Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein

When Jeffrey Epstein died, he left behind an estate with an estimated value of $600 million. There were vast financial holdings, a private jet, and palatial properties including an island hideaway, a grand Manhattan mansion and a 7,600-acre New Mexico ranch. But taxes, property upkeep and temperature-controlled storage for his art collection — as well as $121 million in settlements to more than 135 women who accused him of sexually abusing them when they were young — have since cut into the size of Mr. Epstein’s estate. It’s now - in January 2022 - worth about a third of its value when the financier, 66, hanged himself in a Manhattan jail cell. The estate must still resolve a civil fraud lawsuit, brought by the attorney general of the Virgin Islands, who claims Mr. Epstein used the territory to facilitate a criminal enterprise by bilking it out of more than $70 million in tax revenue. And Ghislaine Maxwell, the former associate of Mr. Epstein who was convicted of sex-trafficking charges last month, has sued the estate to recoup her legal fees. Not until all that is over will the estate dispense whatever is left, according to the terms of a secret trust that Mr. Epstein set up and named in a will drawn just two days before he died. Karyna Shuliak, Mr. Epstein’s girlfriend and the last person he spoke to on the phone before killing himself, will be one of the main beneficiaries. Ms. Shuliak, a native of Belarus, is a dentist who shared an office on the island of St. Thomas with Mr. Epstein’s Southern Trust Company. The estate has paid $9 million to the lawyers and their team who established and oversaw the victims restitution fund, and $21 million to at least 16 law firms for services and expenses. Five firms — Troutman Pepper, Hughes Hubbard & Reed, White & Case, McLaughlin & Stern and Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin — have each taken in fees that exceed the nearly $900,000 average award to victims from the compensation fund. The estate’s tax bill alone was roughly $180 million. Upkeep of the properties — two tropical islands, the ranch and a Paris apartment are still unsold — has cost millions more. The estate is also paying about $15,000 a month to store Mr. Epstein’s art collection in a temperature-controlled warehouse in Long Island City. The size of any settlement with the Virgin Islands depends, in part, on how much money Mr. Epstein’s two islands off St. Thomas can fetch at sale. His estate valued the properties at about $20 million, according to the most recent quarterly report. But a local real estate agent said they could go for much more.