Epstein Data Wiki

Great St. James

Properties2
tagsplace, us-virgin-islands, st-thomas, epstein-property, coastal-zone-management
aliasesGreat Saint James, Great St. James Island, Great St. James Cay, GSJ

40 min read

LocationGreat St. James Island, No. 6A Red Hook Quarter, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands12
Due diligenceA Phase I environmental site assessment commissioned by the buyer’s counsel and dated January 2016 records the environmental professional’s opinion that no conditions on the site amount to a recognized environmental condition3
ParcelsFifteen parcels in the A, B and C series, totalling about 161 acres; tax parcels 109801010100, 109801010200 and 109801010300124
Acquired by EpsteinTwo warranty deeds to Great St. Jim, LLC, dated January 18 and January 21, 2016 and both recorded January 28, 2016 as Doc. Nos. 2016000575 and 2016000576125
Recorded consideration$17,500,000 for the A parcels, conveyed by Christian Kjaer; $5,000,000 for the B and C parcels, conveyed by GSJ Properties Corp.125
Owning entityGreat St. Jim, LLC, organised under Virgin Islands law on October 26, 2015; Poplar, Inc. is named as its sole member and Epstein signed for it as Poplar’s president678
ResidenceA letter prepared for the New York sex offender registry states that Epstein “does not reside or sleep on Great St. James” and that his permanent residence remained Little St. James9
Coastal-zone enforcementCease and desist order C&D-01-16-STT, April 18, 2016; Notice of Violation NOVA-04-16-STT assessing $280,000; settled for a $70,000 penalty August 4, 2016; $210,000 balance reinstated December 15, 2016; resolved by a supplemental consent agreement so ordered June 28, 2017 funding a $160,000 project. Two unsigned transmittal letters addressed to a private trust were prepared; two cheques were returned by the Department’s own counsel; a cheque made out to the Department was then paid, receipted and stamped received, July 2017. A further cease and desist order, C&D-01-19-STT, issued January 14, 2019; the Department held it still in effect as of March 12, 2019, pending proper permits.10781112
In the Virgin Islands actionGreat St. Jim, LLC was named as a defendant company in the Government of the Virgin Islands’ civil action against Epstein’s estate6

Great St. James is a privately owned island of about 161 acres in the Red Hook Quarter of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, immediately adjacent to Little St. James.129 Jeffrey Epstein bought it in January 2016, seventeen years after the first island and while registered as a sex offender in New York, through a Virgin Islands company formed for the purpose, and never made it a residence.129 What the released files hold about it is almost entirely a construction record and a conflict with the territory’s coastal-zone regulator: within three months of the deeds being recorded the Department of Planning and Natural Resources ordered all development on the island to stop and assessed a $280,000 penalty, and the enforcement file runs from 2016 to 2019.10713 In March 2017, with the penalty balance reinstated at $210,000 and an appeal pending, Epstein negotiated the amount directly by email with the Department’s Commissioner.14 The matter closed in June 2017 with a consent agreement funding a $160,000 restoration project in lieu of penalties, and with no admission of liability.8 The Government of the Virgin Islands later alleged, in its civil action against the estate, that Epstein bought the island to screen the first one; the action was settled in December 2022 without trial.615

Before Epstein

The island had been in one family’s hands since 1979 and had defeated an earlier sale. Christian Kjaer took the A parcels through the final adjudication of his mother’s estate in 1987, as the 2016 deed to Epstein’s company recites; a filing in a later Superior Court action gives her purchase of the island as 1979 and attaches the deed.116 In 2004 Kjaer and five relatives contracted to sell it to Robert Addie, Jorge Perez and Jason Taylor; the sale was not consummated, and the resulting suit was tried to a jury in the District Court of the Virgin Islands in two stages from June 22, 2009 to July 2, 2009. The jury found the sellers liable for breach of contract and unjust enrichment, and found a further defendant, Kevin F. D’Amour, liable for fraud and not liable for conversion, the court having earlier given the buyers partial summary judgment of $500,000 on that conversion claim. The judgment of Chief Judge Curtis V. Gómez awards Taylor $1,500,000 on his contract claim against the sellers, remitted from the jury’s $1,546,000; $500,000 on the conversion claim against D’Amour, capped so that he could recover no more than $1,500,000 on the two combined; and $46,000 on a fraud claim against D’Amour. The sellers recovered $339,516.76 on a fraud claim against Addie and Perez.17 The copy in the release carries no date and its signature rule is blank, and a search of the released files under “Addie,” “Kjaer,” “Jason Taylor” and “2004-135” returned this judgment and nothing appellate.

A memorandum dated January 3, 2016, analysing the purchase and sale agreement then under negotiation, carries no From field, To field, addressee or signature on any of its four pages. It states: “The legal description is the same property that CK attempted to convey to Jason Taylor in 2004 and references the same map – so it presumably includes all outlying rocks and cays except for Current Rock, which is owned separately by CK.”18 D’Amour is throughout the island’s papers on the sellers’ side: the 2006 permit application names him as attorney-in-fact for the owner, the 2016 deed from Kjaer gives his office as Kjaer’s address for service, and he signed the second 2016 deed as president of the corporate seller.1912

The release also holds the previous owners’ own permitting file. A minor water permit application for the renewal of the island’s dock permit, prepared by William M. Karr & Associates, Inc. for Great St. James Properties, seeks to bring an existing 62-foot dock into compliance, and is supported by BioImpact, Inc. analyses of February and March 2005 of dock, barge-landing and cable-route sites; the application form carries the handwritten permit number CZT-1-06W.19 It is a document about the island before Epstein, filed among the papers his side collected.

The purchase

Epstein had tried once before. An unexecuted agreement for sale and purchase in the release, dated “January ____, 2010,” names him personally as buyer and Kjaer and five relatives as sellers, covers “All of Great St. James Island, in its entirety, consisting of approximately 162.6 acres” together with a mainland parcel at Estate Nazareth, and fixes a price of $12,000,000 payable at closing. Every signature line on it is blank, the day of the month was never filled in, and the acceptance clause requires written acceptance by the sellers that the copy does not carry.20

The purchase that happened was six years later and structured differently. Great St. Jim, LLC was organised under Virgin Islands law on October 26, 2015.6 Two warranty deeds followed. The first, made on January 18, 2016, conveyed Parcels A Rem, A-1 and A-2, 80.1 acres in all, from Christian Kjaer to Great St. Jim, LLC “for and in consideration of the sum of SEVENTEEN MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND and 00/100 DOLLARS ($17,500,000.00).”1 The second, made on January 21, 2016, conveyed twelve parcels in the B and C series, 81.22 acres in all, from GSJ Properties Corp. to the same company for $5,000,000.2 Both were recorded on January 28, 2016 in the Office of the Recorder of Deeds for St. Thomas and St. John, as Doc. Nos. 2016000575 and 2016000576. The recorded consideration therefore totals $22,500,000. An FBI electronic communication of August 2019, transmitted with a subpoena rider for the company by a Senior Financial Investigator of the Bureau’s Squad C-40 (FAST), sets out the same two dates and the same parcels, and gives the January 21 consideration as $5,000,000.00; its figure for the January 18 conveyance is mistyped on the face of the document and is one digit short.5

The Government of the Virgin Islands’ Second Amended Complaint gives the parcels different values, taken from Recorder of Deeds records: $17.5 million, $2.8 million and $2.7 million for the three tax parcels, and states that “Epstein, through Great St. Jim, LLC, acquired the last two parcels for $5 million each.”6 That last figure does not match the instrument, which conveys the B and C parcels together for $5,000,000.

Due diligence had been done. A Phase I environmental site assessment of the island, commissioned from BioImpact, Inc. by Erika Kellerhals of the firm that took title for Epstein’s company and dated January 2016, reports that the environmental professional’s opinion is that no conditions on the site amount to a recognized environmental condition under the applicable standard.3

The company’s ownership is stated two ways in the record. The complaint says Epstein “is listed as manager and a member of Great St. Jim, LLC and the nature of its business is described as ‘holding assets.’”6 Every instrument he executed for the company describes it differently: he signed the 2016 settlement agreement and the 2017 consent agreement as president of Poplar, Inc., which both documents name as the company’s sole member.78

Registration

A two-page letter prepared over the name of Epstein’s lawyer Darren Indyke, dated March 31, 2016 and addressed to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services Sex Offender Registry, advises the registry “of the purchase of a cay immediately adjacent to Little St. James, known as Great St. James,” states that Epstein “has no intention of moving his permanent residence to Great St. James” and “does not reside or sleep on Great St. James,” but “does intend to visit the cay regularly,” and asks that the cay be added to his list of addresses “in an overabundance of caution.”9 The letter’s own text says that, “[c]onsistent with your previous instructions,” Epstein has signed and dated it in the space provided below to confirm the purchase. On the copy in the release, Indyke’s own signature is absent as well: the space above his typed name carries no signature, and the confirmation line above Epstein’s name and its date line are both blank.9 The request was nonetheless acted on. A printout of Epstein’s entry in the New York registry’s public directory, taken on June 27, 2019 and held in the release, lists “GREAT ST JAMES, ST THOMAS, Virgin Islands” among his addresses, typed “RES (Secondary).”21 The same letter is quoted on the Little St. James page for the different point that it confirmed the first island as his residence of record.

What was planned

A project feasibility report prepared for Epstein by Montegan A&D Inc. and dated April 2016 sets out the island as bought: “more than 90% undeveloped,” a small residential compound on a north-eastern bay, three cabins used as bedrooms and one as a living and dining room, a pool and cabana and a caretaker’s cabin on the hill, a tennis court, a small dock, six salt ponds, historic ruins and no paved roads.4 Its own area calculation lists fourteen parcels (C-1-1 is absent) plus nine easement rows, two of them illegible, and totals 161.272 acres without the rows summing to that figure; the two deeds together convey fifteen parcels totalling 161.32 acres.412 A section headed “The Project” is explicit about the approach to permitting: “The proposed project is very conservative, simple and not invasive considering dormant protest. It’s planned in order to avoid long time and difficult permit process, considering of actual zoning, local building code and multiple restrictions though. So that to avoid hold-up and delays for every single building a permit application will be submitted.”4 The report’s own recommendation section asks “will the island prove to be intractable when confronted with any kind of heavy development?”4

Larger ambitions were canvassed at the same time. On March 4, 2016 the São Paulo practice Studio Arthur Casas submitted a first-phase proposal for architectural design services for “the reconceptualization of Great St. James Island,” describing its objective as “to transform the island into a luxurious getaway” and proposing master planning and conceptual design before any construction documents.22

What was built, and by whom

Design and construction work ran from 2016 to 2019 and is documented mainly through vendors’ proposals in Epstein’s office files.

A week after the deeds were recorded, Choice Wireless, LLC scoped the island’s data network. Its summary of February 4, 2016 says the work “is to extend the Internal (private) network” of the first island to Great St. James and to link the buildings on it.23 Solar capacity was expanded in the same period: an email of March 5, 2016 to Richard Kahn forwards a contractor’s quotation for maintenance of the existing solar plant and an expanded fifty-panel array, under an attachment named for a 14 kW addition.24 A land survey was proposed by Brian Moseley & Associates, Inc. in February 2016, its president asking that the proposal be signed and returned to confirm acceptance.25 In June 2018 the firm forwarded existing contour drawings for the island, cautioning that they came from 1970s aerial work and were “suitable for generalized conceptual planning” only, and recommending that a topographic survey be done for site-specific planning.26

The architects Jaredian Design Group prepared drawing sets for two parcels: a residential cottage, tennis court, storage building and landscaping on Parcel Remainder C-1, and a residential cottage, spa and gym, pool, storage buildings and landscaping on Parcel Remainder A, the latter set dated July 30, 2017.2728 In August 2018 JPK Development, Virgin Islands quoted $420,555.35 to grade a site and build a concrete pad and two shelters on Great St. James, addressing the proposal to Epstein and naming two contacts, neither given an employer.29 In February 2019 Boschulte Architecture, LLC produced architectural programming for a “GSJ Maintenance Building” on Parcels B-2-1 and B-2-2, whose stated function was to be the headquarters of management, operations and maintenance for both islands, consolidating functions then housed on Little St. James.30

An environmental assessment for the construction of two docks and a barge landing, prepared for Great St. Jim, LLC by Bioimpact, Inc. and revised January 2018, examines the island’s one existing dock, in Shallow Bay: approved by DPNR’s Division of Coastal Zone Management but not by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which objected over the bay’s shallowness; built by the previous owner without the federal permit; and, the assessment states, never removed despite USACE notices demanding its removal. It proposes removing that dock once one of the two new docks is usable. The same assessment records a separate USACE demand, after Hurricane Irma in 2017, for the removal of two emergency barge ramps built for relief supplies and of fill placed in a fringing wetland: the southern ramp and the fill had been removed, with mangrove seedlings beginning to grow back, while the Christmas Cove ramp was the subject of a request to keep it in place until a permanent barge landing there could be permitted.31

Great St. Jim, LLC also sued one of its contractors, joined by the company that runs the first island. A complaint prepared for the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, and answered under case number ST-2019-CV-057 with Great St. Jim, LLC and LSJE, LLC as plaintiffs, alleges that in about November 2016 Great St. Jim bought a 310.8 kWh solar power system for $192,211 together with twelve battery modules for about $154,338, that the system was to power the island continuously, and that it instead “began to fail regularly and would shut down every morning at approximately 5:00 a.m. like clockwork,” requiring a representative to travel to the island each morning to reset it.3233

Coastal-zone enforcement, 2016–2017

The Division of Coastal Zone Management holds the fullest record of what was actually happening on the ground, and it begins three months after the sale.

Responding to public complaints of development on the cay, the Division searched its own records and found no permits or authorisation letters for development or maintenance on the property other than one for the existing dock.7 On April 18, 2016 a Special Projects Coordinator visited the island, served a cease and desist order and gave a verbal order to stop all development. The order is in the release: a one-page form numbered C&D-01-16-STT, issued for “Un-permitted development in the coastal zone, in violation of 12 VIC Sec. 910 (a)(1),” directing “CEASE & DESIST FROM ANY AND ALL DEVELOPMENT,” naming Great St. Jim, LLC, posted at 12:30 p.m. that day and signed by the Commissioner.10 On further inspection the coordinator recorded newly cut road paths, extensive bare soil, four large cleared circular areas at different ends of the island, un-weathered track hoe marks and an excavation site.7

Notice of Violation NOVA-04-16-STT was issued on April 22, 2016, assessing $280,000, and served three days later on the company’s attorney.7 The company disputed the Department’s determinations, and a settlement agreement followed. Epstein signed it for Great St. Jim, LLC as president of Poplar, Inc. on July 22, 2016; the Director of Coastal Zone Management signed on August 1 and the Commissioner on August 4.7 Under it the company paid a stipulated penalty of $70,000, agreed to cease development requiring a permit until one was obtained, agreed to submit a permit application with a detailed work plan and to walk the site with the Division, and accepted that a failure to cure a further violation after written notice would revert the penalty “back to the original fine amount of $280,000.00.”7 The agreement records that none of its recitals is an admission.7

That clause was triggered within months. On November 4, 2016 the Department served a Notice to Cure Breach of Settlement Agreement requiring the removal of unpermitted development and structures within ten days, and on December 15, 2016 a Notice of Failure to Cure requiring payment of the remaining balance of $210,000.8 On January 17, 2017 the company appealed the Notice of Failure to the Board of Land Use Appeals.34

Epstein’s counsel prepared a Superior Court complaint against the Department and the Commissioner. Dated March 8, 2017, it alleges that on October 28, 2016 three departmental representatives, one of them an armed enforcement officer, “entered upon Great St. James without prior notice to or approval from GSJ, and outside of project working hours and demanded access to the entire island”; that they were met at the island’s only dock by staff who told them “that the owner was not on the island and that the GSJ personnel present had no authority to grant access to the island”; and that the Department nevertheless “traversed the entire island without restriction, allegedly to conduct a ‘site inspection’” and told workers to stop work.35 It further alleges that the cure period given was arbitrarily short and that the two items ultimately relied on in the Notice of Failure to Cure, a movable tiki bar and a stretch of hand-laid stone in a pre-existing driveway, had been removed by an agreed deadline of December 1, 2016.35 These are that company’s allegations in a pleading, and the copies of the complaint in the release are unsigned above counsel’s names and carry a blank civil number. A search of the released files under “Great St. Jim,” “GSJ,” “DPNR,” “Dawn Henry” and “ST-17-CV” returned five documents in this drafting sequence: two clean copies of the complaint dated March 8, 2017; two further copies carrying tracked changes, one of which redlines that date to March 12, 2017; and a set of Plaintiff’s Rule 26 Initial Disclosures in the same, never-numbered action. None is filed, stamped or docketed.

The approach to the Commissioner

While that complaint was in hand, Epstein dealt with the Commissioner himself. An email thread of March 9 to 19, 2017 between his own address and Commissioner Dawn L. Henry, both parties writing directly and without counsel copied, runs from a note of his asking “any sugestions for easing resolution” to her reply that the Department was “working on a counter.”14 On March 17 she wrote: “DPNR proposes a reduction in the penalty in exchange for withdrawing the appeal. DPNR is willing to reduce the penalty by $30,000.00.” Epstein asked whether she meant a reduction “to a total of 30k,” and she answered: “No. Great St. Jim will pay $180,000, withdraw the appeal and DPNR will process the permit.” He replied that he was “happy to come see you this week if that is convenient,” and she said she would have a meeting set for the Wednesday.14 The thread’s own clock stamps do not order the messages consistently within a day and no time of day is asserted here.

A search of the released files under Dawn Henry, Fort Christian and the $180,000 figure did not turn up whether that meeting took place or whether $180,000 was paid. It did turn up an exchange five weeks later, still between the two of them directly: on the morning of April 18, 2017 Epstein wrote to the Commissioner, “should we have another call? have received nothing from you yet. can i put some money in escrow in order to begin the new permit app?”, and that same morning she answered, “I will have a document for your review by the COB on Thursday. We were able to work out a SEP for Fort Christian because it is located in Tier 1.”36 That is where the supplemental environmental project comes from, and it sits ten weeks before the consent agreement that closed the matter.

The Supplemental Consent Agreement in the matter of NOVA-04-16-STT resolves the notice of violation, the 2016 settlement agreement, the notice to cure and the notice of failure to cure together. Its executed copy is signed by the Director of Coastal Zone Management, signed for Great St. Jim, LLC by Epstein as president of its sole member, and “SO ORDERED THIS 28 DAY OF June 2017” over the Commissioner’s signature.8 Under it the company agreed to fund, “In Lieu of Stipulated Penalties,” a supplemental environmental project of not less than $160,000, construction of the raveling wall at Fort Christian on St. Thomas, paying that sum to the Department’s Reclamation Fund within five business days of receiving the executed agreement, with the Department’s State Historic Preservation Office managing the work.8 In exchange the Department released the company on compliance, covenanted not to sue on the matters listed, and reserved rights as to future violations and unknown natural-resource damage. A no-admission clause provides that neither the agreement nor the consideration for it is to be construed as an admission of liability or of any violation.8

The release holds more than a dozen unexecuted copies of this agreement, several of them redlines, and one further copy signed by the Director of Coastal Zone Management alone, with Epstein’s line and the Commissioner’s line both blank, physical evidence of the sequence below.37 Their terms are not all the same: one draft recites the $160,000 as a grant by Gratitude America, Ltd. to the St. Thomas Historical Trust for the same project, where the executed instrument has the money paid to the Department’s Reclamation Fund and managed by the Department.388 The executed version governs.

Two transmittal letters to the St. Thomas Historical Trust were prepared, unsigned. Two cheques were separately returned by the Department’s own counsel. A cheque made out to the Department itself was then paid, receipted and stamped received. One of the office emails quoted below carries transmission damage in the print itself; where a character is lost, it is supplied in brackets. The Commissioner had required the payment as it was eventually made: on June 22, 2017 an assistant in Epstein’s office relayed that “JP signed the Agreement” and that the Commissioner asked, before she would sign, that Epstein initial each page, sign in the appropriate section, “and the check should be made out to DPNR, for dep[o]sit into the Reclamation Fund.”39 Two days after the consent agreement was so ordered, an unsigned letter dated June 30, 2017 on the letterhead of Enhanced Education at Epstein’s St. Thomas address, marked for delivery by hand to the St. Thomas Historical Trust and headed “Construction of Fort Christian Raveling Wall,” reads: “Enclosed please find a check in the amount of $160,000 for the construction of a raveling wall at Fort Christian.” A second unsigned letter, dated July 3 and without that heading, encloses a cheque for the same sum. Neither carries a signature above Epstein’s typed name.4041 On July 11 Epstein instructed his office to “Send s check made out to dpnr”; the next day an assistant reported that “The check was delivered to Attorney Norman. She returned the 2 previous checks.”42 A cheque numbered 2631, drawn by Enhanced Education on its St. Thomas bank account, dated July 11, 2017 and payable to DPNR for $160,000, is in the release, signed by hand and printed on one sheet beside the Government of the U.S. Virgin Islands’ own payment receipt applying that sum against the notice of violation on July 12, 2017 and a Division of Coastal Zone Management stamp reading RECEIVED JUL 12 2017.43 A search of the released files under DPNR and “160,000” returns the cheque, the receipt and this correspondence in a dozen rows; the same search under “180,000” with DPNR and Coastal Zone returns none of the $180,000 the Commissioner had proposed in March.

Enforcement again, 2019

The Division issued a further cease and desist order, C&D-01-19-STT, on January 14, 2019, and by that month was meeting Epstein’s representatives about it.1113 Correspondence from his counsel, Erika Kellerhals, of February 13 and March 25, 2019 answers photographs taken by enforcement officers who, Kellerhals says, “entered upon the island unannounced and proceeded to traverse the entire island, particularly near and around the island’s residences, without permission,” and identifies what the photographs show: construction of a tiki bar and deck on the main beach below the residence, and repairs to the existing caretaker’s cottage together with additional living space beside it.1344 Kellerhals disputes the Department’s position that the company’s outstanding applications, two minor permits submitted on July 14, 2017,13 and a modification to permit CZT-05-17L, had been withdrawn for inactivity, and disputes the Department’s authority to search parcels other than the one carrying an active permit, writing that “your activity on any parcel other than Parcel C was clearly unauthorized.”44 These are her characterisations on the company’s behalf.

The Department answered twice. On January 28, 2019 it wrote to counsel that the cease and desist notice had been issued to Great St. Jim, LLC on January 14, 2019, and rejected the exigent-circumstances argument, stating that “a party cannot unilaterally decide what constitutes an exigent circumstance that exempts the permit requirement.”11 On March 12, 2019 it set out the permit history for two minor permits, CZT-28-17L and CZT-29-17L, both filed July 25, 2017, eleven days later than the July 14, 2017 date counsel’s own letter gives for the same submissions, with a deficiency letter for each in August 2017 and revised applications filed February 12, 2018, eighty-three days outside the ninety-day period allowed. It concluded that the applications had not been approved by operation of law and that “Cease &Desist Order No. C&D-01-19-STT is still in effect until the proper CZM and building permits” are applied for and issued.12 Kellerhals’s March 25, 2019 letter is the last thing on C&D-01-19-STT that the released files hold; nothing later on that order number is in the release.44

Litigation against the seller

Great St. Jim, LLC brought two Superior Court actions against Christian Kjaer, and the first of them preceded the purchase. A notice of lis pendens recorded on November 6, 2015, eleven days after the company was formed and more than two months before the deeds, gives notice of an action for breach of contract by Great St. Jim, LLC against Kjaer and GSJ Properties Corp., Civil No. 592/2015.45 Two weeks later Kjaer’s counsel wrote to Epstein’s counsel to confirm that the parties to that action intended “to engage in negotiations with the objective of determining if mutually agreeable terms for a sale of Great St James Island can be reached,” that those negotiations would be treated as settlement negotiations in the litigation and be inadmissible under Rule 408, and that this mattered “as they have contrary positions on whether any contract of sale currently exists.”46 The first of the two deeds was made two months later. The acceptance block on the copy of that letter in the release is blank.46

The second action, Civil No. ST-18-CV-293, was brought against Kjaer in personam and against Parcel 11, Estate Nazareth in rem, and sought enforcement of an alleged historical restrictive covenant burdening that mainland parcel, together with injunctive relief, private nuisance, diminution of value, unjust enrichment and an accounting. Kjaer moved to dismiss the amended complaint, arguing that the covenant does not appear in the 1979 deed by which the family took title, that any claim is time-barred, and that a court cannot take an in rem action against land whose title is not in question; he also answered without prejudice to that motion.1647 Great St. Jim opposed both his motion to dismiss and, later, his motion to dismiss the first amended complaint.48 The release holds a proposed order attached to that later motion: it would grant the motion, dismiss the first amended complaint with prejudice, and direct Great St. Jim to remove a lis pendens it had recorded against Parcel 11 on July 24, 2018. Its date line is blank, no judge has signed above the printed name, and the clerk’s attest line is empty.49 A search of the released files under “ST-18-CV-293,” “Great St. Jim” with “Superior Court,” and “592/2015” returned the pleadings, the motion, the answer, both oppositions and this unsigned proposed order, and no signed order or judgment in either action.

The Virgin Islands action

The Government of the Virgin Islands named Great St. Jim, LLC as one of nine Epstein companies sued alongside the estate, the 1953 Trust and its co-executors in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands. Its Second Amended Complaint, dated February 10, 2021 in case ST-20-CV-14, pleads at paragraph 29 that “Upon information and belief, Epstein purchased these Great St. James properties—the island with closest proximity to Little St. James—to further shield his conduct on Little St. James from view, prevent his detection by law enforcement or the public, and allow him to continue and conceal his criminal enterprise,” and that his “significant investment in the purchase of Great St. James demonstrates his intent to expand his illegal operation in the Virgin Islands for years to come.”6 That is a pleading and not a finding. The action was resolved by settlement announced on December 1, 2022 and was never tried, so none of it was tested at a hearing.15 The territorial Department of Justice’s own announcement of the settlement records a term specific to this island: the estate “agreed to pay $450,000 to remediate environmental damage around Great St. James, another Epstein-owned island, where the Government found that Epstein razed the remains of centuries’-old historical structures of enslaved workers to make room for his development.”15 The same announcement records that the estate would sell both islands “to independent third parties.”50 The settlement and the later sale are set out on the Little St. James page. A search of the released files under “Indyke,” “Kahn,” “Great St. Jim” and “answer” returned no answer to the complaint and no statement by either co-executor responding to the allegation about this island.

The structures referred to are those of the Great St. James historic village. A revised management summary of a phase II archaeological testing and evaluation of that site, dated February 1, 2007 and prepared for the island’s then owners, is in the release among the papers Epstein’s side collected; it recommends that “the village structures be avoided and preserved in situ.”51 It is a document about the island before Epstein bought it.

Little St. James; Darren Indyke; Richard Kahn; Gratitude America; Nautilus, Inc.; LSJE, LLC; HBRK Associates.

Footnotes

  1. Warranty deed, Christian Kjaer to Great St. Jim, LLC, made the 18th day of January 2016, recorded January 28, 2016 as Doc. No. 2016000575, Office of the Recorder of Deeds, St. Thomas and St. John. Filed as a defendant’s exhibit in the Superior Court action against Kjaer. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00805272 p.16. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10

  2. Warranty deed, GSJ Properties Corp. to Great St. Jim, LLC, made the 21st day of January 2016, recorded January 28, 2016 as Doc. No. 2016000576. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00805272 p.21. A separate copy of the same deed, with the Lieutenant Governor’s cadastral attestation of January 21, 2016, is at https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00014367 pp.1–3. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

  3. “Phase I Environmental Assessment Report, Great St. James, U.S. Virgin Islands,” BioImpact, Inc., January 2016, prepared for Erika Kellerhals of Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC. The opinion and conclusions are on p.13. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00596974 pp.1, 13. The conclusions section carries the report’s own typographical error and is paraphrased rather than quoted. ↩ ↩2

  4. “Great St. James – U.S. Virgin Islands, Project Feasibility Report,” Montegan A&D Inc., April 2016. Area calculation and tax parcel numbers at p.3; the recommendation section at p.9; the description of the island as bought at p.10; “The Project” at p.11. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01183184 pp.3, 9–11. The report’s introductory narrative reproduces newspaper accounts of the island’s earlier development history and is not relied on here for what any agency decided. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  5. Federal Bureau of Investigation, electronic communication, “Two Deeds for Great St James Island purchased by GREAT ST JIM LLC in January 2016,” case 50D-NY-3027571-FF, serial 12, enclosing both deeds obtained from the U.S. Virgin Islands Recorder of Deeds database. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01227326 p.1. The covering email transmitting the deeds and a subpoena rider, dated August 16, 2019, is at https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00014361 p.1; its sender is redacted. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  6. Government of the Virgin Islands v. Indyke, Kahn, the Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein and others, Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, Case No. ST-20-CV-14, Second Amended Complaint dated February 10, 2021. The copy in the release is filed as Government Exhibit 1 in ST-2021-RV-00005 and its own folio runs one behind the run page. Paragraphs 28 and 29 are at https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02821864 p.7 (complaint folio 6); the caption is at p.2. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  7. Settlement Agreement between the Government of the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources and Great St. Jim, LLC, NOVA-04-16-STT. Recitals of the April 2016 inspection, the cease and desist order and the notice of violation are at pp.1–2; the $70,000 penalty and the corrective-action and reversion clauses at pp.3–4; the executed signature page, dated July 22, August 1 and August 4, 2016, at p.8. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01733902 pp.1–4, 8. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10

  8. Supplemental Consent Agreement, NOVA-04-16-STT. Recitals of the notice to cure, the notice of failure to cure and the $210,000 balance at p.2; the $160,000 supplemental environmental project, the escrow requirement and departmental management at p.3; release, covenant not to sue and reservations at pp.4–5; no-admission clause at p.6; executed signature page, “SO ORDERED THIS 28 DAY OF June 2017,” at p.7. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00592701 pp.2–7. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

  9. Letter over the name of Darren K. Indyke to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, Sex Offender Registry, dated March 31, 2016. Both pages of the copy cited are unsigned and undated at the signature and confirmation blocks. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00589080 pp.1–2. Nothing else in that production is cited here. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  10. Cease and Desist Order No. C&D-01-16-STT, Department of Planning and Natural Resources, Division of Coastal Zone Management, dated April 18, 2016, posted 12:30 p.m., naming Great St. Jim, LLC at Great St. James Cay. The copy in the release is a photograph of the form, the order number handwritten as C&D-01-16-STT; the settlement agreement’s own recital of the same order calls it C&D-01-STT, and neither form is preferred over the other. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01182817 p.1. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  11. Letter from the Division of Coastal Zone Management to counsel for Great St. Jim, LLC, January 28, 2019, responding to counsel’s letter of January 18, 2019. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00808736 p.1. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  12. Letter from the Division of Coastal Zone Management to counsel for Great St. Jim, LLC, March 12, 2019, responding to counsel’s letter of February 13, 2019. The permit history is at pp.1–2; the operation-of-law analysis and the disposition are at p.3; the letter is signed at p.4. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00808732 pp.1–4. ↩ ↩2

  13. Letter from counsel for Great St. Jim, LLC to counsel for the Division of Coastal Zone Management, February 13, 2019 (“Via Electronic Mail”), signed at p.4 by Erika Kellerhals, re Cease & Desist Order No. C&D-01-19-STT. Draft versions of the same letter dated February 7, 2019, one of them a tracked-changes redline, are unsigned. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00794163 pp.1, 4. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  14. Email thread between Jeffrey Epstein and Dawn L. Henry, Commissioner of the Department of Planning and Natural Resources, March 9 to 19, 2017. The March 18 and 19 messages are at p.1, the March 12 and 17 messages at p.2, and the opening March 9 messages at p.3; all email addresses are redacted. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02656171 pp.1–3. A clean four-page copy of the same thread, carrying every quotation above verbatim, is at https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01051904. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  15. United States Virgin Islands Department of Justice, press release, “U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Settles Sex Trafficking Case Against Estate Of Jeffrey Epstein And Co-Defendants For Over $105 Million,” December 1, 2022, filed as Exhibit 5 in No. 1:22-cv-10904-JSR, Doc. 61-5, February 28, 2023. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02806313 pp.2–3. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  16. Motion to dismiss the first amended complaint in Great St. Jim, LLC v. Christian Kjaer in personam and Parcel 11, Estate Nazareth in rem, Civil No. ST-18-CV-293. Chain of title at p.3, the in rem argument at p.4 and the limitation argument at p.5. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00805272 pp.1, 3–5. ↩ ↩2

  17. Addie, Perez and Taylor v. Kjaer, Bundgaard, Bundgaard, Furst, Furst, Furst and D’Amour, District Court of the Virgin Islands, Division of St. Thomas and St. John, Civil No. 2004-135, Judgment, marked “FOR PUBLICATION.” Procedural history and jury verdicts at pp.2–3; the ordering paragraphs at pp.15–16. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00727606 pp.1–3, 15–16. ↩

  18. Memorandum, “Analysis of Purchase & Sale Agreement for Great St. James,” January 3, 2016. No page of the four-page document carries a From field, To field, addressee or signature. The recital of the property description and the reference to the 2004 attempted conveyance are on p.1. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00584405 p.1. ↩

  19. Minor water permit application for the Great St. James dock, prepared by William M. Karr & Associates, Inc. for Great St. James Properties, with a Development Permit Application form numbered CZT-1-06W. The application headings print the word renewal two ways and neither is quoted here. The form is at p.1, the application headings and dock photographs at pp.16, 19–20, and BioImpact, Inc. site analyses of February and March 2005 at pp.21 and 25. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01082409 pp.1, 16, 19–21, 25. ↩ ↩2

  20. Agreement for Sale and Purchase, dated “January ____, 2010,” between Jeffrey Epstein as buyer and Christian Kjaer and five others as sellers. Property description and the blank date at p.1; the $12,000,000 price and the acceptance clause at p.2; the execution block, on which every line is blank, at pp.8–10; Exhibit A’s legal description at p.11. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00728523 pp.1–2, 8–11. ↩

  21. New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, Sex Offender Details Page for Jeffrey Epstein, printed from the registry’s public directory on June 27, 2019. The address entry is on p.3, and nothing else on the printout is cited here. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00014421 p.3. ↩

  22. Studio Arthur Casas, “Phase 1 proposal for architectural design services for the Great St. James Island residence,” March 4, 2016. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00287241 pp.1–2. ↩

  23. Email summarising a telephone conversation about the island’s data network, February 4, 2016, forwarded to Epstein by Richard Kahn the same evening. The message carries transmission damage in the print and is quoted only where the print is undamaged. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02473564 p.1. A longer copy of the same exchange, naming Choice Wireless, LLC and its Solutions Delivery Manager, is at https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02472783 p.5. ↩

  24. Email, “GSJ Solar Fwd: Great St. James,” March 5, 2016, forwarding a contractor’s quotation for maintenance of the existing solar plant and an expanded fifty-panel array. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01184898 p.1. ↩

  25. Email forwarding a land-surveying firm’s survey proposal, budget and rates for Great St. James, February 4, 2016. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00710895 p.1. ↩

  26. Email from the president of Brian Moseley & Associates, Inc. forwarding drawings for Great St. James, June 15, 2018, with the caveat about 1970s aerial contours. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00476422 p.1. The request that prompted it, sent from The Saint James Group the same afternoon, is at https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02249675 p.1. ↩

  27. Jaredian Design Group, drawing set for Great St. James Cay: residential cottage, tennis court, storage building and landscaping, Parcel Remainder C-1. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00802589 p.1. ↩

  28. Jaredian Design Group, drawing set for Great St. James Cay: residential cottage, spa and gym, landscaping, pool and storage buildings, Parcel Remainder A, dated July 30, 2017. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00599246 p.1. An undated set of the same title is at https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00802896 p.1. ↩

  29. Proposal from JPK Development, Virgin Islands, to Jeffrey Epstein, August 21, 2018, for grading, a concrete pad and two shelters on Great St. James, totalling $420,555.35. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00804258 pp.1–2. No number printed on the letterhead is reproduced here. ↩

  30. “Great St. James Maintenance Building Architectural Programming,” Boschulte Architecture, LLC, February 15, 2019, updated February 23, 2019. Project and owner details and the statement of function are on p.2. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00794207 pp.1–2. ↩

  31. “Environmental Assessment for the Construction of Two Docks and a Barge Landing on Great St. James Island, U.S. Virgin Islands,” prepared for Great St. Jim, LLC by Bioimpact, Inc., revised January 2018. The existing dock’s permitting history is at p.6; the removal of the southern emergency ramp and wetland fill, and the request to keep the Christmas Cove ramp, are at pp.6–7. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00802723 pp.6–7. ↩

  32. Great St. Jim, LLC v. ProSolar Systems, LLC, complaint for breach of contract and fraud, Superior Court of the Virgin Islands. The case number is blank on this copy. Allegations about the system, its price and its failure are at p.2. The signature page reads “DATED: February____, 2019,” the day left blank, above an unsigned line. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00807552 pp.1–2, 5. ↩

  33. Answer of ProSolar Systems, LLC in Great St. Jim, LLC and LSJE, LLC v. ProSolar Systems, LLC, Civil No. ST-2019-CV-057. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00798007 p.1. ↩

  34. “On January 17, 2017, GSJ appealed the Notice of Failure to the Board of Land Use Appeals.” Footnote 1 of the prepared complaint above. The copy cited carries tracked changes elsewhere on the same page; the quoted sentence itself is not among the redline’s edits. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00583158 p.15. ↩

  35. Great St. Jim, LLC v. Department of Planning and Natural Resources and Dawn Henry, prepared complaint for the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, dated March 8, 2017. The civil number is blank throughout and the signature line above counsel’s names on the final page is empty. Allegations about the October 28, 2016 entry are at pp.3–5 and the cure sequence at pp.5–9; the signature page is p.14. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00583141 pp.3–9, 14. A clean duplicate is at https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00583127. Two further copies carry tracked changes; one of them, https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00583185, redlines the date to March 12, 2017. Plaintiff’s Rule 26 Initial Disclosures in the same, never-numbered action are at https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00583155. ↩ ↩2

  36. Email exchange between Jeffrey Epstein and Dawn L. Henry, April 18, 2017: his 6:05 a.m. message and her reply the same morning. The reply’s header is timestamped in UTC (13:57); a sibling copy quoting the same message renders it in local time, 9:57 a.m. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01049089 p.1. That sibling copy, carrying Epstein’s further reply, is at https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01049091 p.1. ↩

  37. A copy of the Supplemental Consent Agreement signed by Jean-Pierre L. Oriol, Director of Coastal Zone Management, alone; Epstein’s signature line and the Commissioner’s signature line are both blank, as is the “SO ORDERED THIS ___ DAY OF ___ 2017” line. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00805562 p.7. ↩

  38. An unexecuted draft of the same agreement whose recitals attribute the $160,000 to a grant by Gratitude America, Ltd. to the St. Thomas Historical Trust for the Fort Christian project. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00299482 pp.2–3. ↩

  39. Email from an assistant in Epstein’s office relaying the Commissioner’s conditions for signing the Supplemental Consent Agreement, June 22, 2017. The message carries transmission damage in the print; the supplied character is bracketed. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02645058 p.1. ↩

  40. Letter on Enhanced Education letterhead to the St. Thomas Historical Trust, June 30, 2017, “Construction of Fort Christian Raveling Wall.” The signature space above Epstein’s typed name is blank. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00583474 p.1. ↩

  41. Letter on Enhanced Education letterhead to the St. Thomas Historical Trust, July 3, 2017, enclosing a cheque for $160,000 without naming a project. The signature space above Epstein’s typed name is blank. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00584695 p.1. ↩

  42. Email thread between Jeffrey Epstein and an assistant in his office, July 11–12, 2017, on delivering the cheque to DPNR through the Department’s counsel, Attorney Norman. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01040679 pp.1–2. ↩

  43. Cheque no. 2631, drawn by Enhanced Education on FirstBank, St. Thomas, dated July 11, 2017, payable to DPNR for $160,000 and signed by hand, printed on one sheet with a Government of the U.S. Virgin Islands Miscellaneous Payment receipt (Recpt. #3659941, July 12, 2017) and a Division of Coastal Zone Management RECEIVED stamp of July 12, 2017. The receipt’s own comment line reads “CHG: 49NVI1 NOTICE OF VIOAL” and its reference line “VIOLATION”; it does not print the notice of violation’s docket number, NOVA-04-16-STT, given elsewhere on this page. The bank’s routing and account numbers printed on the cheque are not reproduced here. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00615501 p.1. ↩

  44. Letter from counsel for Great St. Jim LLC to counsel for the Division of Coastal Zone Management, March 25, 2019, signed at p.2 by Erika Kellerhals, re Cease & Desist Order No. C&D-01-19-STT. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00794186 pp.1–2. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  45. Notice of lis pendens in Great St. Jim, LLC v. Christian Kjaer and GSJ Properties, Corp., Civil No. 592/2015, Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, recorded November 6, 2015 in the official records of St. Thomas and St. John. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00601152 p.1. ↩

  46. Letter from counsel for Christian Kjaer and GSJ Properties, Corp. to counsel for Great St. Jim, LLC, November 20, 2015, re Great St. Jim, LLC v. Christian Kjaer and GSJ Properties, Corp., Civil No. 592/2015. The “Accepted” and “Dated” lines on p.2 are blank. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01069234 pp.1–2. ↩ ↩2

  47. Answer and affirmative defences of the defendants in Civil No. ST-18-CV-293, filed without prejudice to the pending motion to dismiss. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00798032 p.1. ↩

  48. Great St. Jim, LLC’s Opposition to Motion to Dismiss, https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00807004 p.1, and its Opposition to Motion to Dismiss First Amended Complaint, https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00807018 p.1, both in Civil No. ST-18-CV-293. ↩

  49. Proposed order in Civil No. ST-18-CV-293, filed as the final page of the motion to dismiss the first amended complaint. The date line, the signature line above Judge Denise M. Francois’s printed name, and the clerk’s attest line are all blank; no file stamp appears on the sheet. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00805272 p.56. ↩

  50. Same press release, terms as to the sale of the islands. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02806313 p.4. ↩

  51. “Revised Management Summary for Phase II Archaeological Testing and Evaluation Performed for Great St. James Historic Village Site,” Soltec International Inc., February 1, 2007, prepared for the island’s then owners. The copy in the release is a photograph of the bound report; the recommendation quoted is in section 8.0 at p.15. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00595330 pp.1, 15. ↩

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