More than four years after his death, Jeffrey Epstein — the US Virgin Islands’ most famous resident — is haunting the territory’s Republican presidential caucus.
The convicted pedophile and financier owns and maintains a farm in Little St. James Island for more than 20 years, allegedly trafficked young girls to the compound for use by himself or one of the many prominent figures in his orbit.
The USVI government’s failure to launch a thorough investigation into Epstein’s activities has prompted some local Republicans to claim there is a lack of oversight on the island that has allowed corruption to thrive.
Now, ahead of Thursday’s caucuses, local GOP officials want Donald Trump and Nikki Haley to pledge in writing to fill key law enforcement positions under the president’s jurisdiction — including a U.S. attorney, a U.S. marshal and a U.S. judge for the District of the Virgin Islands — to avoid similar scandals .
“We’ve been under Democratic rule for 35 years and we’ve had a big story here from Epstein to [telecom magnate] Jeffrey Prosser, half a billion dollar bankruptcy. We have corruption in our government, but nobody seems to have gone to jail, nobody has been arrested,” Gordon Ackley, Chairman of the Republican Party in the Virgin Islands, told The Post.
The pledge calls for GOP presidential candidates to pledge to appoint a US attorney, US marshal and US judge for the USVI District “in consultation with Republican leadership in the Virgin Islands.” Republican Party in the Virgin Islands
The USVI has not elected a Republican as governor since 1975 and there are no Republicans in the state legislature.
Haley, a former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations, has said she will “absolutely” appoint “conservative Republicans” to all federal offices in the USVI.
“We need to have good and strong conservative leaders in all those positions, without question. I don’t know why that hasn’t happened until now, but we have to make sure that we do that in the future,” Haley told local GOP officials on a Zoom call Monday afternoon, shadowing the former president in the process. .
In October, 2024 candidate Ron DeSantis also grilled Trump for having “too many unfilled positions” during his first term.
Republicans in the USVI have sent numerous letters to Trump in 2017 urging him to fill appointments in the territory.
“I think if there was a conservative AG’s office that was appointed, a conservative judge, a US marshal that the president could appoint, then maybe the whole Epstein thing – it lasted 20 years – maybe it would last eight years. I don’t know, but unless we have balance in our system, one-party rule is, you see the effect,” Ackley argued.
The Republican Party in the USVI is taking advantage of its early caucus dates to highlight the islanders’ concerns. The party broke the rules of the RNC calendar, competing for third place in the country despite a delegate penalty to ensure more attention to US territories.
The Trump campaign did not respond to several inquiries from The Post.
Great Saint James Island (left) and Little Saint James (right), private islands in the US Virgin Islands formerly owned by Jeffrey Epstein. Shutterstock for NY Post
Epstein primarily donated to the campaign of Democrat Stacey Plaskett, who represents the USVI in Congress as a non-voting delegate.
Plaskett later said she was unaware of the donation, and vowed to match the amount Epstein gave to her election campaign in donations to local organizations working with women and children.
JPMorgan Chase, in a filing submitted after the bank was accused of benefiting financially from Epstein’s activities, alleged the late pedophile had a “quid pro quo” relationship with officials in the US Virgin Islands.
“For two decades, and for as long as JPMC exited Epstein as a client, the entity that most directly failed to protect public safety and most actively facilitated and benefited from Epstein’s continued criminal activities was the plaintiff in this case — the USVI government itself,” the bank said in a May filing.
At the time, a spokesperson for the USVI Attorney’s Office claimed the bank’s filing was “a clear attempt to shift blame from JPMorgan Chase, which had a legal responsibility to report evidence in Epstein’s possession of human trafficking, and failed to do so. .”
Jeffrey Epstein in an undated Florida Department of Law Enforcement photo. Reuters
Then-USVI Attorney General Denise George pursued legal action against Epstein’s estate until she was fired by USVI Governor Albert Bryan Jr. in early 2023, after George launched a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase alleging the bank helped fund Epstein’s exploitation of women.
Bryan did not give a reason for removing George from his job at the time and George has been reluctant to talk about his dismissal, telling the Times of London he was only told of the news on New Year’s Eve 2022, when Braun’s security detail “came and handed me a termination letter.” “
George had previously launched a lawsuit against Epstein over his alleged sex crimes against minors on two of his private islands.
He eventually settled a lawsuit against Epstein’s estate for $105 million plus half of Little St.’s sale price. James.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
