Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation

The Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation, incorporated as J. Epstein Virgin Islands Foundation, Inc., is a tax-exempt private foundation founded by Jeffrey Epstein in June 2000 and registered in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Internal Revenue Service carries it under employer identification number 66-0585379 with the name "Enhanced Education" and the sort name "J Epstein Virgin Islands Foundation Inc," at the Red Hook Quarter address on St. Thomas shared with Southern Trust Company and Southern Financial LLC. Under both names it gave money to scientists and to John Brockman's Edge Foundation, and its name appeared on press releases and a fundraising letter that misstated Epstein's gifts to Harvard University. The IRS record shows a single return, for 2002. Epstein's lawyer Darren Indyke, its president from at least 2007, signed foundation checks between 2015 and 2019 for more than 400,000 dollars to young female models and actresses.¹²³⁴

Names and Registration

The IRS Business Master File lists EIN 66-0585379 as a section 501(c)(3) organization named "Enhanced Education" at "6100 Red Hook Quarter - Suite B3," St. Thomas, with the sort name "J Epstein Virgin Islands Foundation Inc." The only return on file for the number is a Form 990-PF for the tax period ending December 2002, processed in 2004. The Virgin Islands government's 2022 complaint against Epstein's estate described the "J. Epstein Virgin Islands Foundation, Inc." as "a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt private foundation that was founded in June 2000 and registered in the Virgin Islands," with Indyke listed as president as of October 23, 2007 and a signatory on its checking accounts. An internal inventory of Epstein's web presence dated February 26, 2014 tracked his foundation sites, including jeffreyepsteinfoundation.com, jeffreyepsteinscience.com and jeffreyepsteineducation.com, and business-directory listings under the name "Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation."¹²⁵⁶

On May 31, 2007, during the federal investigation in Florida that ended in Epstein's non-prosecution agreement, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida subpoenaed the "J. Epstein Virgin Islands Foundation, Inc.," with Financial Trust Company, J. Epstein & Company and "Epstein Interests," with the defense lawyer Gerald Lefcourt as correspondent. A Bear Stearns wire ledger from 2008, filed as an exhibit in the territory's suit against JPMorgan Chase, lists several transfers of more than 550,000 dollars each with the reference "ENHANCED EDUCATION...FOUNDATION...ST THOMAS" routed through Bear Stearns in New York.⁷⁸

On June 28, 2016 a Deutsche Bank employee listed the balances of Epstein's accounts at the bank in an internal email headed "Southern Financial - IA Request": 98,610,505.00 dollars for Southern Financial LLC, 41,108,732.17 dollars for the Haze Trust, 7,668,026.80 dollars for Southern Trust Company, 7,108,576.30 dollars for Jeepers Inc., 1,367,641.87 dollars for "J EPSTEIN VIRGIN ISLANDS FOUNDATION INC 6100 RED HOOK QUARTER B3 ST THOMAS VI 00802," and 667,218.67 dollars for Epstein personally.⁹

Science Funding

Records obtained by BuzzFeed News under Arizona's public records law showed that Enhanced Education paid the physicist Lawrence Krauss's Origins Project at Arizona State University 250,000 dollars between December 2010 and April 2017; one Origins accounting entry listed Epstein's employer as "Leon D. Black, Enhanced Education," a reference to Epstein's client Leon Black, who with Debra Black gave the project 2 million dollars in 2014 and 2015. When the university closed the project in 2018 it returned 25,000 dollars in unspent funds to Enhanced Education. Epstein foundation websites listed the physicist Frank Wilczek as a funding recipient; Wilczek said, "I did not receive financial support from Mr. Epstein," and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's investigators found no such donation. MIT's donor files for Epstein's foundations Epstein Interests and Enhanced Education carried the alert: "There is to be [no] contact with Epstein without contacting VP Jeff Newton first. Sensitive situation, no presidential acknowledgement."¹⁰¹¹

The Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation, with Epstein's Gratitude America and the C.O.U.Q. Foundation, was among the listed funders of the Edge Foundation; financial records reviewed by BuzzFeed News showed that the Epstein entities together provided 638,000 dollars of the roughly 857,000 dollars Edge received from 2001 to 2017.¹²

Harvard Claims

Press releases issued in the name of the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation between 2012 and 2014 stated that Epstein had given 30 million dollars to Martin Nowak's Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard; a Harvard source said the figure "does not reflect the actual gift," and Harvard's 2020 review found a 6.5 million dollar gift from Epstein in 2003 and no 30 million dollar pledge. In 2013 Epstein's publicist asked the program for links because "Jeffrey is trying to boost his foundation's websites and a link on Harvard's network would be very helpful."⁴⁶¹³

In 2014 the program applied to the John Templeton Foundation for a 3 million dollar grant; Templeton offered half and required proof of matching funds. Epstein wrote to Nowak and his accountant, "im not sure if [an Epstein foundation] should sign instead." The resulting letter, from Enhanced Education, stated that "[i]n 2003 Enhanced Education established a gift to the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics." Enhanced Education had never funded the program. Templeton granted 1.5 million dollars in 2015, and in 2018 the program's administrator had a researcher write on the close-out form, "We used a gift from Enhanced Education to Harvard University fund 347150 for the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics." Harvard's review found that Nowak and the administrator "provided false information to the Templeton Foundation."¹³

Payments Through Indyke

According to the territory's complaint against the estate, between September 2015 and June 2019 Indyke signed foundation checks for more than 400,000 dollars payable to young female models and actresses, including more than 380,000 dollars in monthly payments of 8,333 dollars to a former model over three and a half years, ending in mid-2019. In November 2017 he signed a foundation check to a New York immigration lawyer involved in marriages the complaint alleged were arranged among Epstein's victims to secure immigration status, with a memo line referencing the model's surname. Earlier in 2017 he signed a foundation check for 160,000 dollars to resolve a fine Epstein had incurred for construction on Great St. James that violated territorial environmental rules, and "attempted to make the payment appear to be a charitable donation"; the estate repaid the amount to the foundation more than two years later "after questions were raised to Epstein's lawyer about the propriety of the Foundation payment." The complaint alleged that the payments "were inconsistent with the charitable purpose of the Foundation and designed to serve the private benefit and criminal activities of Epstein." The Great St. James fine had been reduced from 280,000 dollars to 160,000 dollars in a settlement with the government of Governor Kenneth Mapp. Indyke and his co-executor Richard Kahn were not charged and have denied wrongdoing; the estate settled the territory's case in 2022.²¹⁴¹⁵

S. 2746, the Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act introduced by Senator Ron Wyden in September 2025, lists "J. Epstein Virgin Islands Foundation Inc." among the entities whose Treasury records it would require to be produced, with Gratitude America and Southern Financial LLC.¹⁶