Jeffrey Epstein estate sale: Executors unload $195,000 Bentley, Mercedes, other assets
Executors winding down the estate of disgraced financier Jeffrey E. Epstein have raised more than $1 million through the sales of his assets and account liquidations.
In a delayed court filing that had been extended until last Friday, lawyers for Epstein’s estate showed that his reported net worth has increased by about $80 million since his death, and listed some of his pricey assets they’ve sold off.
The $80 million change in part was due to a recalculation of what he was worth at the time of his death.
The items sold by the executors include several luxury cars, among them a 2018 Bentley let go for $195,000 and a 2019 Mercedes-Benz for $133,000. The purchasers were not disclosed.
In all, the executors said slightly more than $1 million has been raised from asset sales and liquidating four accounts tied to shell companies.
The detailed accounting of Epstein’s estate also showed that his main banking for day-to-day operations was done through two banks in Puerto Rico — Banco Popular and 1 First Bank.
Epstein’s net worth upon his death by hanging last Aug. 10 was estimated at the time at $550 million. In their first quarterly filing, executors of his estate estimate the current value of his total assets at about $634.8 million. They received an extension last Dec. 18 to file their first quarterly report by Jan. 31, 2020, and they were given 120 days to file an inventory of Epstein’s assets, something normally done in 90 days.
Executors revised upward the value of his assets at time of death to more than $628 million. They said his cash on hand at that time was about $9.4 million. Expenditures since then have reduced that balance to about $7.6 million.
The revelations in court documents were made public on Monday amid this week’s expected probate hearing in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the attorney general has put a lien on the Epstein estate in a bid to seize the two islands there that he owned. Executors have filed a motion calling the lien improper.
Lawyers for victims will go before a judge as well as executors of the estate to fight it out Tuesday over where certain claims will be settled and by whom.
U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George, a relative newcomer to the office, recently filed a motion to intervene to give the local government a say in matters of estate settlement, on the grounds that some of Epstein’s underage victims were abused locally.
In a court filing last month, she alleged that Epstein continued to bring underage women to his properties as recently as 2018, and at least as young as 12.
Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges last July, eight months after the Miami Herald published Perversion of Justice, a series of stories examining the extraordinary plea deal 10 years earlier that absolved him of trafficking allegations.
The quarterly filing by executors listed three pages of potential or ongoing litigation, underscoring how complex it will be to settle Epstein’s estate.
The executors — longtime Epstein attorneys Darren K. Indyke and Richard D. Kahn, whom the Virgin Islands alleges in the motion to intervene were complicit — have proposed a New York-based victims’ compensation fund, to which the island’s government has filed a motion in opposition.
The new report from executors listed a number of payments to utilities, banks and some small creditors. They also offered that there are $160,00 in outstanding checks for maintenance and upkeep at his properties in New Mexico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and more than $114,000 owed to a Bell Miami Inc. for helicopter repairs.
There were also two checking account payments last Dec. 19 totaling $12 million and $3.5 million respectively. It is unclear what they involved and cite the name Southern Country International, Ltd. Corporate registry documents purchased by the Miami Herald show it is an entity in the Virgin Islands listing Epstein as a director along with his lawyers Indyke and Kahn. The documents do not say for what the company, still active, was used for or does.
The estate paid $86,372 in cemetery and funeral home expenses for Epstein; $618,144 in pre-death credit card expenses and contributions to his foundation in the Virgin Islands that did business as Enhanced Education.
This story was originally published February 3, 2020 at 12:41 PM.
