Obviously, Jeffrey Epstein, billionaire pedophile, is still in the news. He reportedly tried to hang himself in his jail cell the other day. If you didn't see that coming a mile away, well, there's a bridge in Brooklyn that I can sell you. In all seriousness though, unraveling the money, the people, the real estate and, most importantly, the women (who were girls at the time) he victimized is an Herculean task. One thing that strikes us as interesting is that in January 2016, Epstein paid $18 million for a second Caribbean island, the island of Great St. James.
Great St. James is a 162 acre island located adjacent to Little St. James, the 71.5 acre island Epstein bought for $7.95 million in 1998. There are (or I suppose, were, now) plans in place to build an enormous compound on the property including two homes, cottages, a barge deck, and amphitheater, gardens, an underwater office, pool, storage building, security building, machine shop, and more. In fact, even though only the construction of a flagpole and repair of cisterns has been approved by local officials, Epstein was moving ahead with his construction plans right up until his recent arrest. The barge deck, a few structures on the island, and construction equipment can be seen in aerial images of the island.
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Epstein erected 'No Trespassing' signs all over the island. He cannot technically prevent people from visiting the island, as local laws make all land below the tide or bush lines public property. Little St. James has been his primary residence – at least before he went to jail. Last month he put the helicopter that takes him and his guests to and from the airport up for sale for $1.8 million. He also sold one of his private jets in June. The other one was seized earlier this month after he landed in New Jersey from a trip to Paris and was arrested.
The two islands are not Epstein's only major real estate holdings in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He also owns a 50% stake in St. Thomas' American Yacht Harbor – one port with slips for 123 yachts, sailboats, and other recreational boats as well as a strip mall containing offices. In fact, Epstein's Southern Trust Company is located in that strip mall of offices. He's operated at least 15 companies out of that space over the last two decades.
The total value of Epstein's property holdings are valued at close to $150 million. He has a property in Paris worth $9 million located on one of the city's chicest blocks. He formerly spent a few months at his Parisian pied-Ã -terre each summer. He even ran one of his companies out of that address since 2002.
Epstein's Zorro Ranch outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico sits on 10,000 acres with a 26,700 square foot mansion. He purchased the property back in 1993. Fun fact: New Mexico is the one state that Epstein owns property in where he does not have to register as a sex offender. In 1997, Epstein bought a ski chalet in Vail that is worth $22 million.
His $77 million Manhattan townhouse was transferred to him for basically no money – at least at the time that billionaire Limited founder Les Wexner deeded the mansion to Epstein. There was a transfer of nearly $50 million to one of Wexner's charities from businesses registered to Epstein's various addresses, however. Much ado has been made of the bizarre manner in which Epstein's Manhattan home is decorated.
And finally, there's the $14 million Palm Beach estate he bought in 1990. It sits on Florida's Intracoastal Waterway and is also decorated bizarrely. A video taken during a raid of the property in 2005 revealed a bathroom with a dentist's chair and fully equipped dentist's cart including drills, a lamp, and other instruments. In another bathroom, a black and white photo of Epstein's alleged co-conspirator Ghislane Maxwell hangs above a toilet.
Epstein's properties are likely to be sold off to pay settlements to the dozens of women who've come forward with lurid tales of how Jeffrey Epstein assaulted them when they were teenagers.
