Jeffrey Epstein 'abused girls' in US Virgin Islands -
lawsuit
BBC, 15 January 2020
Financier
Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused girls as young as 12 on his private islands,
the US Virgin Islands prosecutor has claimed.
Epstein, who died in prison in August 2019
while awaiting trial for abuse dating back to 2005, is alleged to have
trafficked girls as recently as 2018.
The lawsuit against his estate says the girls
were "lured and recruited" to his Caribbean home and forced into sex.
This is the first lawsuit filed against
Epstein in the US Virgin Islands.
The suit seeks to seize part of his $577m
(£442m) fortune and his two private islands, Little Saint James and Great Saint
James.
The two islands are estimated to be worth
$86m.
"Epstein clearly used the Virgin Islands
and his residence in the US Virgin Islands at Little Saint James as a way to be
able to conceal and to be able to expand his activity here," US Virgin
Islands prosecutor Denise N George says in the suit.
"Epstein and his associated trafficked
underage girls to the Virgin Islands, held them captive, and sexually abused
them, causing them grave physical, mental and emotional injury."
Jeffrey Epstein was charged with sexually
abusing dozens of girls
As recently as July 2017, Epstein refused to
allow an official to enter his Little Saint James island for routine monitoring
of the registered sex offender, the lawsuit claims.
He is also accused of using fake visas to
traffic women and girls, several of them aspiring models, in and out of the
island territory and using a computerised database in order to track his
victims' movements on his island.
In one incident, the suit claims that a
15-year-old girl attempted to swim away from Epstein's island after she was
forced to engage in sex acts with Epstein and others.
In that case, she was captured and had her
passport confiscated by Epstein, the suit claims.
Epstein's legal permanent residence was
registered to the Virgin Islands. In the days before his suicide in jail, he
filed an updated version of his will to the US island territory.
Link originale: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51128037
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