Cecile de Jongh

Cecile de Jongh (born Cecile Galiber) was the office manager of Jeffrey Epstein's U.S. Virgin Islands entities, including Financial Trust Company and its successor Southern Trust Company, a position she held from 2007 to 2015. During the same years her husband, John de Jongh, served as the territory's seventh governor, making her the First Lady of the Government of the United States Virgin Islands. A January 2020 civil enforcement complaint by the Virgin Islands Attorney General, and later filings by JPMorgan Chase in related litigation, alleged that she used her dual position to manage Epstein's local affairs, influence territorial legislation, and direct his money toward officials while he was a registered sex offender.¹²

Position and Compensation

De Jongh worked as the office manager of Epstein's Virgin Islands companies from 2007, the year her husband took office, through 2015, the year his term ended. JPMorgan's filings stated that she earned more than 200,000 dollars in compensation in 2007 alone for the role. The companies that employed her, Financial Trust Company and later Southern Trust Company, were the entities through which Epstein held his territorial tax benefits under the Economic Development Commission program and through which his Virgin Islands operations were funded.¹²

The same filings alleged that Epstein paid tuition for de Jongh's children, that she forwarded her children's tuition bills to him for payment, and that she requested he help fund her husband's re-election campaign. In her May 2023 deposition, taken at the Ritz-Carlton on St. Thomas over roughly five and a half hours, de Jongh described confronting Epstein after his 2006 Florida arrest, saying she looked him in the eye and asked what was going on, and was assured it was a one-time mistake that would not recur. The arrangement continued after Epstein registered as a sex offender following his 2008 Florida plea.²³

The employment overlapped entirely with her public role. While serving as First Lady from 2007 to 2015, she simultaneously drew her salary from Epstein's companies, an overlap that was reported contemporaneously and that became the foundation of the later allegations. No charges were brought against de Jongh, and she was not a defendant in the territory's case against the estate, whose November 2022 settlement resolved only the claims against the estate and the named co-defendants. The phrase "shield its participants from liability" in that litigation comes from the territory's 2020 objection to the estate's proposed victim compensation program, which required claimants to release claims against "any person or entity arising from or related to Mr. Epstein's conduct." Denise George later told the FBI that Governor Albert Bryan, urging her to settle for 80 million dollars, said "that the Epstein estate just wanted to clear people."²⁴⁵⁶⁷

Alleged Influence on Territorial Government

JPMorgan's 2023 court filings described de Jongh as Epstein's "primary conduit for spreading money and influence throughout the USVI government." According to those filings, in 2011 she emailed Epstein proposed language for legislation increasing sex-offender monitoring, asking, "This is the suggested language; will it work for you?" The bank alleged that after a monitoring bill passed she wrote that "all is not lost and we will figure something out by coming up with a game plan to get around these obstacles." The draft she circulated concerned the section of the Virgin Islands Code governing the travel and reporting requirements imposed on registered sex offenders.²⁸

The filings further alleged that de Jongh advised Epstein on how to "buy control of the USVI political class," coordinated meetings between him and commissioners, senators, and gubernatorial candidates, recommended placing a sitting senator on a monthly retainer for loyalty and access, and tracked which candidates he funded. They alleged she helped secure student visas for young women connected to Epstein by arranging their enrollment in classes at the University of the Virgin Islands to provide cover for their presence in the territory, and that she offered to have someone else sign tuition letters so that the registered sex offender's signature would not appear on the paperwork. She was also alleged to have worked with the Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority to keep Epstein's companies in compliance so the tax benefits continued, and to have guided his charitable donations to satisfy program requirements.²⁸

These allegations originate in the Virgin Islands Attorney General's complaint and in JPMorgan's filings, the latter of which the territory characterized as hyperbole offered to deflect the bank's own liability for failing to report suspicious activity. De Jongh did not respond to requests for comment when the filings were unsealed in 2023. The allegations describe a pattern of conduct rather than any criminal adjudication, and she was never charged.²⁴

Tenure and the Company Records

The Virgin Islands Daily News, reviewing the JPMorgan exhibits, described de Jongh as Epstein's office manager on St. Thomas "for two decades," through his death, a longer span than the 2007 to 2015 period used in the bank's and territory's filings. In a December 2014 email about employee bonuses she wrote that "in 14 years, we have not had a bad audit and we ensure that you have the best relationships with local regulators and departments," and that "although most of our work is support-based and not revenue-generating, we complete what has to be done for the company efficiently and effectively." In the same email she assured Epstein that "I take this job, my management of your team and our implementation of your requests very seriously and that they be done in the most confidential of ways."⁹

The December 2014 email described a Southern Trust employee, "Lucas," as "currently working on the scanning and shredding for all of the entities, FTC, LSJ, Zorro, NES, JEGE, Hyperion, and JEVIF," hired "as a temporary college intern-type person to deal with shredding sensitive documents as a summer project" at a salary of 20,000 dollars, and proposed moving another employee off the Southern Trust payroll onto that of LSJ LLC. Her husband was then in the last days of his second term and facing demands that he repay about 490,000 dollars in public funds spent on security improvements at the couple's private home; he was charged with embezzlement in August 2015, and the case was dismissed in January 2016 after he paid 380,000 dollars.⁹¹⁰

The Economic Development Commission compliance officer Sandra Bess identified de Jongh as the "compliance person" and office manager for both Financial Trust and Southern Trust. When a Washington reporter asked Government House spokesman Jean Greaux Jr. in 2012 whether she had helped Financial Trust obtain its tax benefits, she drafted a response for Epstein's approval: "Cecile de Jongh currently works for Financial Trust Company in the capacity of office manager. She had nothing to do with Financial Trust Company receiving EDC tax benefits." Epstein answered, "I would simply state that you are an office manager," and she replied, "That's what John went with."⁹¹¹

January 24, 2014

The Economic Development Commission certificate awarding Southern Trust its ten-year package of exemptions is dated January 24, 2014 and signed by the commission's chairman, Albert Bryan, who was then also her husband's Commissioner of Labor, and by Epstein as the company's president. That day de Jongh emailed Epstein: "I have been fundraising for John's final State of the Territory reception on Monday night. I have raised $15K of the total $35K budget. Would you be willing to match that? John and I will cover the balance." An hour later she emailed Epstein's accountant Richard Kahn: "Hi Rich, Can you please prepare a check for $15,000 made payable to Governor's Special Events Fund. Thanks." The territory later estimated that the Southern Trust certificate let Epstein avoid 80,576,236 dollars in taxes.⁵¹¹

Enrollment at the University of the Virgin Islands

In May 2013 de Jongh corresponded with University of the Virgin Islands Vice President for Institutional Advancement Dionne Jackson about English as a Second Language classes, and told Epstein that "we should put them on the list for the fall semester" after he wrote that two women whose names are redacted would sign up. On May 29, 2013 she wrote to Jackson that "the total cost for the course (for up to 10 students) is $8,868 which we will pay. We have two students to enroll," and asked Epstein, "What kind of visas do these ladies currently have?" after a university official told her that an I-20 student visa form was issued only for degree programs. On June 5 she wrote that the women "need to go down and enroll and show the ability to pay. I can draft a letter for them to present. Think about whether you should sign it or one of us," and on June 27 that the university was "structuring the class around the ladies." University president David Hall said in May 2023 that he "was not aware of the activities described" and never approved a course for people connected with Epstein.⁹

Political Access and Donations

The JPMorgan exhibits show de Jongh arranging Epstein's contacts with the territory's next two governors. On October 16, 2014 she wrote that "Kenn Mapp and Celestino White would like to see you." After Kenneth Mapp won the governorship, she forwarded an inaugural committee solicitation to Epstein in December 2014, asking him "to confirm that you want to donate $10,000 to the Mapp-Potter inaugural committee and that it should come from Southern Trust." On September 1, 2016 Epstein instructed her to "prepare a check for mapps super pac. For 75k." On December 20, 2018, after Bryan defeated Mapp, she wrote: "I got a call from the Bryan/Roach Inaugural Committee and they asked for a $25,000 donation to the inaugural events. They are trying to raise all the money privately. Please let me know your thoughts." Two minutes later she wrote that "Albert asked that the $30k go to the VI Little League." The exhibits do not show whether Epstein paid the Bryan committee, and Bryan's office said in 2019 that his campaign had not received contributions from Epstein.⁶⁹

According to FBI notes of an October 2023 interview with the former Attorney General Denise George, George believed that Attorney General Vincent Frazer had been pressured by Governor John de Jongh to allow Epstein to give 24 hours' notice of travel instead of the 21 days required of registered sex offenders. The arrangement was rescinded in March 2019.⁶