estate and with more transparency.
The letter also warns the estate against trying to make any compensation to victims contingent on releasing any person or the estate from liability.
