St. Thomas

St. Thomas is an island of the U.S. Virgin Islands and the seat of the territory's government, which the Revised Organic Act places "at the city of Charlotte Amalie, in the island of Saint Thomas." Its harbor was the principal object of American attempts to buy the Danish West Indies from 1867 until the cession of 1917. Jeffrey Epstein incorporated his money-management company on St. Thomas in 1998 and kept his territorial offices, bank, lawyers, foundation address and aircraft there, a short boat or helicopter ride from his islands of Little St. James and Great St. James off its southeastern coast.¹²³

The Harbor and the Cession

The first American convention with Denmark, signed at Copenhagen on October 24, 1867, covered St. Thomas and St. John; the islands' plebiscite was "overwhelmingly in favor of the cession," but the United States Senate let the treaty lapse in 1870. In transmitting the 1916 convention of cession to President Woodrow Wilson, the Secretary of State wrote that "St. Thomas is the natural point of call for all European trade bound to the West Indies, Central America, or northern South America," and that "there can be no question as to the value of St. Thomas harbor as a naval port, with its circular configuration, ample roadsteads, protection from prevailing winds and seas, and facilities for fortifications," near "the entrance of the Panama Canal." He described "the existing modern harbor works, floating docks, marine slip and wharves, provided with electric cranes, oil-reservoirs, coal-depots, fresh-water tanks, machine shops and warehouses" that made the harbor "a port of call and transshipment for ships in the Central and South American trades." The United States paid 25 million dollars in gold, and the islands were transferred on March 31, 1917.²⁴

Government on the Island

The Virgin Islands Department of Justice has its offices at 34-38 Kronprindsens Gade in the GERS Building on St. Thomas, and the Superior Court sits at the Alexander A. Farrelly Justice Center in Charlotte Amalie. Governor John de Jongh lived at his private house at Estate Mafolie, where public spending on security improvements led to his 2015 arrest on embezzlement charges by the administration of Kenneth Mapp. In March 2015 Cecile de Jongh, de Jongh's wife and the office manager of Epstein's companies, told Epstein before a meeting at Government House that "there is a sign in book for visitors at the entrance. I have asked Celestino to arrange to have you not sign in and he said that he would take care of it," referring to the former senator Celestino White.⁵⁶⁷⁸

Epstein's St. Thomas

The Articles of Incorporation of Financial Trust Company were filed on November 6, 1998, giving its principal office as 41-42 Kongens Gade, Charlotte Amalie. In 2009 Epstein's lawyers told Attorney General Vincent Frazer that "his place of employment was, and still is, Financial Trust Company, Inc., located at Red Hook Quarter in St. Thomas." Southern Trust Company kept its office at American Yacht Harbor in Red Hook, a marina of which Epstein owned half and which itself held territorial tax breaks in 2020. His lawyer Erika Kellerhals practiced at 9053 Estate Thomas, the address given for his foundation, Gratitude America, in care of Kellerhals, and in September 2012 his bookkeeper Harry Beller wired the application fee for Southern Trust's tax-incentive certificate to Merchants Commercial Bank in St. Thomas for credit to her firm.^39101112

Little St. James lies off the southeastern coast, in the East End subdistrict of St. Thomas. In April 2002 Epstein funded the St. Thomas Common Sense Symposium, a gathering on artificial intelligence organized with Marvin Minsky, whose participants were taken by boat to a beach barbecue on the island. At his last sex-offender address verification, in July 2018, Epstein refused to let territorial investigators and U.S. Marshals past the dock of Little St. James, calling it his "front door," and arranged to meet them at his office on St. Thomas.¹³¹⁴¹⁵

A May 2019 travel notice to the territorial Department of Justice stated that Epstein would return from Paris by private aircraft, N212JE, a Gulfstream, landing at Cyril E. King International Airport on St. Thomas at about 11 a.m. on June 20, 2019. On January 15, 2019 his pilot, Larry Visoski, wrote that the new governor's deputy chief of staff, Kevin Rodriquez, had arrived on a chartered Cessna in front of Epstein's hangar at the St. Thomas airport and "came over to introduce himself to me, and said he would Welcome the chance to Speak with you. He said he will be running St. Thomas, (not sure if he was kidding)." Cecile de Jongh replied to Epstein, "Be wary of Kevin and yes, he is the deputy chief of staff." Epstein sought approval to build a hangar at the airport, which the Virgin Islands Port Authority under Carlton Dowe rejected; a 2022 complaint to the St. Thomas office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, released in 2026, alleged that Dowe was "paid off" by Epstein over a hangar, but the hangar it described belonged to a private aviation company, not to Epstein.¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸

Population

The 2020 census found that all three major islands of the territory had lost population since 2010. The Water Island subdistrict of the St. Thomas Island district, containing Water and Hassel Islands, fell by 18 people to 164.¹⁹