Jeffrey Epstein's Caribbean Islands Up For Sale
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Update June 2022: As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey Epstein's two private islands in the Caribbean—Great St. James and the infamous Little St. James, which was known to locals as Pedophile Island—went up for sale in March for a combined price tag of $125 million. After a few months on the market, the U.S. Virgin Islands are now for sale separately, at reduced prices of $55 million each (the two can still be purchased as a pair for $110 million). As with Epstein's other properties—his Upper East Side townhouse, which sold for $51 million in March 2021, and his Palm Beach home, which sold for $18.5 million and was torn down—money from the sale of the islands will go to settling outstanding lawsuits against the late disgraced financier, who killed himself in 2019. In light of this recent real estate news, we're resurfacing this story about Epstein's properties, which ran before he died. The original article was published in July 2019.
After an FBI raid in July, sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's creepy Upper East Side mansion (one of Manhattan's largest and most expensive) has been exposed as the prime location where he allegedly abused girls and women. But in addition to this townhouse (which he seems to have acquired through mysterious means), Epstein has a considerable real estate portfolio around the world, from a ranch in New Mexico to two private islands in the Caribbean.
As the New York Times reported last week, his multiple homes allowed the financier to avoid registering as a sex offender in all but two states: Florida, where he served a 13-month sentence in 2008 for prostitution-related charges, and New York, where he apparently did not check in regularly with authorities, as is usually required, because he changed his official residence to the Virgin Islands.
Epstein's real estate holdings are also why prosecutors argued that he should not be released on bail (the raid uncovered a fake passport and piles of cash)—they argue he's a flight risk with multiple places to hide out. Here is everything we know about Epstein's properties:
9 East 71st Street, New York
Records show that the title for this Beaux Arts mansion was transferred to Epstein from his sometime mentor and client Les Wexner in 1996 for $0. The exact reasoning behind this generous gift is a mystery but various reports throughout the years have painted a picture of what the home was like on the inside. Among the weird details of this 40-room house: a massive mural of a prison yard, a massage table with sex toys and lubricant, a life-size female doll hanging from a chandelier, a sculpture of a naked African warrior, a room covered in leather, and a stuffed black poodle perched on a grand piano, along with the nude photographs that the FBI apparently turned up in a safe.
Zorro Ranch, New Mexico
Epstein purchased the 7,500-acre property in Stanley, New Mexico, from the family of the state's former governor Bruce King, expanded it to 10,000 acres, and named it Zorro Ranch. In addition to the 26,700 square-foot house, there is an airplane hangar and landing strip. In April, a woman named Maria Farmer filed an affidavit as part of ongoing defamation litigation between one of Epstein's alleged victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, and Epstein's one-time lawyer Alan Dershowitz, claiming Epstein had flown her sister, then 15, to his New Mexico ranch and touched her inappropriately on a massage table with his alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell. Giuffre also said that she was abused at the ranch by Epstein. Last week, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported that State Attorney General Hector Balderas had opened an investigation into whether Epstein had committed sex crimes at the ranch.
Little St. James Island, US Virgin Islands
Though Epstein referred to his 72-acre private island as Little St. Jeff, locals apparently had another name: Pedophile Island. In a civil suit filed against Maxwell in 2015 (which later settled), Roberts Giuffre claims she was forced to participate in orgies there. According to Bloomberg, Epstein visited the property (which was designed by Ed Tuttle, one of the three designer/architects best known for their work for the elite Aman Resorts) two to three times a month during the early and mid 2000s and he often hosted powerful people there like Prince Andrew, who flew in on Epstein's private jet. In 2016, Epstein bought another 165-acre island nearby, Great St. James, for $18 million. He had reportedly planned to build a complex of buildings there that include an amphitheater and an “underwater office & pool,” the Virgin Islands Daily News reports. Last December, a stop work order was issued after US Virgin Islands authorities found that Epstein was doing unauthorized construction.
358 El Brillo Way, Palm Beach
Epstein paid $2.5 million for this Palm Beach house back in 1990. According to the Daily Beast, the search of this property that led to Epstein's 2008 indictment on prostitution charges offered details into yet another creepy crib: framed nude photos, massage tables, a wide variety of toys, bathroom soap shaped like genitalia, a fully equipped dentist's chair in one bathroom, and a photo of Epstein with a pope hanging next to one of him with a young girl (interestingly, a publicist told Epstein a meeting with Pope Francis was one way to rehabilitate his image).
Avenue Foch, Paris
Very little is known about Epstein's Paris apartment. It is reportedly somewhere on Avenue Foch in the city's tony 16th arrondissement. Epstein was traveling back on his jet from Paris when he was arrested at Teterboro Airport earlier this month.
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