Little St. James

Little St. James is a private island of about 3.1 million square feet, roughly 70 to 78 acres, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, lying about a mile and a half off the southeastern coast of St. Thomas and accessible only by boat or helicopter. Jeffrey Epstein acquired it by warranty deed dated April 27, 1998 through the Delaware entity L.S.J., LLC, of which he was the sole member, for 7.95 million dollars, and over the next two decades built it into his principal Caribbean residence and compound. Victims and locals referred to it by names including "the island" and "pedophile island," and victim testimony placed sexual abuse there across the period of Epstein's ownership. Federal agents searched the island in August 2019 after Epstein's death, the U.S. Virgin Islands government settled a civil trafficking and racketeering case against his estate in 2022, and the estate sold Little St. James together with Great St. James to the investor Stephen Deckoff in 2023.¹²³

Acquisition and the Compound

L.S.J., LLC purchased Little St. James by warranty deed dated April 27, 1998 for 7.95 million dollars, with Epstein listed as the sole member of the company. The Virgin Islands Recorder of Deeds lists the island as Parcel Number 109803010100, 3.1 million square feet, with land valued at 3.2 million dollars and buildings and improvements at 4 million dollars. After Epstein's death his estate valued its holding in Nautilus, Inc., the company holding title to the island, at 63.9 million dollars, and valued Little St. James and Great St. James together at 86 million dollars. The property sits in the East End subdistrict of St. Thomas and can be reached only by private boat or helicopter, a feature that kept the compound isolated from casual observation.¹

Epstein expanded the built environment substantially across the late 2000s and early 2010s, adding a main residence, guest cottages and cabanas, staff quarters, a large swimming pool, a helipad, a dock, and a prominent sundial. At the island's southwest point he constructed a blue-and-white striped, boxlike structure surrounded by a square pavilion decorated with red geometric patterns on a white ground, a building variously described in reporting as a chapel, a temple, and a music room.² Reporting in 2026 stated that internal Epstein documents and the New York Times indicated Epstein intended the striped building as a "mosque," envisioned with large tapestries, Islamic gardens, and tiles sourced from a mosque in Uzbekistan.²

Surveillance equipment was reported throughout the compound. Investigators and journalists described cameras positioned across the property, and the August 2019 federal search seized hard drives, security tapes, and other recording media. Online claims that the striped structure was a site of occult or "Moloch" worship circulated widely but were not supported by any verified evidence according to investigators, journalists, and the available records, and are noted here only as unsubstantiated allegation.²

The 2002 St. Thomas Common Sense Symposium

In April 2002 Epstein funded the St. Thomas Common Sense Symposium, an artificial-intelligence gathering subtitled "Designing Architectures for Human-Level Intelligence," organized with the participation of the MIT cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky and the researchers Push Singh and Aaron Sloman. The symposium itself convened on St. Thomas, and a published account of its proceedings exists under the same title.⁴

Attendees later recalled being taken from St. Thomas by boat to a beach on Epstein's island, about two miles away, for a banquet and barbecue connected to the gathering. Several AI researchers who attended described Epstein in unfavorable terms in subsequent interviews, recalling his manner and the atmosphere around the event as off-putting.⁵

Minsky's name later surfaced in litigation over the trafficking operation. Virginia Giuffre, in deposition testimony, named Minsky among the men she was allegedly directed to have sexual contact with on the island when she was a minor; the allegation is victim testimony and was not adjudicated, and Minsky died in 2016 before it became public.⁶

Victim Allegations of Abuse

Virginia Giuffre alleged that she was present on Little St. James across roughly 2001 to 2003, after Ghislaine Maxwell recruited her in 2000 from Mar-a-Lago when she was a teenager. Giuffre stated in court filings and interviews that "orgies were a constant thing that took place" on the island and described being passed among Epstein's associates there. These accounts are victim testimony and allegations rather than adjudicated findings.⁶

An FBI report cited in later reporting recorded that one victim told agents Epstein spoke of building a "harem" on the island to house multiple girls, and that he wanted "a castle like structure, resembling the Alhambra in Spain." Other victim accounts described the island as a site where Epstein and guests subjected young women and girls to sexual abuse, with the isolation of the location limiting any ability to leave or seek help. The U.S. Virgin Islands later alleged in its civil suit that trafficking continued on the island as late as 2018.²³

Giuffre also alleged that Prince Andrew and other prominent men were present during abuse on or connected to the island, claims that were central to her civil suit against Andrew, which he settled in 2022 without admission of liability. The unsealing of Giuffre v. Maxwell exhibits and the 2021 trial of Maxwell produced additional victim accounts describing the island's role in the operation. Each remains attributed testimony.⁶

The 2019 Federal Search

On August 12, 2019, two days after Epstein's death in federal custody, FBI agents searched Little St. James as part of the Southern District of New York investigation into Epstein and his associates. Agents reached the island by boat and helicopter, and video and drone footage recorded personnel moving across the compound on golf carts and removing items.⁷

The search reportedly recovered electronic devices, hard drives, phones, photo albums, handwritten notes, travel logs, and security recordings, with one later DOJ evidence list referencing labeled media. Reporting indicated agents seized on the order of two dozen electronic devices from multiple structures on the property. Prosecutors stated the broader investigation into Epstein's network would continue despite his death.⁷

The search followed Epstein's July 2019 federal indictment in New York on sex-trafficking charges, which concerned conduct in New York and Florida and did not itself charge conduct in the Virgin Islands. The territory pursued the island-related conduct through its own civil enforcement action.³⁷

The U.S. Virgin Islands Civil Case and Settlement

In January 2020 the U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George filed a civil enforcement action against Epstein's estate under the territory's Criminally Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the local analog to federal RICO, alleging that Epstein operated a trafficking enterprise based on the islands and that abuse of girls and young women continued on Little St. James until 2018. The suit named the estate, the co-executors Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, and ten Epstein-created entities.³

On November 29, 2022, George announced a settlement requiring the defendants to pay the Government of the Virgin Islands more than 105 million dollars in cash penalties and forfeitures, plus one half of the proceeds from any sale of Little St. James, with funds directed toward law enforcement, victim services, and human-trafficking and sexual-assault support in the territory. The agreement separately required 450,000 dollars to remediate environmental damage on Great St. James, where the government found Epstein had razed the remains of centuries-old structures associated with enslaved workers to make room for his development.⁸

George stated that the settlement "restores the faith of the People of the Virgin Islands that its laws will be enforced, without fear or favor, against those who break them." The settlement resolved the territory's nearly three-year action and conditioned part of the recovery on the eventual sale of the island.⁸

The 2023 Sale to Stephen Deckoff

In May 2023 Epstein's estate sold Little St. James together with the adjacent Great St. James to an entity controlled by the investor Stephen Deckoff, founder of the private investment firm Black Diamond Capital Management, for 60 million dollars. The combined properties had been listed in March 2022 at an asking price of 125 million dollars, so the sale closed at well under half the initial ask.⁹

Deckoff stated that he intended to develop a luxury resort of about 25 rooms on one of the islands, with reporting at the time citing a planned opening in 2025 and framing the project as a tourism and economic-development venture for the territory. Under the 2022 settlement, half of the Little St. James sale proceeds were directed to the U.S. Virgin Islands government, satisfying part of the estate's obligation.⁹

The sale ended Epstein's decades-long association with the U.S. Virgin Islands, transferring both islands to new ownership. Reporting noted the unusual challenge of marketing properties so closely identified with the trafficking operation, which informed both the discounted price and the announced plan to rebrand the islands for resort use.⁹

Ownership Structure

On November 22, 2011, a year after Epstein registered in the territory as a sex offender, he incorporated Nautilus, Inc. in the Virgin Islands, with himself as president and director, his lawyer Darren Indyke as secretary, and his accountant Richard Kahn as treasurer, and a stated purpose of "holding property for personal use." A quitclaim deed recorded on December 30, 2011 moved Little St. James from L.S.J., LLC to Nautilus for "TEN DOLLARS ($10.00) and other good and valuable consideration." Most of Epstein's other territorial companies were created in 2011 and 2012, among them LSJ Employees, LLC (registered October 27, 2011 "to provide services"), followed by LSJ Emergency, LLC (December 2, 2015).¹⁰

The island was served by aircraft held through companies that listed Epstein's pilot Larry Visoski as a manager or member. Hyperion Air, LLC, organized October 19, 2012 with Epstein and Visoski as managers, owned a Bell helicopter (N331JE) and a Keystone helicopter (N722JE) that the territory alleged Epstein used "to transport young women and underage girls between St. Thomas and Little St. James." Plan D, LLC, which owned the Gulfstream N212JE, listed Visoski as its sole manager until a July 31, 2019 annual report named Epstein as the principal.¹⁰

Verification, Staff, and Records

Epstein registered annually as a Tier 1 sex offender in the territory from 2010, and the Virgin Islands Department of Justice periodically visited or tried to visit the island to verify his address. At the last verification, in July 2018, he refused to let the department's investigators, assisted by U.S. Marshals, go beyond the dock, calling it his "front door," and arranged to meet them instead at his office on St. Thomas.¹⁰

Island employees and others were required to sign confidentiality agreements that barred them from speaking with law enforcement, and were told that if contacted they should notify the Epstein organization and be represented by its counsel; they were also told not to interact with guests or disclose what happened on the island. The former Attorney General Denise George told the FBI in 2023 that when she tried to interview estate employees, they "had nondisclosure agreements and were informed if questioned by law enforcement to say nothing and alert Kellerhals," a reference to Epstein's St. Thomas attorney Erika Kellerhals. In a December 2014 email to Epstein, his office manager Cecile de Jongh reported that an employee was "working on the scanning and shredding for all of the entities, FTC, LSJ, Zorro, NES, JEGE, Hyperion, and JEVIF." Documents released by the Justice Department in 2026 included photos and receipts that federal agents reassembled from a bag of shredded paper found during the search of Epstein's house on the island, portions of which remain redacted.¹⁰¹¹¹²

Henry Smock

The St. Thomas attorney Henry Smock assisted Epstein in the 1998 purchase of the island. Smock later served for years as counsel to the board of the Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority, which oversees the Economic Development Commission program that granted Epstein's companies their tax benefits, and to the board of the University of the Virgin Islands. According to FBI notes of George's 2023 interview, Governor Albert Bryan told her to settle the territory's case against the Epstein estate for 80 million dollars and to "select Henry Smock" as mediator. Smock later represented Bryan in a 2023 divorce and obtained an order sealing its records. Bryan has said Epstein received no special privilege from his administration.¹¹¹³

After the Sale

Under the 2022 settlement the estate agreed to sell both islands to independent third parties and to wind down its business in the territory; the government's half of the Little St. James proceeds came to about 11 million dollars. As of February 2026 the only construction permit the new owner, Stephen Deckoff, had requested was for an 8,800 square foot concrete warehouse on Little St. James, and the territory's Coastal Zone Management director said the application was incomplete without an environmental assessment.⁸¹¹¹⁴