The US Virgin Islands attorney general is asking a judge to help her office resolve a dispute with Jeffrey Epstein’s estate over a victims compensation fund.
AG Denise George said in a statement late Tuesday that the dead financier’s estate won’t budge on its insistence that Epstein’s sexual assault victims sign releases to protect other individuals who sexually abused them before they are allowed to collect money from the compensation fund.
George said this would amount to “a misuse of probate funds and an abuse of the probate process, solely to protect persons who are not a part of the Estate.”
George’s office had been in negotiations with the 66-year-old convicted pedophile’s lawyers over how the compensation fund would work. But after reaching an impasse, George is asking the court to rule on “whether to approve the required release of independently culpable third parties.”
“They’re trying to protect their friends, and it’s not fair to the victims,” George told Vanity Fair in February.
Epstein estate lawyer William Blum said co-executors Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn disagree with George’s characterization of the release that victims would have to sign before claiming money.
“The position of the Co-Executors of the Estate is that the scope of the proposed release to be signed by participants in the proposed Epstein Voluntary Claims Resolution Program is appropriate,” Blum said, adding that they would be responding in court papers shortly.
Epstein committed suicide by hanging in August in a Lower Manhattan jail cell as he was awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. He left behind a more than $634 million fortune.