Air Ghislaine, Inc.

Air Ghislaine, Inc. was a Delaware corporation, registered at an address in Wilmington and at Jeffrey Epstein's office address in New York, 10022, that held fractional jet shares and helicopters from at least January 2000. It carried the first name of Ghislaine Maxwell. On February 11, 2010 it changed its name to Shmitka Air, Inc., and on July 6, 2010 to Freedom Air International, Inc. A forensic accountant's table of Epstein entities lists Freedom Air International as "100% owned by Epstein," citing a "Corporate Dissolution or Liquidation, Freedom Air International, Inc., Consent of Sole Stockholder" dated December 7, 2012.¹² Maxwell's name appears on none of the company's filings with the Federal Aviation Administration; its signing officers were Epstein's chief pilot Larry Visoski until the 2010 renaming and Epstein's lawyer Darren Indyke afterward.¹ The company is distinct from Freedom Air Petroleum LLC, a Virgin Islands company registered in 2011 that listed Visoski as a member.³

Aircraft

The FAA's registration files, as summarized in 2021 by a special agent of the agency's Law Enforcement Assistance Program in Atlanta for federal prosecutors, record the following transactions:¹

For both fractional shares the bills of sale were signed by Flight Options executives as attorneys-in-fact for the company, and the agent wrote: "To identify the persons behind Air Ghislaine Inc., contact Flight Options LLC in Ohio."¹ N722JE was bought back from ASI Wings on June 13, 2019 by Hyperion Air LLC of St. Thomas, with Visoski signing as manager, and was sold again on May 13, 2021, to Industrial Integrity Solutions Inc. of Ontario, California, whose chief financial officer signed for the buyer; that officer's name is redacted in one production of the FAA correspondence and legible in another.¹⁴

The Maxwell Wire

A third helicopter does not appear in the FAA agent's search. The forensic accountant Jorge Amador, retained by the Government of the United States Virgin Islands in its suit against JPMorgan Chase, reported under the heading "Direct Payments to Ghislaine Maxwell":²

Further, Epstein facilitated Maxwell's purchase of a Sikorsky helicopter in July 2007. On June 15, 2007, Maxwell received a $7.4 million wire into her JPMorgan account 6312 from Epstein's Mellon Bank account. On the same day, Maxwell transferred those same funds to Air Ghislaine, Inc. JPMorgan account 4324. Then on June 18, 2007, $7,352,825.00 was transferred to Sikorsky Aircraft as a down payment for the purchase of a green helicopter . . .

The report identified the aircraft as a Sikorsky S76C and added: "According to the Aviation Database, as of June 27, 2007, the helicopter with tail number N908GM was registered to Air Ghislaine, Inc."

The wire was made during the federal investigation of Epstein in Palm Beach, three months before the September 2007 non-prosecution agreement.⁵

The JPMorgan Account

JPMorgan Chase held the company's account, number ending 4324, which it tracked as a single account whose name "changed three times: Air Ghislaine, Inc., Shmitka Air, Inc., and Freedom Air International, Inc." The bank prepared a "Confidential Due Diligence Report" on Air Ghislaine, Inc. dated January 23, 2009 and another on Freedom Air International, Inc. dated July 18, 2011. It described the account's purpose, as it did that of JEGE, Inc., as "Operational management of one of his business entities that result from his financial advisory business," while it described the accounts of Hyperion Air and Plan D LLC as serving "operational expenses related to personal aircraft." Amador counted ten Epstein entities "purportedly related to Epstein's personal aircraft," and noted that "Thomas World Air, LLC is also an Epstein-related entity, but it did not have a JPMorgan account."²

The 2021 Search

On August 18, 2021 an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, preparing the trial of Maxwell, gave the FAA agent a list of search terms: "Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Air Ghislaine, Thomas World Air LLC, Hyperion Air LLC, Freedom Air Petroleum LLC, NES LLC, Maple, Inc., Nautilus Inc." The agent reported "No other aircraft registered to or indexed to" Hyperion, Plan D, Ossa Properties Inc., Epstein, Maxwell, Thomas World Air, Freedom Air Petroleum, NES, Maple or Nautilus. On September 29, 2021 the prosecutor wrote back that "we'd like to learn more about one aircraft in particular," pasted the agent's notes on the Air Ghislaine Sikorsky N750A, later N722JE, and asked for contacts at the title companies that had handled it; the agent, who was retiring the next day, recommended contacting the title company for its file, adding: "They accept summons and subpoenas."¹

On September 10, 2021 a paralegal of the Southern District of New York wrote to the FAA that "external mail size constraints" prevented the return of the password-protected registration files the agency had supplied, and listed those the office needed "to be able to print/edit as soon as possible": "188TH-Airworthiness," "188TH-Registration," "550GP-Registration," "N550GP was N212JE was N415LM registration" and "N722JE registration." On September 29, 2021 the paralegal reported that the office had "produced all FAA records," most of the locked files being "duplicates of the certified files," and that the rest had been printed, scanned and stamped for inclusion "with that production."⁶ N550GP was the Gulfstream G550 that Epstein's Plan D LLC had sold in December 2020.¹