About this episode
Six Jeffrey Epstein survivors, identified as Jane Does 1 through 6, filed a putative class-action lawsuit accusing the Government of the U.S. Virgin Islands and several current and former territorial officials of helping create a safe haven for Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation. The complaint alleged that Epstein brought women and girls to the Virgin Islands, where they were sexually abused and trafficked, while officials and political figures allegedly facilitated, ignored or benefited from the arrangement. The defendants included the USVI government, former First Lady Cecile de Jongh, former governors John de Jongh and Kenneth Mapp, former Attorney General Vincent Frazer, former senators Celestino White and Carlton Dowe, Delegate Stacey Plaskett and unnamed officials. The survivors alleged that Epstein cultivated powerful people in the territory through money, political support, favors and influence, while receiving extraordinary tax benefits, relaxed oversight and access that helped him continue operating from Little St. James and his other Virgin Islands interests. The lawsuit essentially turned the USVI government’s own public case against Epstein and his financial enablers back on the territory itself. The survivors argued that while the government later portrayed itself as an aggressive opponent of Epstein, officials had spent years allegedly failing to protect the women and girls being brought into the islands and, in some instances, actively assisting the environment in which Epstein operated. The plaintiffs accused the defendants of facilitating trafficking, accepting money or benefits tied to Epstein and failing to intervene despite circumstances they say should have made his conduct impossible to ignore. In March 2025, a federal judge dismissed the claims against the USVI government and most of the individual defendants on jurisdictional and other legal grounds, while allowing claims against Stacey Plaskett to proceed at that stage. The case nevertheless raised a much larger question at the center of the Epstein story: whether the territory that later collected more than $100 million from Epstein’s estate had itself failed the survivors while Epstein was still alive and operating openly in the islands to contact me: bobbycapucci@protonmail.com
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