Jeffrey Epstein’s estate has paid out nearly $50m to his victims

Figure revealed in filing to judge in US Virgin Islands

Jeffrey Epstein’s estate has paid out nearly $50 million to victims of the late disgraced financier, court records show.

The estate paid $49.8 million to an unspecified number of victims through the Epstein Victims Compensation Fund between June and 31 December 2020.

The number was revealed in a filing made by the estate to a judge in the US Virgin Islands, where Epstein’s estate is being settled.

Court papers showed that by the end of 2020 his estate had assets worth $240.8 million, with $49 million in cash on hand.

The estate had also valued Epstein’s art collection at $339,000 according to the filing, which was first reported by the Miami Herald.

The financier’s Southern Trust Co Inc, which had planned to create a data-mining business in the US Virgin Islands in return for a large tax break, saw its value drop from $128.2 million to around $61 million by the end of 2020.

Epstein, 66, bought his private island, Little St James, in the Virgin Islands in 1988 for $7.95 million, and reportedly sexually assaulted a number of his victims there.

Epstein, who was already a convicted sex offender, was arrested in July 2019 and charged with sex trafficking by federal prosecutors.

He pleaded not guilty to abusing and trafficking in women and girls in Manhattan and Florida from 2002 to 2005.

On 10 August, 2019, Epstein was found dead in his federal jail cell at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center, and the New York City Medical Examiner's Office later ruled his death a suicide by hanging.

In 2008 he pleaded guilty to a Florida state prostitution charge, and completed a 13-month jail sentence, which is now viewed as far too lenient.

In January 2020, the attorney general of the US Virgin Islands, Denise George, sued the Epstein estate and a group of his global companies.

The complaint alleged that Epstein raped and trafficked in dozens of young women and girls on his private island between 2001 and 2018, and that he targeted victims as young as 11 or 12.