Little Saint James, U.S. Virgin Islands

Last updated

Little Saint James
Little St James Island (9165947585).jpg
USA Virgin Islands location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Little Saint James
Location in the Caribbean
Caribbean location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Little Saint James
Little Saint James (Caribbean)
Geography
Location Caribbean Sea
Coordinates 18°18′0″N64°49′30″W / 18.30000°N 64.82500°W / 18.30000; -64.82500
Archipelago Virgin Islands archipelago
Administration
TerritoryFlag of the United States Virgin Islands.svg  United States Virgin Islands
Area covered0.28–0.32 km2 (0.11–0.12 sq mi)
Little Saint James is the smaller of the two islands in the southeast of nr. 2 of Saint Thomas U.S. Virgin Islands Subdivisions.svg
Little Saint James is the smaller of the two islands in the southeast of nr. 2 of Saint Thomas

Little Saint James is a small private island in the United States Virgin Islands, southeast of Saint Thomas. It was owned by American child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein from 1998 until his death in 2019. [1] [2] During Epstein's ownership the island acquired the nickname Epstein Island.

Contents

Geography

Map of Little Saint James Little Saint James.png
Map of Little Saint James

Little Saint James is a small island (or islet) [3] with an area of 70 to 78 acres (28 to 32 ha). It is in the United States Virgin Islands, [1] located southeast of neighboring Great Saint James, both off the southern coast of the larger St. Thomas island [4] [5] and belonging to the subdistrict East End, St. Thomas.

The Virgin Islands are mountain peaks rising from the Caribbean ocean floor. [6] The trade winds (prevailing east-to-west winds near Earth's equator) dominate its climate and local weather, with stronger winds and less rain during winter. [7]

Ownership

Little Saint James Island in the Virgin Islands, while owned by Jeffrey Epstein Little St James Island (9123420726).jpg
Little Saint James Island in the Virgin Islands, while owned by Jeffrey Epstein

Little Saint James is a private island. In 1997, Little St. James was owned by venture capitalist Arch Cummin and was for sale for $10.5 million. [8] In April 1998, a company called L.S.J. LLC purchased the island for $7.95 million, and documents showed that Jeffrey Epstein was the sole member of L.S.J. [9] [10] [11] In 2019, the island was valued at $63,874,223. [12] The island was Epstein's primary residence, [4] [13] and he called the island "Little St. Jeff". [1] [2] The main house on the island was renovated by Edward Tuttle, a designer of the Aman Resorts. [1] In 2008, Epstein's estate on Little Saint James had 70 staff. [10] [14] According to a former staffer, Epstein insisted on discretion and confidentiality from his employees. [11]

In March 2022, Little Saint James and the neighboring Great Saint James were listed at $125 million. A lawyer for Epstein's estate stated that the money obtained from the sale would be used to settle a number of lawsuits. Bespoke Real Estate, the agency jointly overseeing the sale, stated that further information on the listing was only available to prospective buyers. [15] [16]

In May 2023, billionaire Stephen Deckoff, under his firm SD Investments, announced the acquisition of the Great St. James and Little St. James islands for $60 million. [17]

Buildings

In 1997, the island had a main house, three guest cottages, a caretaker's cottage, a private desalination system, a helipad, and a dock. [8] In addition, there is a blue-striped, boxlike building that initially was topped by a golden dome. [18] The purpose of this construction is unclear, as it deviates in substantial ways from the plans for the music pavilion that had been submitted for approval in 2010 by Epstein's architects. [18] The original building in the plans was of an octagonal footprint, rectangular in cross-section, and had two side rooms extending from the outside walls. It was also much lower in perspective, and the dome extended from the octagon over onto the roofs of the side buildings. The building that was eventually constructed was much taller, in the shape of a cube, and without any side rooms. The dome was also well within the footprint of the cube, and the building did not have any of the proposed finishes applied to the walls, nor was it constructed out of materials in those plans—namely, stone.[ citation needed ]

Visitors

David Copperfield proposed to Claudia Schiffer on Little St. James, three months after meeting her in 1993. [19]

Victoria's Secret models were among the guests a former Epstein employee saw there, and billionaire Les Wexner visited the island at least once. [11] Prince Andrew, Duke of York paid at least one visit aboard Epstein's private jet to the island, although former staff said he visited Little St. James several times. [20]

Virginia Roberts, later known as Virginia Giuffre, states in a lawsuit that while working at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort [21] she was lured into a sex-trafficking ring run by Epstein and while traveling with Epstein she saw Bill Clinton on the island. [22] A Freedom of Information Act request for United States Secret Service records of visits Bill Clinton may have made to Little St. James produced no such evidence. [22] According to Epstein's flight logs, Clinton never flew near the U.S. Virgin Islands. [23] In July 2019, a Clinton spokesperson issued a statement saying Clinton never visited the island. [9] [24]

Jes Staley, the former head of Barclays, visited the island in 2015. [25]

Reputation under Epstein's ownership

The island acquired such nicknames as "Island of Sin", [20] "Pedophile Island", [26] [10] "Orgy Island", [26] [10] and "Epstein Island". [27]

According to attorneys for Epstein's alleged victims, Little St. James is where many of the crimes against minors were committed by Epstein and friends who traveled there with him. [28] Court documents allege that then 17-year-old Virginia Roberts was forced by Epstein to have sex with Prince Andrew on several occasions, including as part of an orgy on Little St. James. [20] [29] Buckingham Palace has denied this allegation. [30] [31] A lawyer for Epstein has described the allegations of orgies by Roberts as "old and discredited". [20]

According to locals, Epstein continued to bring underage girls to the island in 2019, after he was registered as a sex offender. [32] In August 2019, following Epstein's death, FBI agents searched his residence on Little St. James. [33] [34]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Dershowitz</span> American lawyer and author (born 1938)

Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer and law professor known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appointed as the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law in 1993. Dershowitz is a regular media contributor, political commentator, and legal analyst.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeffrey Epstein</span> American sex offender and financier (1953–2019)

Jeffrey Edward Epstein was an American financier and sex offender. Born and raised in New York City, Epstein began his professional life as a teacher at the Dalton School despite lacking a college degree. After his dismissal from the school in 1976, he entered the banking and finance sector, working at Bear Stearns in various roles before starting his own firm. Epstein cultivated an elite social circle and procured many women and children whom he and his associates sexually abused.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John de Jongh Jr.</span>

John Percy de Jongh Jr. is an American businessman and politician who served as the Governor of the United States Virgin Islands from 2007 to 2015. He has been active in Virgin Islands politics and the business community since returning to St. Thomas after graduating from college in 1981. De Jongh has been involved in community development, commercial banking, served on the boards of business and philanthropic organizations, appointed to government positions and elected to public office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Saint James, U.S. Virgin Islands</span> Private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Great Saint James is a private island in the United States Virgin Islands, located off the east end of St. Thomas and belonging to subdistrict East End, Saint Thomas. The island is approximately 165 acres (67 ha) in size, and is located 0.4 kilometres (0.25 mi) southeast of Saint Thomas. The island was most notably owned by financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, along with the neighboring Little Saint James island.

Leon David Black is an American private equity investor. He is the former CEO of Apollo Global Management, which he co-founded in 1990 with Marc Rowan and Josh Harris. Black was the chairman of the Museum of Modern Art from 2018 to 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Acosta</span> American attorney and politician (born 1969)

Rene Alexander Acosta is an American attorney and politician, who served as the 27th United States Secretary of Labor from 2017 to 2019. President Donald Trump nominated Acosta to be Labor Secretary on February 16, 2017, and he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 27, 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clinton body count conspiracy theory</span> Conspiracy theory

The Clinton body count is a conspiracy theory centered around the belief that former U.S. President Bill Clinton and his wife, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have secretly had their political opponents murdered, often made to look like suicides, totaling as many as 50 or more listed victims. The Congressional Record (1994) stated that the compiler of the original list, Linda Thompson, admitted she had "'no direct evidence' of Clinton killing anyone. Indeed, she says the deaths were probably caused by 'people trying to control the president' but refuses to say who they were."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vicky Ward</span> British investigative journalist

Victoria Penelope Jane Ward is a British-born American author, investigative journalist, editor-at-large, and television commentator. She was a Senior Reporter at CNN and a former magazine and newspaper editor who has featured in The New York Times Best Seller list.

Anna Malova is a Russian model and beauty pageant titleholder who was appointed as Miss Russia 1998 and competed at Miss Universe 1998 and placed Top 10.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jes Staley</span> American banker

James Edward "Jes" Staley is an American banker, and the former group chief executive of Barclays. He stepped down as CEO on November 1, 2021, and was succeeded by C. S. Venkatakrishnan. Staley has nearly four decades of experience in banking and financial services. He spent 34 years at J.P. Morgan's investment bank, ultimately becoming CEO. In 2013, he moved to BlueMountain Capital, and in December 2015, became CEO of Barclays. In November 2021, Staley resigned amid a regulatory probe into whether he mischaracterized his relationship with the financier, human trafficker, and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth Mapp</span> American politician

Kenneth Ezra Mapp is an American politician who served as the eighth elected Governor of the United States Virgin Islands, from 2015 to 2019. He is registered Republican, but ran as an independent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ghislaine Maxwell</span> British sex trafficker and former socialite (born 1961)

Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell is a British former socialite and convicted sex offender. In 2021, she was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offences in connection with the deceased financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In June 2022, she was sentenced in a New York court to twenty years' imprisonment.

The Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation was a private foundation established in 2000 by New York convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein. Officially registered as J. Epstein VI Foundation, the "VI" stands for Virgin Islands, where the foundation was based and Epstein owned a private island. The foundation's board included Cecile de Jongh, wife of the former governor of the United States Virgin Islands, John de Jongh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The TerraMar Project</span> Environmental organization (2012–2019)

The TerraMar Project was a self-described environmental nonprofit organization. It was founded in 2012 in the United States by convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell. A sister organisation in the United Kingdom was incorporated in 2013. TerraMar (U.S.) announced its closure on 12 July 2019. This was shortly after New York federal prosecutors arrested Maxwell's behind the scenes Boss Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein was a financier who was being charged with sex trafficking crimes for a second time. TerraMar (UK) was officially dissolved on 3 December 2019.

Michael Reiter is an American security advisor who previously served as chief of police of Palm Beach, Florida, from 2001 to 2009. Having served in the Palm Beach Police Department since 1981, he has been involved in several high-profile criminal investigations in the affluent town with several nationally-prominent residents, including the overdose death of David Kennedy and the criminal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Reiter came to international attention since the mid-2000s when he initiated the first inquiry into Epstein, an investor who was accused of involvement in multinational child sex trafficking and having sex with a minor, and was later convicted for soliciting an underage girl for prostitution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Bryan Jr.</span> Governor of the United States Virgin Islands

Albert Bryan Jr. is an American politician serving since 2019 as the ninth governor of the United States Virgin Islands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Death of Jeffrey Epstein</span> 2019 American death in custody

On August 10, 2019, guards found Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier and convicted sex offender, unresponsive in his jail cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, where he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. After prison guards performed CPR, he was transported in cardiac arrest to the New York Downtown Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:39 am. The New York City medical examiner and the Justice Department Inspector General ruled that Epstein's death was a suicide by hanging. Epstein's lawyers challenged the medical examiner's conclusion and opened their own investigation, hiring pathologist Michael Baden.

Eva Birgitta Andersson-Dubin is a Swedish physician, former model and beauty pageant titleholder. She is also the founder of the Dubin Breast Center at the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. She is married to hedge fund billionaire Glenn Dubin. She worked as a model and won Miss Sweden 1980.

Virginia Louise Giuffre is an American-Australian campaigner who offers support to victims of sex trafficking. She is an alleged victim of the sex trafficking ring of Jeffrey Epstein. Giuffre created Victims Refuse Silence, a non-profit based in the United States, in 2015, which was relaunched under the name Speak Out, Act, Reclaim (SOAR) in November 2021. She has given a detailed account to many American and British reporters about her experiences of being trafficked by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Maria K. Farmer is an American visual artist known for providing the first criminal complaint to law enforcement, to the New York City Police Department and to the FBI, in 1996 about the conduct of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Farmer, a figurative painter, had described her and her sister Annie's experiences of sexual misconduct from Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to a journalist at Vanity Fair in 2002 but the publication refrained from including it in their accounts.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Ward, Vicky (June 27, 2011). "The Talented Mr. Epstein". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on June 12, 2015. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  2. 1 2 Thomas, Landon Jr. (July 1, 2008). "Financier Starts Sentence in Prostitution Case". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 8, 2019. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  3. ↑ "Lesser Antilles : Barbados to the Virgin Islands". Cambridgeshire, England : Imray, Norie & Wilson Ltd. 1991. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  4. 1 2 "Jeffrey Epstein arrested on sex trafficking charges". miamiherald. Archived from the original on 2019-07-07. Retrieved 2019-07-08.
  5. ↑ Coaston, Jane (December 3, 2018). "Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who is friends with Donald Trump and Bill Clinton explained". Vox. Archived from the original on August 24, 2019. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
  6. ↑ "VInow: Virgin Islands Geography". vinow.com. Retrieved January 5, 2024. The islands are the peaks of submerged mountains that rise from the ocean floor....The geography of the islands consists of seaside cliffs, mountains with lush forest, tiny streams, arid lands and beautiful white sand beaches.
  7. ↑ "Weather". U.S. National Park Service. September 8, 2022. Retrieved January 5, 2024. The Tradewinds (the Easterlies) dominate the weather in the Virgin Islands, blowing east to west across the tropical Atlantic. The winter tends to bring stronger winds and less rain, and the summer tends to bring more rain and lighter winds.
  8. 1 2 "Private Properties". Wall Street Journal . April 18, 1997. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  9. 1 2 "Whispers, suspicion about Epstein on Caribbean island". July 11, 2019. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019– via Associated Press.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Stieb, Matt (2019-07-10). "Everything We Know About Jeffrey Epstein's Private 'Pedophile Island'". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on 2019-09-03. Retrieved 2019-07-13.
  11. 1 2 3 "The Mystery Surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's Private Island". www.bloomberg.com. 12 July 2019. Archived from the original on 2019-07-26. Retrieved 2019-07-26.
  12. ↑ Lisette Voytko (July 16, 2019). "Court Documents Confirm Jeffrey Epstein Is Nowhere Near A Billionaire". Forbes . Archived from the original on August 12, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  13. ↑ Cartwright, Kate Briquelet|Lachlan (March 12, 2019). "Notorious Billionaire Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein Funded This 'Women's Empowerment' Advocate". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on July 8, 2019. Retrieved July 8, 2019– via www.thedailybeast.com.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  14. ↑ "INSIDE THE TIMES: July 1, 2008". New York Times. Archived from the original on December 29, 2021. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  15. ↑ Clarke, Sarah Paynter and Katherine (2022-03-23). "Jeffrey Epstein's Private Islands in the Caribbean to List for $125 Million". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660. Archived from the original on 2022-03-24. Retrieved 2022-03-25.
  16. ↑ "Jeffrey Epstein's St. James Islands Listed For Sale". St. Thomas Source. 2022-03-23. Archived from the original on 2023-02-14. Retrieved 2022-03-25.
  17. ↑ Investments, S. D. "SD Investments Announces Acquisition of Great St. James and Little St. James Islands in the United States Virgin Islands". www.prnewswire.com. Archived from the original on 2023-05-06. Retrieved 2023-05-06.
  18. 1 2 Rich Schapiro (August 1, 2019). "Jeffrey Epstein's bizarre blue-striped building on private island raised alarm". NBC News. Archived from the original on August 1, 2019. Retrieved August 2, 2019.
  19. ↑ Espinoza, Galina (April 9, 2001). "A Lift Out of Life". People . Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  20. 1 2 3 4 "Stephen Hawking pictured on Jeffrey Epstein's 'Island of Sin'". The Daily Telegraph . January 12, 2015. Archived from the original on April 10, 2018. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  21. ↑ Brown, Julie K.; Blaskey, Sarah (9 August 2019). "Huge cache of records details how Jeffrey Epstein and madam lured girls into depraved world". Miami Herald . Archived from the original on 16 January 2020. Retrieved 28 July 2020. Virginia Roberts, now Giuffre, says she was 16 and working as a locker room attendant at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort when she was approached by Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's associate, about becoming a masseuse for Epstein.
  22. 1 2 Gerstein, Josh. "The one weird court case linking Trump, Bill Clinton, and a billionaire pedophile". POLITICO. Archived from the original on 2021-03-10. Retrieved 2019-07-08.
  23. ↑ "Plenty Of Innuendo, But No Hard Evidence Of New Clinton Sex Scandal". BuzzFeed News. January 28, 2015. Archived from the original on July 8, 2019. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  24. ↑ Sullivan, Kate (July 8, 2019). "Bill Clinton 'knows nothing' about Epstein's 'terrible crimes,' spokesman says". CNN . Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  25. ↑ "Jeffrey Epstein's private islands put up for sale for $125m". BBC News. 2022-03-24. Archived from the original on 2022-03-24. Retrieved 2022-03-25.
  26. 1 2 Metcalf, Jonathan Levin, Greg Farrell, Tom (12 July 2019). "Mystery surrounds Jeffrey Epstein's private island in the Caribbean". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on 2019-07-13. Retrieved 2019-07-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  27. ↑ Velsey, Kim (8 May 2023). "Who Wants to Vacation on Epstein Island?". curbed.com. Curbed. Archived from the original on 2 September 2023. Retrieved 2 September 2023.
  28. ↑ "The Salacious Ammo Even Donald Trump Won't Use in a Fight Against Hillary Clinton – VICE News". News.vice.com. Archived from the original on 2019-07-16. Retrieved 2019-07-09.
  29. ↑ "Prince Andrew sex allegations: Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein 'had 21". The Independent. January 6, 2015. Archived from the original on June 1, 2020. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
  30. ↑ Pavia, Will (January 9, 2015). "Stephen Hawking joined Jeffrey Epstein private island soiree". The Australian .
  31. ↑ Swaine, Jon (January 13, 2015). "Jeffrey Epstein's donations to young pupils prompts US Virgin Islands review". Archived from the original on November 10, 2016. Retrieved July 8, 2019– via www.theguardian.com.
  32. ↑ ""The girls were just so young": The horrors of Jeffrey Epstein's private island". Vanity Fair . July 20, 2019. Archived from the original on August 11, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  33. ↑ "FBI searches Jeffrey Epstein's home in Virgin Islands". CNBC . August 12, 2019. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  34. ↑ "FBI agents swarm Jeffrey Epstein's private Caribbean island". August 13, 2019. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019– via NBC News.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.