Larry Visoski

Lawrence Paul Visoski Jr., known as Larry Visoski, is an American pilot who flew Jeffrey Epstein's aircraft from 1991 to 2019, including the Boeing 727 known as the Lolita Express. Federal Aviation Administration files and a Virgin Islands complaint list him as manager or member of several of the U.S. Virgin Islands companies that held Epstein's jets and helicopters. He was the government's first witness at the 2021 trial of Ghislaine Maxwell in the Southern District of New York, where he testified that Epstein had paid for his two daughters' education and had given him land at Zorro Ranch in New Mexico. Bank records released by the Justice Department in 2026 show checks from Epstein's JPMorgan Chase account totaling 106,654 dollars to Syracuse University for one of the daughters between 2009 and 2012.¹²³

Aircraft Companies

In August and September 2021, while prosecutors prepared the Maxwell trial, a special agent of the Federal Aviation Administration's Law Enforcement Assistance Program in Atlanta summarized for federal investigators the registration files of ten aircraft connected to Epstein. Of a Bell 430 helicopter registered to Hyperion Air, Inc. in 2012, renumbered N331JE and transferred in August 2013 to Hyperion Air LLC of St. Thomas, the agent wrote that "the same players in the Inc and LLC are on the FAA registration paperwork, Darren INDYKE and Lawrence VISOSKI," a reference to Epstein's lawyer Darren Indyke. A 1988 Gulfstream G-IV was registered in May 2013 to JEGE, LLC of St. Thomas, a company formed in the Virgin Islands on October 19, 2012, whose members were Epstein and Visoski; Visoski changed its registration number to N212JE in 2013 and to N120JE in 2017.⁴

A 2007 Gulfstream G550 was sold by Chevron USA on March 29, 2017 to Plan D LLC, a Virgin Islands company of which Epstein was a member and Visoski the manager, and took the number N212JE in January 2018. The agent wrote: "I don't see EPSTEIN's name on any of the FAA paperwork." Flight plans show the jet flying from Paris to Teterboro on July 7, 2019 and from Teterboro to Brunswick, Georgia, on July 11. On December 22, 2020, sixteen months after Epstein's death, Visoski, for Plan D, "sold" the aircraft to Six G Aviation LLC, which "sold" it the same day to N550GP LLC of Ontario, California.⁴

Visoski signed as director of aviation when Air Ghislaine Inc., the company that held a Bell 407 helicopter registered N491GM, bought a Sikorsky S-76C-2 on December 30, 2008. Air Ghislaine changed its name to Shmitka Air Inc. on February 11, 2010 and to Freedom Air International Inc. on July 6, 2010. The Sikorsky, renumbered N722JE, was sold in 2011 to ASI Wings LLC of Hartford, Connecticut, and bought back on June 13, 2019 by Hyperion Air LLC, with Visoski signing as manager, three weeks before Epstein's arrest; Hyperion sold it on May 13, 2021. The agent found no aircraft registered to Epstein or Maxwell personally.⁴

The territory's 2020 suit against Epstein's estate, filed by Attorney General Denise George, described Plan D, LLC, the owner of the Gulfstream N212JE, as listing Visoski as its sole manager until a July 31, 2019 annual report named Epstein as the principal. It described Hyperion Air, LLC, organized October 19, 2012 with Epstein and Visoski as managers, as the owner of a Bell helicopter (N331JE) and a Keystone helicopter (N722JE) that it alleged Epstein used "to transport young women and underage girls between St. Thomas and Little St. James." The complaint also named Freedom Air Petroleum LLC and JEGE LLC among the Virgin Islands companies in the enterprise.⁵

The Butterfly Trust

A Deutsche Bank know-your-customer page headed "The 2013 Butterfly Trust," produced to the federal grand jury in New York under the stamp "DB-SDNY," listed the trust's "Current Potential Beneficiaries." Among them were Epstein's assistant Lesley Groff, his lawyer Darren Indyke and "Lawrence Paul Visoski Jr." The trustee was the St. Thomas lawyer Erika Kellerhals.⁶

Errands for the Office

On May 16, 2014, Epstein's accountant Richard Kahn asked Visoski to "poke around tonight about Black Diamond Trading," a company he had heard was trying to buy the St. Thomas Jet Center. Visoski replied, "Here you go Rich ask and ye shall receive," supplied the tail number of the Black Diamond Learjet, and asked, "can you ask if you want me to introduce myself?" Kahn forwarded the information to Epstein, noting that "Larry has obtained some good info on them." Black Diamond Capital Management's founder, Stephen Deckoff, bought Little St. James and Great St. James from Epstein's estate in May 2023 through his firm SD Investments.⁷

On September 9, 2014, a charter booker emailed Kahn and Visoski that a JEGE LLC charter flight carrying the New Mexico attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Gary King and his running mate, Deb Haaland, from Santa Fe was "on the ground at IAD."⁸ On July 25, 2016 the head of security at Bard College wrote that a helicopter landing for Epstein's visit to the campus would be coordinated with "Epstein's pilot, Larry Visoski, and the local fire company"; the college's president, Leon Botstein, replied "Excellent."⁹

Tuition and Favors

Checks from Epstein's JPMorgan Chase account payable to Syracuse University between 2009 and 2012 totaled 106,654 dollars and covered several semesters for Visoski's elder daughter, who attended the university's Newhouse School from 2009 to 2013; a check of December 11, 2012 for 22,310 dollars carried her former name in the memo line. Visoski requested a 21,000 dollar personal loan for her fall 2010 tuition and a 22,000 dollar loan for spring 2011. In July 2012 he proposed applying a remaining commission balance toward both daughters' tuition and asked for another loan; Epstein replied "yes." Epstein also paid toward the tuition of a younger daughter at Millsaps College in Mississippi.³

On April 7, 2011, after his elder daughter was denied an interview for an NBC internship covering the 2012 London Olympics, Visoski wrote to Epstein: "My believe is the background check they did on me, to eliminate her from being giving this interview. Is there any person or friend of a friend that you may know at NBC or affiliate that may look into the possibility of opening this door for her?" He later forwarded her résumé and Harvard Business School application essays to Epstein, who reviewed them. From 2011 to 2013, and again in September 2017, she stayed at Epstein's Manhattan townhouse, 9 East 71st Street, in stays arranged by Groff. The daughter did not respond to requests for comment, and Visoski's lawyer had no immediate comment; the records do not indicate that Visoski or his family had any involvement in Epstein's crimes.³

Testimony at the Maxwell Trial

Visoski testified on November 29 and 30, 2021. He named passengers he had flown with Epstein, including Donald Trump ("There was more than once, I believe"), Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, Senators John Glenn and George Mitchell, the actors Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker, and the violinist Itzhak Perlman. He testified that he flew Epstein to Columbus, Ohio to see Leslie Wexner, whom Epstein called his client, and that "Ms. Maxwell had nothing to do with the passenger manifests." Under cross-examination he said he "never saw any sexual activity" on the aircraft, and of the accuser known at trial as "Jane," "I didn't know her age. She didn't look young." He testified that Epstein kept the cockpit door closed during flights, and confirmed that Epstein had paid for both of his daughters' college education and given him acreage at Zorro Ranch.¹²³

Judge Alison Nathan relied at sentencing in part on the testimony of two of Epstein's pilots that Sarah Kellen had been Maxwell's assistant, one element of the four-level leadership enhancement that the Second Circuit upheld in September 2024.¹⁰