A V.I. Superior Court judge this week denied a request from The New York Times to unseal reports related to the estate of Jeffrey Epstein, noting that the court already deemed the records confidential in 2020 and that unsealing them now “would jeopardize innocent third parties.”
“The facts have not changed over the last five years,” V.I. Magistrate Judge Simone Van Holton-Turnbull wrote in an order signed Tuesday. “This case is still of immense public interest. Considering recent news media events, the case is at the most intense public interest since Mr. Epstein’s passing. The need to protect third parties from undue harassment, in particular the need to protect victims that were minors at the time, is thereby even greater than when the Estate’s motion was originally granted.”
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges of procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute as part of a sweetheart deal with federal prosecutors for which he only served 13 months in prison with work release. He was arrested again in 2019 and charged with sex trafficking minors. He died in a New York City jail cell that year in what the city’s medical examiner called a suicide by hanging.
The case attracted immediate and sustained international interest because of Epstein’s prior conviction, the scope of his alleged abuses and his associations with high-profile and wealthy people. The case also drew attention to the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein received some $300 million in tax breaks from the territory’s Economic Development Commission while operating a web of shell companies from his primary residence on Little St. James.
New York Times reporter Matthew Goldstein first appealed to the court in June to unseal all seven reports compiled by the court-appointed special master reviewing Epstein’s estate.
“I believe these reports should be public because they contain critical information about the finances of the Epstein estate and are one way for the media, the public and Epstein’s nearly 200 victims to make sure that the estate is being properly liquidated and money is going to the appropriate places,” he wrote. “It is also another way for the public to best learn where Epstein had invested his money.”
Goldstein and The New York Times followed up their request on July 31 through local attorney Kevin Rames, who argued that the reports had been sealed “without any justification.”
The coexecutors of Epstein’s estate responded in August and argued that unsealing the reports would “subject those who have already transacted business with the Estate to harassment and threats” and would “deter others from transacting with the Estate as its assets continue to be administered.”
“Professional reporters and self-styled ‘internet sleuths’ alike scrutinize even routine administrative actions by the Estate,” they wrote. “As a result individuals and third-party vendors who may have never met Mr. Epstein but who have been identified as transacting with the Estate are subject to harassment and threats.”
Van Holton-Turnbull acknowledged the immense public interest in the case but wrote that the danger to third parties — and Epstein’s victims in particular — “is too great.”
“In an age where one’s personal information can become forever present and findable, whether by accidental posting or malicious and perverse intent, it is evermore imperative for Courts to protect sensitive details from prying eyes — especially when said details involves the sexual exploitation [sic],” she wrote. “By unsealing the requested documents, this Court finds that nothing but unnecessary pain awaits those within.”
The New York Times has asked the court to weigh in on Epstein-related documents before. In 2021, the newspaper sued the V.I. Economic Development Authority and its chief executive, Wayne Biggs Jr., for information related to Epstein’s Southern Trust Company. In that case, The New York Times said it failed to respond to an Open Records Act request for the company’s: income tax returns; audited financial statements; applications for tax incentives; company records supplied to the V.I. attorney general; related correspondence; and compliance reports prepared by Economic Development Commission staff.
Local attorney Kevin D’Amour wrote at the time that Biggs’s failure to comply with the local public records law is “unsound” and “not properly grounded in applicable law.” The New York Times later moved to dismiss its claims against the Virgin Islands Government in 2021 and against Biggs in 2022.
Separately, the newspaper is continuing to seek Epstein’s financial records sealed by the U.S. District Court of Southern New York as part of the Virgin Islands Government’s lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase, which was settled in 2023 for $75 million.
Goldstein wrote to Senior U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff last month that some of the 300 exhibits the territory filed in 2023 contained financial statements related to accounts either controlled by Epstein or by his victims. Attorneys for JPMorgan and the territory responded three weeks ago, noting which of the exhibits they believe should remain sealed or redacted to protect the victims’ identities or “confidential supervisory information.” Rakoff has yet to rule on the matter.
St. Croix Source
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