Little St. James

Little St. James is a private island of roughly 70 to 78 acres in the U.S. Virgin Islands, lying about a mile and a half off the southeastern coast of St. Thomas and accessible only by boat or helicopter. Jeffrey Epstein acquired it in April 1998 through the entity L.S.J. LLC, of which he was the sole member, for 7.95 million dollars, and over the next two decades built it into his principal Caribbean residence and compound. Victims and locals referred to it by names including "the island" and "pedophile island," and victim testimony placed sexual abuse there across the period of Epstein's ownership. Federal agents searched the island in August 2019 after Epstein's death, the U.S. Virgin Islands government settled a civil trafficking and racketeering case against his estate in 2022, and the estate sold Little St. James together with Great St. James to the investor Stephen Deckoff in 2023.¹²³

Acquisition and the Compound

L.S.J. LLC purchased Little St. James in April 1998 for 7.95 million dollars, with Epstein listed as the sole member of the company. The island's recorded area is given as roughly 70 to 78 acres, and a 2019 territorial valuation assessed it at about 63.9 million dollars. The property sits in the East End subdistrict of St. Thomas and can be reached only by private boat or helicopter, a feature that kept the compound isolated from casual observation.¹

Epstein expanded the built environment substantially across the late 2000s and early 2010s, adding a main residence, guest cottages and cabanas, staff quarters, a large swimming pool, a helipad, a dock, and a prominent sundial. At the island's southwest point he constructed a blue-and-white striped, boxlike structure surrounded by a square pavilion decorated with red geometric patterns on a white ground, a building variously described in reporting as a chapel, a temple, and a music room.² Reporting in 2026 stated that internal Epstein documents and the New York Times indicated Epstein intended the striped building as a "mosque," envisioned with large tapestries, Islamic gardens, and tiles sourced from a mosque in Uzbekistan.²

Surveillance equipment was reported throughout the compound. Investigators and journalists described cameras positioned across the property, and the August 2019 federal search seized hard drives, security tapes, and other recording media. Online claims that the striped structure was a site of occult or "Moloch" worship circulated widely but were not supported by any verified evidence according to investigators, journalists, and the available records, and are noted here only as unsubstantiated allegation.²

The 2002 St. Thomas Common Sense Symposium

In April 2002 Epstein funded the St. Thomas Common Sense Symposium, an artificial-intelligence gathering subtitled "Designing Architectures for Human-Level Intelligence," organized with the participation of the MIT cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky and the researchers Push Singh and Aaron Sloman. The symposium itself convened on St. Thomas, and a published account of its proceedings exists under the same title.⁴

Attendees later recalled being taken from St. Thomas by boat to a beach on Epstein's island, about two miles away, for a banquet and barbecue connected to the gathering. Several AI researchers who attended described Epstein in unfavorable terms in subsequent interviews, recalling his manner and the atmosphere around the event as off-putting.⁵

Minsky's name later surfaced in litigation over the trafficking operation. Virginia Giuffre, in deposition testimony, named Minsky among the men she was allegedly directed to have sexual contact with on the island when she was a minor; the allegation is victim testimony and was not adjudicated, and Minsky died in 2016 before it became public.⁶

Victim Allegations of Abuse

Virginia Giuffre alleged that she was present on Little St. James across roughly 2001 to 2003, after Ghislaine Maxwell recruited her in 2000 from Mar-a-Lago when she was a teenager. Giuffre stated in court filings and interviews that "orgies were a constant thing that took place" on the island and described being passed among Epstein's associates there. These accounts are victim testimony and allegations rather than adjudicated findings.⁶

An FBI report cited in later reporting recorded that one victim told agents Epstein spoke of building a "harem" on the island to house multiple girls, and that he wanted "a castle like structure, resembling the Alhambra in Spain." Other victim accounts described the island as a site where Epstein and guests subjected young women and girls to sexual abuse, with the isolation of the location limiting any ability to leave or seek help. The U.S. Virgin Islands later alleged in its civil suit that trafficking continued on the island as late as 2018.²³

Giuffre also alleged that Prince Andrew and other prominent men were present during abuse on or connected to the island, claims that were central to her civil suit against Andrew, which he settled in 2022 without admission of liability. The unsealing of Giuffre v. Maxwell exhibits and the 2021 trial of Maxwell produced additional victim accounts describing the island's role in the operation. Each remains attributed testimony.⁶

The 2019 Federal Search

On August 12, 2019, two days after Epstein's death in federal custody, FBI agents searched Little St. James as part of the Southern District of New York investigation into Epstein and his associates. Agents reached the island by boat and helicopter, and video and drone footage recorded personnel moving across the compound on golf carts and removing items.⁷

The search reportedly recovered electronic devices, hard drives, phones, photo albums, handwritten notes, travel logs, and security recordings, with one later DOJ evidence list referencing labeled media. Reporting indicated agents seized on the order of two dozen electronic devices from multiple structures on the property. Prosecutors stated the broader investigation into Epstein's network would continue despite his death.⁷

The search followed Epstein's July 2019 federal indictment in New York on sex-trafficking charges, which concerned conduct in New York and Florida and did not itself charge conduct in the Virgin Islands. The territory pursued the island-related conduct through its own civil enforcement action.³⁷

The U.S. Virgin Islands Civil Case and Settlement

In January 2020 the U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George filed a civil enforcement action against Epstein's estate under the territory's Criminally Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the local analog to federal RICO, alleging that Epstein operated a trafficking enterprise based on the islands and that abuse of girls and young women continued on Little St. James until 2018. The suit named the estate, the co-executors Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, and ten Epstein-created entities.³

On November 29, 2022, George announced a settlement requiring the defendants to pay the Government of the Virgin Islands more than 105 million dollars in cash penalties and forfeitures, plus one half of the proceeds from any sale of Little St. James, with funds directed toward law enforcement, victim services, and human-trafficking and sexual-assault support in the territory. The agreement separately required 450,000 dollars to remediate environmental damage on Great St. James, where the government found Epstein had razed the remains of centuries-old structures associated with enslaved workers to make room for his development.⁸

George stated that the settlement "restores the faith of the People of the Virgin Islands that its laws will be enforced, without fear or favor, against those who break them." The settlement resolved the territory's nearly three-year action and conditioned part of the recovery on the eventual sale of the island.⁸

The 2023 Sale to Stephen Deckoff

In May 2023 Epstein's estate sold Little St. James together with the adjacent Great St. James to an entity controlled by the investor Stephen Deckoff, founder of the private investment firm Black Diamond Capital Management, for 60 million dollars. The combined properties had been listed in March 2022 at an asking price of 125 million dollars, so the sale closed at well under half the initial ask.⁹

Deckoff stated that he intended to develop a luxury resort of about 25 rooms on one of the islands, with reporting at the time citing a planned opening in 2025 and framing the project as a tourism and economic-development venture for the territory. Under the 2022 settlement, half of the Little St. James sale proceeds were directed to the U.S. Virgin Islands government, satisfying part of the estate's obligation.⁹

The sale ended Epstein's decades-long association with the U.S. Virgin Islands, transferring both islands to new ownership. Reporting noted the unusual challenge of marketing properties so closely identified with the trafficking operation, which informed both the discounted price and the announced plan to rebrand the islands for resort use.⁹