Carol Thomas-Jacobs

Carol Thomas-Jacobs is a lawyer and judge of the Superior Court of the U.S. Virgin Islands, born in Willikies, Antigua, who spent more than twenty years in the Virgin Islands Department of Justice. As acting Attorney General she signed the March 14, 2019 letter that revoked the 24-hour travel-notice arrangement Jeffrey Epstein had held since 2012, and on January 20, 2023, as acting Attorney General again after Governor Albert Bryan removed Denise George, she countersigned the settlement under which Leon Black paid the territory 62.5 million dollars without admitting liability. Bryan nominated her to the bench two months later.¹²³

Career

Thomas-Jacobs is the youngest of nine children of a family from Willikies and a graduate of the Princess Margaret School and of the Advanced Level Department of the Antigua State College. In the Virgin Islands Department of Justice she served as an Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division and then as head of that division, became Deputy Attorney General in 2016 and Chief Deputy Attorney General in 2020.¹⁴

Bryan fired Attorney General George on December 31, 2022, four days after she filed the territory's suit against JPMorgan Chase, and named Thomas-Jacobs, who had worked on the estate case with George and was assigned to the JPMorgan case, acting Attorney General effective January 1, 2023. The governor's office described the vacancy in its March 2023 announcement as following "the resignation of Denise George in December 2022." Bryan nominated Thomas-Jacobs to the Superior Court that March, saying that "after more than two decades working on behalf of the Government of the Virgin Islands in the Department of Justice, Acting Attorney General Carol Thomas-Jacobs has demonstrated a solid and balanced understanding of the laws of the U.S. Virgin Islands." The 35th Legislature of the Virgin Islands confirmed her unanimously on April 14, 2023. She was succeeded at the department by Ariel Smith, who had been Civil Division chief on the estate case.¹⁴⁵⁶

She was invested as a judge for the St. Thomas and St. John district on October 3, 2023 at the Alexander A. Farrelly Justice Center in Charlotte Amalie, in a ceremony attended by Chief Justice Rhys Hodge, Bryan, Lieutenant Governor Tregenza Roach and Senate President Novelle Francis. Presiding Judge Debra Smith-Watlington spoke of "the work that she did as a practising attorney, her dedication to her craft, her attention to detail, her professionalism, her work ethic, her intelligence and temperament, her courage and confidence." Superior Court judges serve six-year terms.¹⁴

The 2019 Travel Notice

Epstein, a registered sex offender in the territory, had since August 2012 been allowed by Attorney General Vincent Frazer to give the department 24 hours' notice of travel by email instead of the 21 days otherwise required. On February 19, 2019 he flew to the Dominican Republic, where he was detained for several hours and refused entry; his lawyers later blamed the department's failure to notify Dominican authorities. By letter of March 14, 2019, Thomas-Jacobs, as acting Attorney General, revoked the arrangement and required Epstein to appear in person at the department at least 21 days before any travel outside the United States, allowed email notice only while he was already outside the territory, and required him to submit supporting information for any requested reduction, subject to the department's discretion. A signed copy in the Justice Department's Epstein releases, photographed against what appears to be the interior of an aircraft cabin, reads: "Mr. Epstein, please understand that the previous provisions for your travel notifications are [no longer] accepted by [USVIDOJ] and you must comply immediately with the conditions noted [herein]. We thank you for your cooperation and trust that you will adhere to these conditions. Sincerely, Carol Thomas-Jacobs, Esq., Acting Attorney General."²⁷⁸

On April 30, 2019 the firm of Epstein's territorial counsel, Erika Kellerhals, asked George, then Attorney General nominee, to reinstate the Frazer procedures, arguing that "Attorney Jacobs' requirement to appear in person" for travel within the United States "appears to exceed the requirements of Virgin Islands law." Thomas-Jacobs was copied on the correspondence that followed: on June 17, 2019 Kellerhals asked George what she would accept as "reasonable and reliable proof" of frequent travel, and on June 20 Epstein's lawyer Clive Rivers wrote to George, copying Kellerhals and Thomas-Jacobs, "Erika and I would like to meet with you." Epstein was arrested in New Jersey on July 6, 2019.²⁶⁹

The Leon Black Settlement

On January 20, 2023 Black signed a settlement agreement with the Government of the United States Virgin Islands, countersigned by Thomas-Jacobs as acting Attorney General, under which he paid 62.5 million dollars within sixty days to end the territory's potential claims against him arising from his dealings with Epstein, without any admission of liability. Black had paid Epstein about 158 million dollars between 2012 and 2017 for tax and estate-planning advice, beginning under a 2013 service agreement with Epstein's Southern Trust Company, which held tax benefits from the territory's Economic Development Commission. The agreement was signed weeks after the estate's own 105 million dollar settlement, while the territory's suit against JPMorgan Chase was pending.³¹⁰¹¹

Thomas-Jacobs was deposed in the JPMorgan case, with Bryan, John and Cecile de Jongh, Frazer, Governor Kenneth Mapp and Delegate Stacey Plaskett, each of whom said they had no knowledge of Epstein's crimes. She was not among the officials named in the 2023 federal trafficking suit against the territory and its former officeholders, which was dismissed in 2025.⁹¹²