Topic: The Epstein recordsdata. Message: Wrap them up — ASAP.
One after one other, the texts, calls and emails rolled in.
Denise George knew from the start that she was going up towards highly effective gamers on Wall Avenue over their supposed hyperlinks to Jeffrey Epstein. However she quickly sensed that she was additionally up towards forces right here at dwelling, within the US Virgin Islands, the place the financier appeared to have preyed on girls and women with impunity.
Folks in St. Thomas wished the Epstein scandal — and the uncomfortable questions it was elevating — to go away, and quick. However George says she wanted time. She was fired as lawyer common after spending greater than three years attempting to hunt justice.
Correspondence concerning the case obtained by Bloomberg Information underscores the sense of urgency inside the native authorities and the stress George got here below. Tons of of pages of courtroom paperwork provide a window into particulars about Epstein’s net of affect within the US territory.
George was the driving power behind three high-profile authorized battles involving Epstein, the Svengali who courted a large circle of wealthy and highly effective males – from Invoice Gates to Prince Andrew – even after he was branded a intercourse offender.
On this rain-drenched Tuesday within the Caribbean, George is telling her story about these landmark instances, which reverberated like a thunderclap by means of the facility corridors of enterprise and politics. Even now, 4 years after Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell, it’s arduous to shake the sensation {that a} code of silence, a form of omerta, hangs over his affairs right here.
George, 64, is sitting inside a poolside restaurant at a flamingo-pink lodge, overlooking the rooftops of St. Thomas. It’s mid-summer within the tropics, off-season right here. The place is empty. On the silver chain around her neck hangs a present from her husband: a pendant within the form of the scales of justice.
Epstein’s property was the primary to settle with the Virgin Islands. A yr in the past, it agreed to pay $105 million, plus half the proceeds from the sale of Little St. James, AKA “Little St. Jeff,” the non-public island the place authorities allege a few of Epstein’s crimes befell.
Then, final January, Wall Avenue billionaire Leon Black settled for $62.5 million. Subsequent got here JPMorgan Chase., in September, for $75 million. Not one of the events admitted to wrongdoing. All of them declined to remark for this story.
With out these instances, the world might have by no means glimpsed a few of the secrets and techniques Epstein and his circle harbored, or the depths of his affect right here within the Caribbean. Emails that surfaced within the litigation, as an example, revealed Epstein’s unusually shut relationship with Jes Staley, a prime banker at JPMorgan Chase & Co. who went on to run Barclays Plc.
JPMorgan had alleged in courtroom that Staley didn’t alert the financial institution of all he knew about Epstein. Staley – who swapped sexually suggestive emails about younger girls with Epstein and visited Little St. Jeff, in keeping with emails filed in courtroom — hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing by the authorities. Legal professionals for Staley declare he had no decision-making authority over Epstein’s JPMorgan accounts.
In a nutshell, George’s story behind these tales is that this:
She felt stress from the territory’s governor to shortly settle the Epstein instances and transfer on. To George, the message was clear: Bury the Epstein scandal as soon as and for all.
“It was very skilled however we did have very totally different values and that created loads of rivalry between us all through the course of the Epstein investigation and different issues as properly,” she mentioned.
After George was dismissed final December, Governor Albert Bryan Jr. was clear: He was keen to place the whole scandal behind the US Virgin Islands.
“If we by no means point out Jeffrey Epstein once more, that might be good for me,” Bryan informed The St. Thomas Supply. On the time, his workplace mentioned George’s dismissal was unrelated to her pursuit of JPMorgan. However Bryan later mentioned he couldn’t have an lawyer common launching lawsuits he didn’t find out about. His workplace didn’t reply to requests for remark.
This a lot is bound: Over all of the years Epstein sex-trafficked and sexually abused dozens of underage women and younger girls, he projected cash and affect by means of Virgin Islands as if the territory have been his non-public fief.
He cultivated politicians, donated closely to campaigns and solid shut ties with a strong and well-connected native legislation agency. Cecile de Jongh, spouse of one among Bryan’s predecessors as governor, John de Jongh, even labored for Epstein. She served as his workplace supervisor and unofficial political emissary. Mrs de Jongh declined to remark for this story.
Throughout her deposition as a part of the JPMorgan litigation, Mrs de Jongh was requested about searching for enrollment in English courses for ladies at Epstein’s request. She mentioned she by no means noticed anybody below misery and “would by no means do something to hurt anybody, or support and abet anybody in harming somebody.”
Epstein lobbied to calm down guidelines that have been imposed on him as a intercourse offender, with blended success. He additionally acquired $300 million in tax breaks from the territory’s Financial Improvement Fee, a few of them whereas now-Governor Bryan was EDC chairman. Neither Bryan nor some other official has been accused of any wrongdoing.
Internet of Affect
Epstein spun his net affect over the islands to be able to defend himself and conceal his darkish secrets and techniques, George says.
Regardless of the lurid document and all of the tales surrounding Epstein, George says she wasn’t conscious of the dimensions of his crimes when she was named lawyer common in 2019, lower than two months earlier than Epstein was arrested at New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport after flying from Paris.
It didn’t take her lengthy to search out out. She was only some weeks into the job when information reporters started calling. They wished to know if authorities within the US Virgin Islands have been investigating what Epstein had been as much as for all these years on Little St. Jeff.
They weren’t.
Across the similar time, Governor Bryan, who was sworn in in 2019, informed George that Epstein had made a request: He wished a brand new waiver to loosen sure restrictions positioned on him as a convicted sex-offender, in keeping with courtroom filings. Epstein, as an example, needed to give the Virgin Islands 21 days’ discover when he deliberate to journey.
“In my head I’m considering, Calm down?” George recollects. “If something, wouldn’t you say, Tighten them?”
A earlier lawyer common had granted such a waiver however later it had been revoked. Epstein wished a brand new one, George testified throughout a deposition earlier this yr.
Governor Bryan informed her that Epstein’s legal professionals could be in contact, she mentioned. They occurred to work for Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin, in keeping with the previous prosecutor, the identical native agency that supported his gubernatorial marketing campaign.
Erika Kellerhals, who requested the waiver on Epstein’s behalf, had hosted a $1,000-a-head fundraiser for Bryan together with associate Greg Ferguson in 2018. Ferguson later was appointed to Bryan’s transition committee for financial regulation, in keeping with a native press report.
Governor Bryan texted George in Could 2019, she testified in a deposition, telling her to decide. She denied Epstein’s request.
George later testified that she thought Epstein was “flexing his political affect over or with the governor” moderately than going by means of the same old channels.
Given Epstein’s obvious affect in Virgin Islands, who would wish to rock the boat? George says she was keen to attempt. Round St. Thomas, she has a popularity as a straightshooter. The previous public-corruption lawyer stops wanting pointing to official wrongdoing. However on this sticky August day, in her gold-buttoned blazer, she makes clear that she, for one, wouldn’t tolerate it.
“If I’ve to lose my job to keep away from being a part of a conspiracy to cowl one thing up, I might do it,” George says. “My bar license, my integrity have been extra necessary to me. I wasn’t going to compromise that.”
When Epstein was discovered useless just a few months later in his cramped Manhattan jail cell, George noticed a gap. Epstein had quietly arrange a belief within the Virgin Islands as a repository of his private fortune, valued at $577 million on the time of his dying. George determined to go after the property and those that may need helped Epstein.
“He’s useless,” she thought to herself, “however his accomplices have to be alive.”
The legislation agency representing the property: Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin, the identical one Epstein had used for years right here, and the identical one with connections to Governor Bryan. In courtroom filings, the agency shortly blasted the Virgin Islands for sitting on its fingers whereas Epstein was alive.
Kellerhals didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The governor gave his blessing when George indicated she wished to launch a civil enforcement motion towards the property. However the tone shifted when the litigation dragged on right into a second yr.
Privately, Bryan expressed frustration. He wished to know why it was taking so lengthy to settle with Epstein’s property.
George claimed the civil racketeering case was complicated and warranted a decision that no less than partially met Epstein’s myriad of wrongdoings within the USVI. Ultimately the property returned $80 million in tax incentives, agreed to pay half one million to remediate environmental injury to one among Epstein’s islands, dedicated half the proceeds from the longer term sale of Little St James and established a victims’ compensation fund.
Formally, George, not the governor, was in control of making the authorized calls. However Bryan was nonetheless her boss and held the purse strings. It was a fragile steadiness, George mentioned.
Making an attempt to untangle a half-billion-dollar property is a formidable activity below the perfect of circumstances. It was even tougher given the code of silence nonetheless surrounding the useless financier. Lots of Epstein’s staff had signed nondisclosure agreements. Some alerted the property’s legal professionals the second investigators reached out. On Little St. Jeff, groundskeepers prevented eye contact when authorities approached.
George herself traveled to Little St. Jeff. She nonetheless can’t shake eerie absurdity of seeing a dentist’s chair inside the luxurious island villa.
Ultimately, the Epstein property settled. The opposite battles would quickly observe.
George didn’t get a lot time to have a good time. 4 weeks after that deal was struck – and 4 days after George filed the go well with towards JPMorgan – the official information arrived from the Workplace of the Governor.
It was New 12 months’s Eve. George was cooking callaloo, Caribbean greens, at her father’s home. A safety officer arrived on the door and handed her a letter.
Denise George, the sixteenth lawyer common of the US Virgin Islands, had been summarily dismissed.
