by Lawyers representing Jeffrey Epstein’s victims sued two of the disgraced financier’s closest advisers on Friday, accusing them of “aiding, abetting and facilitating” his sex trafficking of young women and teenagers.
The civil suit, filed in Manhattan federal court, seeks class-action status on behalf of Epstein’s numerous victims. It comes just months after two major banks agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to Epstein’s victims to settle lawsuits that claimed the banks had enabled his activities.
The most recent lawsuit seeks monetary damages from Epstein’s personal attorney, Darren Indyke, and his longtime accountant, Richard Kahn. The lawsuit claims the two men helped build “the complex financial infrastructure” that Epstein relied on to sexually abuse hundreds of young women and teenage girls over at least two decades.
The complaint was filed on behalf of an unnamed female victim of Mr. Epstein and a woman, Danielle Bensky, who said she was an aspiring dancer in 2004 when Mr. Epstein sexually abused her. Over time, according to the complaint, Ms. Bensky “was forced into a cult-like life controlled and manipulated by Epstein” and she feared he would harm her.
The lawsuit said Indyke and Kahn had played significant roles in setting up many of their former employer’s companies that were involved in funneling millions of dollars in cash payments and wire transfers to victims. The lawsuit also said the men had contributed to a “sham” same-sex marriage scheme that Epstein orchestrated to help some of his assistants with their immigration status.
Indyke and Kahn, who also serve as executors of Epstein’s estate, “were richly compensated” by Epstein, including naming beneficiaries of a trust that Epstein used to distribute money to people he worked for him. The complaint said the same Butterfly Trust had also paid money to “young women with Eastern European surnames” and Ghislaine Maxwell, a former business partner and confidant of Epstein who was convicted in 2021 on federal charges of conspiracy in her sex trafficking. . operation.
Ms. Maxwell was charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan about a year after Epstein’s arrest in July 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges. A month later, Epstein committed suicide in a Manhattan federal prison. Ms. Maxwell is the only person in the United States associated with Mr. Epstein who has been convicted of a crime.
The lawsuit against Indyke and Kahn said that given their long tenure working for Epstein, they should have known that his legal, accounting and business services enabled their activities. Indyke began working for Epstein in 1995 and Kahn began working as his in-house accountant in 2005.
The lawsuit was filed by attorneys at Boies Schiller Flexner, who were part of a group of lawyers who previously sued JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank on behalf of Epstein’s victims. Those lawsuits claimed that banks had ignored red flags about Epstein’s sex trafficking, as the institutions generated large fees for handling hundreds of millions of dollars in money transfers for him. JPMorgan paid $290 million to settle the lawsuit and Deutsche paid $75 million to settle a similar lawsuit.
Daniel Weiner, an attorney for the estate and for Indyke and Kahn, said in a statement that both men “emphatically reject allegations of wrongdoing” and called the claims “baseless and legally frivolous.”
David Boies, a lawyer for the victims, said Epstein’s sex trafficking would not have lasted as long as it did “without the support and assistance of key collaborators.”
In the course of the litigation with JPMorgan, Kahn said in a statement that he had learned the worst of Epstein’s activities only after the death of his former employer in August 2019. In the confidential statement, which was previously reported by The New York Times, Kahn said that none of Epstein’s “assistants” had ever complained to him about Epstein’s conduct.
After Epstein’s death, Kahn and Indyke established a process that has provided about $155 million in restitution to more than 125 victims. Those agreements have tended to include broad releases for some people associated with Epstein. It’s unclear how those releases from the deal could complicate the claims brought against the two men.
Weiner, in his statement, said Boies participated in negotiating some of those releases and agreed at the time that they provided “unassailable legal protection” to Kahn and Indyke.
