Epstein Data Wiki

Estate of Jeffrey Epstein

Properties2
tagstopic, probate, virgin-islands, epstein-estate
aliasesEpstein estate, Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein

14 min read

MatterIn the Matter of the Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein, Deceased, Probate No. ST-19-PB-80, Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, Division of St. Thomas and St. John1
WillSigned at New York on August 8, 2019; admitted to probate by order of September 6, 201921
ExecutorsDarren K. Indyke and Richard D. Kahn, appointed by the same order; Boris Nikolic named in the will as successor executor31
ResidueTo the then acting trustees of The 1953 Trust, under a trust agreement of the same date as the will3
Executors’ compensation under the will$250,000 to each on completion of probate, and no other compensation3
Value in the probate petition$577,672,654 of property within the Virgin Islands jurisdiction, on pre-appraisal figures45
Value in the first quarterly accountingTotal assets of $628,330,500 at August 10, 2019 and $634,797,047 at December 31, 2019, on pre-appraisal figures; real property none; superseded four weeks later by the verified inventory below6
Value in the verified inventory$636,132,058 at December 31, 2019 — $1,335,011 more than the first quarterly accounting gave for the same date, which the inventory’s own footnote attributes to value increases in two entities (one of them from euros having been carried as dollars in the accounting) and the addition of one more entity7
Liabilities recorded in that accountingCivil litigation claims, amount unknown; gift, estate and income tax liabilities, to be determined8

Jeffrey Epstein died on August 10, 2019 and his estate was administered in probate in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, where he was domiciled.41 This page is about the estate as a matter in that court: the will, the executors’ appointment, and what the estate itself told the court it held and owed. The men who administered it are the subject of Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn; the compensation programme the estate funded is the subject of the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program, which is this wiki’s account of that programme and of its terms and figures; the Virgin Islands government’s action against the estate and its settlement are covered at Little Saint James; and the properties and companies are covered on their own pages.

The will

The instrument admitted to probate is an eleven-page will opening “I, JEFFREY E. EPSTEIN, a resident and domiciliary of St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands, do make, publish and declare this to be my Will hereby revoking all prior Wills and Codicils made by me.”3 It directs the executor to pay from the estate the expenses of the last illness, the funeral and burial, the administration of the estate and all duly proven debts; fixes the compensation of each executor at “the sum of Two Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars ($250,000) to each Executor upon the completion of probate of my estate”, with no other compensation and with reimbursement of costs and counsel’s fees; and gives all the rest of the property, real and personal, “to the then acting Trustees of The 1953 Trust (‘Trust’) created under that certain Trust Agreement of The 1953 Trust (the ‘Trust Agreement’) dated August 8, 2019, as the same may be amended from time to time”.3 It appoints Darren K. Indyke and Richard D. Kahn as executors and Boris Nikolic as successor executor if either fails to qualify, is unable or unwilling to serve, or ceases to act.3

The will was executed. Its final article closes “IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have duly executed this Will this 8th day of August, 2019” over Epstein’s signature and printed name, and the attestation page that follows carries the signatures of two witnesses who declare that the instrument “consisting of eleven (11) pages, was signed in our presence by Jeffrey E. Epstein and was declared by him to be his last Will”, at New York.29 Two earlier wills of 2017 and 2019 are in the released records and are described at Richard Kahn; neither was the instrument admitted to probate.

The petition, and what the estate first told the court it held

The executors petitioned the Superior Court for probate and for letters testamentary through Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC, stating that Epstein “died testate on August 10, 2019 in New York, New York, and was domiciled in and a resident of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands at the time of his death”, that he “left certain assets in trust”, and that he “died possessed of certain property within the Territory of the U.S. Virgin Islands and within the jurisdiction of the Court as herein described”.4 The court’s file stamp runs vertically up the right margin of that page and reads 2019 AUG 19, the day digits partly overlaid by the printed text beneath them; estate counsel wrote three months later that the petition was “filed on August 19, 2019”.410 The probate number is blank on this copy of the petition; the order that followed carries ST-19-PB-80.41

The schedule that follows is headed PERSONAL PROPERTY and totals $577,672,654, entered twice, once as total personal property and once as total estate property.5 It runs: cash $56,547,773; fixed income investments $14,304,679; equities $112,679,138; aviation assets, automobiles and boats $18,551,700; fine arts, antiques, collectibles, valuables and other personal property, “TBD subject to appraisal/valuation”; hedge funds and private equity investments $194,986,301; and then six blocks of shares in companies holding real property, at $55,931,000 for Maple, Inc., $17,246,208 for Cypress, Inc., $12,380,209 for Laurel, Inc., $8,672,823 for 999 shares of SCI JEP, a French company, $22,498,600 for Poplar, Inc., and $63,874,223 for Nautilus, Inc.5 Each of the six blocks is described as shares in a company “which holds title to” a property, five of them Virgin Islands corporations and the sixth a French company, and the property is blacked out in each case except for Great St. James Island under Poplar and Little St. James Island under Nautilus.5 A footnote to the schedule states that the “Values are subject to appraisal and/or update to their date of death valuation, which will be confirmed in verified inventory to be filed with the Court.”5

The court admitted the will and directed that letters testamentary issue to Indyke and Kahn by an Order for Probate signed on the 6th day of September 2019 by Magistrate Judge Carolyn P. Hermon-Percell, reciting that the will “dated the 8th day of August 2019 having been duly proved in this Court, and there being no valid objection to the probate of the said Will”, and that the two men “may qualify hereunder without bond, conditioned on the faithful performance of trust”.1

What the estate said it was worth

Asked directly in the autumn of 2019 what the estate was worth, its counsel answered that the question could not be answered. Sigrid McCawley of Boies Schiller Flexner, acting for claimants, put two questions to the executors on November 22, 2019, and Bennet J. Moskowitz of Troutman Sanders replied on December 3.10 To “What is the total value of Epstein’s Estate?” the reply pointed to the petition’s figure and then said the total could not be calculated: the estate “is subject to substantial potential liabilities in an undetermined amount, which makes it impossible to accurately calculate the total value of the Estate”, among them estate taxes “in at least two jurisdictions, the United States and France”, the statement that “the United States Department of Justice has indicated that it may seek civil forfeiture of properties held by the Estate”, and seventeen lawsuits already lodged in New York state and federal courts, with the number and size of future claims unknown.10 “For these reasons,” the letter says, “it is simply not possible at present for the Co-Executors to state the total value of the Estate.”11 The letter is signed by Moskowitz and copied to fourteen lawyers.12 Its answer to the second question, about how much would be set aside for compensating victims, is part of the record of the compensation programme and is covered at the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program.

The first quarterly accounting

The executors filed a First Quarterly Accounting covering August 10 to December 31, 2019; each signed separately over a statement that he was “first duly sworn,” deposing that “TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE, THE FOREGOING ACCOUNT IS A FULL, COMPLETE AND TRUE STATEMENT OF MY ACTIVITIES AS CO-EXECUTOR” for the period and that he had received no assets except as set out in it; the signature page carries no jurat and no notarial block. The accounting was served on January 31, 2020 on counsel for claimants and on the Attorney General of the Virgin Islands.61314

Its summary page gives a different measure from the petition’s and a larger one. Real property is entered as “NONE”, at $0.00 on both dates.6 The assets are bank accounts, vehicles, artwork and collectibles, jewellery and watches, and a fifty per cent membership interest in IGY-AYH St. Thomas Holding LLC, three of those five marked “To Be Determined by Appraisal”, and then “Other Entities Owned by Decedent” at $618,702,907 as of August 10, 2019 and $627,145,208 as of December 31, 2019.6 Total assets are $628,330,500 and $634,797,047, under a note reading “Pre-appraisal estimated values subject to change.”6 That the estate held no real property directly is the counterpart of the petition’s share blocks: the houses and the islands sat inside the companies, and the companies are what the estate owned.

The schedule behind that line, Schedule B, “Statement of Entities Owned by Decedent”, lists twenty-six rows, one of which names two companies, each with a beneficial ownership percentage and a value at both dates.15 All but one are entered at 100 per cent; Prytanee LLC is entered at 50.15 The largest are:

EntityValue at Aug 10, 2019Value at Dec 31, 2019
Southern Trust Company, Inc.$236,766,444$233,611,964
Southern Financial LLC$163,302,008$176,961,338
Nautilus, Inc.$63,303,837$63,292,637
Maple, Inc.$56,331,414$56,257,200
Poplar, Inc. / Great St. Jim LLC$22,892,238$23,392,188
Plan D LLC$17,876,274$17,000,000
Cypress, Inc.$17,539,837$17,760,284
Laurel, Inc.$12,800,364$13,814,238

The schedule’s own notes qualify all of it: the values are “Estimated, pre-appraisal values of entities are exclusive of value of subsidiaries”, all are “pre-appraisal estimates which are subject to change”, and the totals “include total entity cash on hand of $80,845,172 as of August 10, 2019 and of $248,702,272 as of December 31, 2019.”15 The six companies named in the probate petition appear here at figures a little different from the petition’s for the same date, and both documents mark their figures as estimates awaiting appraisal.515

The verified inventory

The estate’s next filing gives a different, larger figure for the same date. On February 28, 2020, Darren K. Indyke verified an Inventory of the estate under oath, “that I have read the foregoing Inventory and that I know the same to be true and accurate to the best of my knowledge,” before a Florida notary; Kahn did not verify it.16 The Inventory gives TOTAL ESTATE PROPERTY of $636,132,058 as of December 31, 2019, which is $1,335,011 more than the $634,797,047 the First Quarterly Accounting gave for the same date.7 Its own footnote explains the difference: an increase in the value of Thomas World Air of $25,000.00, an increase in the value of SCI JEP of $954,011.00, a result of values in Euros being included in the First Quarterly Accounting rather than values in US Dollars, and the inclusion of Lyn and Jojo, LLC; the footnote states that these increases “will be reflected on the Amended First Quarterly Accounting to be submitted to the Court.”7

What the estate recorded owing

The same accounting reconciles the estate’s cash, from $9,441,394 on hand at August 10, 2019 to $7,598,838 at December 31, against $1,069,935 of income collected and expenditures of $2,207,975 in decreases, $86,372 in funeral and administration expenses and $618,144 in creditors’ claims paid.8 Under “LIABILITIES AND UNPAID CLAIMS” it enters $182,856 of creditors’ claims outstanding and then three lines with no figure at all: civil litigation claims, “Amount Unknown”; gift and estate tax liability, “Amounts to Be Determined”; and income tax liability, “Amount to Be Determined”.8 Those three lines are the estate’s own statement, four months after the executors were appointed, that it could not yet say what it owed, and they match what its counsel had told claimants’ lawyers seven weeks earlier.108

What became of those liabilities is covered elsewhere on this wiki rather than restated here. The suits against the estate and its executors, and the schedule listing them, are at Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn; the Government of the Virgin Islands’ civil action and the December 2022 settlement, and the sale of the islands that it required, are at Little Saint James; and the compensation programme the estate funded, with its protocol, its funding failure in 2021 and the figures its administrator published on closing, is at the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program.

Footnotes

  1. Order for Probate, In the Matter of the Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein, Probate No. ST-19-PB-80, Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, signed September 6, 2019, filed as an exhibit to the co-executors’ motion to dismiss in Ghislaine Maxwell v. Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein, Darren K. Indyke, Richard D. Kahn and NES, LLC, Civil No. ST-20-CV-155. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02821977 p.11. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  2. Same will, execution. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00027979 p.19 (will folio 9). ↩ ↩2

  3. Last Will and Testament of Jeffrey E. Epstein, attached to the same petition. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00027979 p.11 (will folio 1). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  4. Petition for Probate and for Letters Testamentary, In the Matter of the Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein, Deceased, Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, Division of St. Thomas and St. John. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00027979 p.1. The probate number is left blank on this copy. The court’s file stamp runs vertically up the right margin of the page and reads 2019 AUG 19; the day digits are partly overlaid by the printed text beneath them and the minute figure is not resolvable, so neither is relied on here beyond what estate counsel’s letter independently states. The instrument’s own file stamp and estate counsel’s letter (see below) both give August 19, 2019. Two later pleadings give a different date for the same act: the Government of the Virgin Islands’ Second Amended Complaint states that “Defendants Indyke and Kahn filed a Petition for Probate and Letters Testamentary” on August 15, 2019 (https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00161836 p.38 ¶11), while a separate complaint states that Epstein’s will “was filed” on August 15, 2019 and separately that Indyke and Kahn “also filed” the petition, without giving the petition a date of its own (https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00019101 p.5 ¶¶28–29). This page follows the instrument’s own stamp and does not resolve the disagreement. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  5. Same petition, personal property schedule. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00027979 p.2 (petition folio “Page 2 of 4”). The property held by four of the six corporations is blacked out on the page, and the units listed against the French company are not reproduced here. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  6. First Quarterly Accounting, Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein, Probate No. ST-19-PB-80, covering August 10 to December 31, 2019, summary of assets. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00082467 p.1. Only pp.1-5 and 7 of this run are cited here. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  7. Verified Inventory, Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein, Probate No. ST-19-PB-80, values stated as of December 31, 2019. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00076491 p.4. Footnote 30 on the same page states the reasons for the difference from the First Quarterly Accounting. A search of the corpus for phrase variants naming a later or amended accounting (an amended first quarterly accounting, a second quarterly accounting, a third quarterly accounting, an amended inventory) finds only this footnote’s own promise, plus one mention inside a probate hearing transcript in which counsel tells the court an amended accounting would be filed. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02821619 p.63. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  8. Same accounting, Reconciliation of Estate Cash on Hand. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00082467 p.2. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  9. Same will, attestation by the witnesses. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00027979 p.20 (will folio 10). Nothing else on the closing pages of this run is cited here. ↩

  10. Letter of Bennet J. Moskowitz, Troutman Sanders LLP, to Sigrid S. McCawley, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, December 3, 2019, “Re: Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein”. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00023230 p.1. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  11. Same letter. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00023230 p.2. ↩

  12. Same letter, signature and copy list. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00023230 p.3. ↩

  13. Same accounting, the co-executors’ statements over their signatures, each on his own line reciting that he was “BEING FIRST DULY SWORN”; the page carries no jurat and no notarial block. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00082467 p.3. ↩

  14. Same accounting, certificate of service dated January 31, 2020, naming counsel served by electronic mail and, on the following page, the Attorney General and the Chief of the Civil Division of the Virgin Islands Department of Justice served by post. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00082467 pp.4-5. The recipients’ addresses are blacked out. ↩

  15. Same accounting, Schedule B, Statement of Entities Owned by Decedent. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00082467 p.7. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  16. Same Inventory, Verification of Inventory. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00076491 p.6. Indyke verifies it alone, over a completed Florida notarial acknowledgment with seal and commission number; Kahn does not verify it. ↩

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