Albert Bryan

Albert Bryan Jr. is the ninth governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, in office since January 7, 2019. He served as the territory's Commissioner of Labor under Governor John de Jongh from 2007 to 2015 and, while still Labor Commissioner, chaired the Economic Development Commission, the tax-incentive body that on January 24, 2014 issued Jeffrey Epstein's Southern Trust Company a certificate of benefits bearing Bryan's signature. As governor he appointed Denise George as attorney general in 2019 and fired her on December 31, 2022, four days after she sued JPMorgan Chase over its handling of Epstein's accounts. George later told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that Bryan had pressed her for a waiver of Epstein's sex-offender travel-reporting requirement and later to settle the territory's case against the Epstein estate for less than it recovered. Bryan has denied that Epstein received any special treatment from his administration.¹²³⁴

Early Life and Career

Bryan was born on St. Thomas, the oldest of five sons of Albert Bryan Sr. and Genevieve Pilgrim, and grew up in the Savan neighborhood of Charlotte Amalie. He moved to St. Croix as a teenager, graduated from St. Dunstan's Episcopal High School in 1985, took a bachelor's degree in economics from Wittenberg University in 1989, and earned an MBA from the University of the Virgin Islands in 2003. He worked at the Hess oil operation on St. Croix, the Virgin Islands Housing Authority, and Innovative Communications.¹

Governor John de Jongh appointed Bryan Commissioner of Labor on May 3, 2007, the year de Jongh took office and the year de Jongh's wife, Cecile de Jongh, began drawing a salary as office manager of Epstein's territorial companies. Bryan held the post through the end of de Jongh's second term on January 5, 2015. After leaving government he ran the consulting firm Aabra Group and the recruiting firm Master Strategies and served as executive director of the Virgin Islands chapter of Junior Achievement.¹

Chairman of the Economic Development Commission

Epstein's companies held Economic Development Commission certificates from 1999, first through Financial Trust Company and then through Southern Trust Company, and the Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority granted him tax benefits that Carlyn Irwin, a consultant retained by JPMorgan, later put at about 300 million dollars. Southern Trust applied for benefits in October 2012, and at a public hearing before the commission on November 15, 2012, Epstein and his attorney Ericka Kellerhals described the company as providing "cutting edge consulting services" in "biomedical and financial informatics." According to the transcript of that presentation, no commissioner asked about Epstein's 2008 conviction or his status as a registered sex offender.²³⁵

The certificate awarding Southern Trust its benefits is dated January 24, 2014 and bears the signatures of Bryan, as chairman of the commission, and Epstein, as the company's president. The same day, Cecile 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 asked Epstein's accountant Richard Kahn to "prepare a check for $15,000 made payable to Governor's Special Events Fund." Bryan was serving as commission chairman and Labor Commissioner at once in 2013, and both he and Governor de Jongh signed off on an extension of Southern Trust's benefits.²³

The package ran from February 1, 2013 to January 31, 2023, with a 90 percent exemption from income taxes and full exemptions from gross-receipts, excise, and withholding taxes. The territory's 2022 complaint against the Epstein estate put the taxes Epstein avoided through the Southern Trust certificate at 80,576,236 dollars and alleged that the company had no visible clients and performed no informatics work.⁵

The 2018 Election and Epstein's Money

Bryan announced his candidacy for governor in April 2018 with Tregenza Roach as running mate, won the August 4 Democratic primary with 39.23 percent, and defeated the incumbent Kenneth Mapp in a November 2018 runoff. On December 20, 2018, Cecile de Jongh emailed Epstein: "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"; on December 6 she had written that "Albert suggested a school for autistic children." The JPMorgan exhibits do not show whether Epstein paid the inaugural committee. In July 2019 Government House communications director Richard Motta Jr. told the Virgin Islands Daily News that "to the best of my knowledge the Bryan-Roach Campaign have not received any contributions from Mr. Epstein."¹⁶

In December 2014 Cecile de Jongh had asked Epstein "to confirm that you want to donate $10,000 to the Mapp-Potter inaugural committee and that it should come from Southern Trust," a payment Irwin later reported as made, and on September 1, 2016 Epstein told de Jongh to "prepare a check for mapps super pac. For 75k." In May 2025 the journalist Lee Fang published a territorial campaign-finance record showing a check from Kellerhals to Bryan's 2018 campaign.³⁶⁷

Governor: Texts With Epstein

Epstein contacted Bryan days after the January 2019 inauguration, and the two men corresponded in the months before Epstein's July 2019 arrest. In May 2019 Bryan's nominee for commissioner of the Department of Planning and Natural Resources, Jean-Pierre Oriol, said publicly that Epstein was continuing construction on Great St. James despite a stop-work order. Epstein complained to Bryan, "Jp going after me in the press!! Army corps told us ok. This is very wrong!" and "Accusing me of illegality!!!" Bryan replied "We got u." Bryan did not answer the Daily News's questions about why he told Oriol to recuse himself.⁴

At a March 2, 2026 press briefing Bryan made no apology for the messages. "The record is clear, there's no concessions made. I don't even know why this is a story," he said, adding that the Organic Act gave the governor supervision of every department: "I could just tell them do it, you don't do it, you're fired." He said the record "shows no instance where he was afforded any special privilege by this administration," that his campaign had "no record of any contributions from Jeffrey Epstein," and that he would "absolutely" support a legislative inquiry: "even if I had told DPNR to grant his permit, it's perfectly within the right and power of the governor of the Virgin Islands... So what would the investigation be about?" Asked about territorial oversight of Epstein, he said, "Are there any victims in the Virgin Islands saying they were abused?" At the same briefing he defended his renomination of the former senator Celestino White to the Virgin Islands Port Authority board after the files showed White had offered to work on Epstein's behalf, including on the purchase of government-owned Dog Island.⁴⁸

The Travel Waiver

Registered sex offenders in the territory must generally give 21 days' notice before travel. A prior attorney general, Vincent Frazer, had allowed Epstein to give 24 hours' notice; George told the FBI she believed Frazer "was pressured by then Governor John De Jongh." Acting Attorney General Carol Thomas-Jacobs rescinded that arrangement in March 2019 after Epstein was detained in the Dominican Republic. According to the FBI's notes of its October 2, 2023 interview with George, Bryan told her within her first two weeks as attorney general that Epstein "wanted a waiver for a 21 day reporting requirement," and texted her that "you need to make a decision on the Epstein matter." George did not grant the waiver, and Bryan replied by email, "Thank you for your work on this." In July 2019 Kellerhals asked George for a meeting about the waiver; Epstein was arrested on July 6, before it took place.³

The Estate Case and the Firing

George told the FBI that she consulted Bryan before suing the Epstein estate in January 2020 and that he told her, "He's dead go for it." She said his tone later shifted from "Go for it" to "End it quickly," that he questioned why she was interviewing certain people and requesting documents, and that he told her, "originally when I said go ahead I didn't think it was going to go this far. I can't get you to let this go?" When the territory's outside counsel Motley Rice began interviewing estate employees, George received a call from David Bornn, Bryan's chief legal counsel and a former employee of Kellerhals, relaying that Kellerhals wanted to know what George was investigating.³

According to the FBI notes, Bryan told George to settle with the estate for 80 million dollars "and to pursue mediation and select Henry Smock" as mediator, told her "that the Epstein estate just wanted to clear people," and later said "he was sick of her not doing what she was told to do." Henry Smock had assisted Epstein in the 1998 purchase of Little St. James and served as counsel to the boards of the Economic Development Authority and the University of the Virgin Islands. George said Bryan sent Carlton Dowe, director of the Virgin Islands Port Authority, to press her to settle; Dowe told her he "does things for Bryan too but has a line he won't cross," and that it "would be political suicide to fire her at least before the election." The estate settled on November 30, 2022 for 105 million dollars plus half the proceeds of the sale of Little St. James.³⁹

George filed the territory's suit against JPMorgan Chase on December 27, 2022. Bryan fired her on December 31. He said the dismissal was unrelated to the suit but that he could not have an attorney general filing lawsuits he did not know about; George told the FBI that "a listed reason was that no attorney general was going to file anything without notifying the Governor." Government House spokespersons did not respond to questions about the FBI notes when they were released in January 2026, and Bryan later dismissed the account as "noise" that was nothing new.³⁴¹⁰

Yolanda Bryan and the Settlement Money

After Bryan took office, the Economic Development Authority created the post of "Business Ambassador," held by his wife, Yolanda Bryan, while she was first lady. On July 10, 2019, four days after Epstein's arrest, EDA spokeswoman Shanell Petersen wrote to her about two press inquiries concerning "Jeffrey Epstein being an active EDC Beneficiary": "I recommend contacting Southern Trust and IYG (companies which he has ownership interest) to update them that we have provided public information based on the Sunshine Act... Informing them will allow them to prepare their PR team." Smock was part of the EDA's nine-step protocol for answering media requests after the arrest. Bryan filed for divorce in 2023 after 27 years of marriage; Smock represented him and obtained an order sealing the case records.³

In 2024 Bryan appointed Gordon Rhea attorney general. Rhea had represented Richard Kahn in the territory's case against the estate and said he would recuse himself from Epstein matters. The territory received about 180 million dollars in Epstein-related settlements after Motley Rice's fees. Bryan cited the money in his January 26, 2026 State of the Territory address; his administration had not filed the full accounting of its use that a 2024 territorial law requires.³⁴