Jeffrey Epstein’s executors accused of hiding $13 million
The two executors of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate – both longtime advisers to the deceased financier – could receive millions of dollars in payouts long after his death, authorities in the US Virgin Islands said in a legal filing on Friday.
The payments to executors Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn are linked to the Butterfly Trust, an investment vehicle Mr Epstein set up in 2013, according to the filing filed by lawyers for Denise George, attorney general of the US Virgin Islands.
The filing by authorities in the Virgin Islands has raised questions about the transfer of millions of dollars from a trust originally created by Mr Epstein to multiple trusts that would benefit executors.
The money transfer came nearly a year after Mr Epstein killed himself in his Manhattan jail cell and after Ms George’s office sued Mr Epstein’s estate.
The butterfly trust originally received a wire transfer of $13 million in April 2020 after the liquidation of another investment fund in which Mr. Epstein had a stake, according to the filing. Some of that money was again transferred several months later to three newly created entities – two of which named Mr. Indyke, Mr. Kahn and their wives as beneficiaries, according to the filing.
Ms George and her lawyers have asked a judge in the Virgin Islands to order the estate to submit to discovery requests to ensure that other estate assets were not transferred to ‘enrich’ the executors.
“The government has discovered that substantial undisclosed government funds were transferred for the benefit of the co-executors in an apparent effort to enrich themselves and protect these assets from recovery,” the filing said.
The filing says the executors also failed to disclose several million dollars in loans they received from Mr. Epstein.
Mr. Indyke was Mr. Epstein’s personal attorney and Mr. Kahn was an in-house accountant. Daniel Weiner, an estate attorney, said the executors “categorically deny the baseless allegations of wrongdoing made against them” and said they never received $13 million.
He added: ‘The 2013 Butterfly Trust referred to in today’s filing by Ms George has nothing to do with Mr Epstein’s estate or the funds available to him.’
The US Virgin Islands sued Mr Epstein’s estate in January 2020 in a bid to recover at least $80 million in tax benefits that local authorities say his company Southern Trust received through deception and fraud. Ms George argued that the US territory had been tricked into granting lucrative tax benefits that allowed Mr Epstein to use his private residence on an island there as a venue to sexually abuse teenage girls and young women.
The Butterfly Trust had been used by Mr Epstein to make payments to some of the people who helped him recruit and groom teenage girls for abuse, according to New York banking regulators.
Mr. Epstein’s estate, valued at around $600 million at the time of his death, is now worth less than $185 million after paying $121 million in settlements to more than 135 victims and nearly $200 million in federal taxes.
