A home coming from Jeffrey Epstein at East 71st street is seen on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on July 8, 2019 in New York
Kevin Hagen | Getty Images
A reported offer to offer sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein’s well-known New York City estate for about $50 million might thaw a settlement fund established for the late cash supervisor’s victims. The fund last month suspended making settlement uses to plaintiffs since of liquidity issues with his estate.
The Wall Street Journal’s report of the sales agreement for the 28,000-square-foot Upper East Side townhouse to an unknown purchaser comes 3 weeks prior to the due date for claims to be submitted with the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program.
Brad Edwards, a legal representative who represents a variety of Epstein’s victims, stated he had actually been “unaware of the sale” prior to being gotten in touch with by CNBC.
“But I am pleased to hear that the liquidity issues of the estate will soon be cleared up in order to make proper compensation for his many victims,” Edwards stated.
“The sale is monumental as it likely marks the end to the house of horrors that Epstein ran out of that mansion,” Edwards stated.
The sale to the unknown purchaser — who would be paying considerably less than the initial $88 million asking rate — has yet to close.
The seven-floor, 40-space estate presently is promoted as an active listing on the site of the Modlin Group. Adam Modlin, who is the home’s listing representative, did not react to ask for remark from CNBC.
Also yet to close is the sale of Epstein’s estate in Palm Beach, Florida, which the Journal has actually reported designer Todd Michael Glaser remains in agreement to purchase. The Palm Beach estate initially had an almost $22 million asking rate.
Proceeds from both residential or commercial properties might be utilized for the payment program if licensed by the chief law officer of the U.S. Virgin Islands, who holds liens on Epstein’s estate.
The fund, released last June, has actually gotten more than 150 claims and had actually paid more than $50 million prior to the settlement deals were suspended.
Federal district attorneys in July 2019 charged Epstein, who was 66, with kid sex-trafficking criminal activities associated with lots of minor women whom he was implicated of sexually abusing in between 2002 and 2005 at his residential or commercial properties in Manhattan and Palm Beach.
Epstein, who had actually pleaded innocent because federal case, eliminated himself while in a Manhattan federal prison a month later on.
Eleven years prior to his death, the previous pal of ex-Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton had actually pleaded guilty in Florida to a state charge of felony solicitation of prostitution, a case that included a minor woman. Epstein served 13 months in prison for that case.
The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, a previous sweetheart and home supervisor of Epstein’s, is presently being held without bail in a Brooklyn federal prison on charges associated with her supposed recruitment and grooming of a number of minor women for sexual assault by him in New York and Palm Beach, in addition to at his house in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and her own home in London.
Jordana Feldman, the independent administrator of the Epstein victims’ payment program, on Feb. 4 revealed that she was briefly suspending payment uses to victims “due to uncertainty about the liquidity” of properties of Epstein’s estate.
Feldman’s relocation came a day after Epstein’s estate notified her that it did not have adequate liquidity to money the most current replenishment demand by the fund. The estate informed Feldman that it was working to protect extra liquidity.
“Although I sincerely regret having to take this action, I have concluded that it is necessary to protect the interests of eligible claimants who have not yet resolved their claims through the Program,” Feldman stated at the time.
“Issuing a compensation offer that cannot be timely and fully funded and paid, consistent with the way the Program has operated to date, would compromise claimants’ interests and the guiding principles of the Program,” she stated.
Feldman included that she was devoted to making sure that all qualified plaintiffs get the “compensation and validation they deserve.”
The fund stopped accepting registrations from candidates on Feb. 8. The due date for claims to be submitted is March 25.
A spokesperson for Feldman had no discuss the report of the sale of the Manhattan townhouse.
Daniel Weiner, a legal representative for the co-executors of Epstein’s estate, did not react to ask for remark.
Weiner informed CNN last month that the co-executors had actually gotten “expressions of interest from numerous parties” concerning possibly buying Epstein’s 2 islands in the Virgin Islands, Little St. James and Great St. James.
