The billionaire who bought Epstein Island is under siege from trespassers
Sridhar Natarajan And Ava Benny Morrison
US Virgin Islands: The latest reports from Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous Caribbean hideout, “Little St Jeff’s”, are startling.
A recent visitor was allegedly hogtied while naked. People who interfered with jet-skis were fired. Another was apparently bound with duct tape and assaulted in front of police officers.
Epstein has been dead for almost seven years, but this strange new drama is now playing out on what was once his private island, Little St James in the US Virgin Islands. The new owner, debt-strapped billionaire and Black Diamond founder Stephen Deckoff, is besieged by curios and voyeurs.
Some of the visitors believe that Epstein is still alive. Others are on a mission to fight “monsters”. They arrive on jet skis, deploy drones to capture footage, and face the risk of arrest. In response, Deckoff’s staff occasionally took matters into their own hands, according to police reports.
“If these trespasses continue, the property owners have and will continue to arrest lawful citizens,” a spokesperson for the property said. He denied mistreatment of anyone who “threatened the safety of those lawfully on the island.”
Rather than dismissing conspiracy theories about the sex offender, the U.S. Department of Justice’s release of the Epstein Files transformed the long-running social media frenzy about him into a sweeping cultural phenomenon. School kids are secretly playing a viral video game. Five Nights at Epstein’son classroom laptops. Epstein-themed tourism is a thing; travel guides suggest ways to view their former properties without technically trespassing.
Little St James is often called Epstein’s Island and recent events have now marked a new twist in the dark story of the place where Epstein entertained his famous friends and is accused of committing some of his worst crimes.
Ben Owen, who runs a nonprofit that fights human trafficking in Tennessee, set out last month to plant a flag bearing his organization’s name – We Fight Monsters – on the island. But according to police allegations and Owen’s wife Jessica, it was Owen who was allegedly restrained with duct tape, blindfolded and held in an underground bunker for several hours during a confrontation with island staff.
Last month, police filed a criminal trespassing charge against Owen. He is expected to appear in court on Friday and has not yet entered a plea.
“If I could buy an island for millions of dollars, I would want my own privacy,” Jessica Owen said. “But if I were to buy an island where terrible things were being done on it and there was global attention on it, I would expect people to come to the island.”
Reports of island entry include people trying to retrieve a drone that landed on the beach while filming a documentary, YouTube creators sneaking onto the shore gaining millions of views, and a man brandishing a Samurai sword.
“Epstein could literally be there, bro,” said one YouTuber, filming himself driving towards the island; but aborted his mission after being stung by sea urchins while surfing.
luxury resort
Deckoff bought the island and neighboring Great St James, also owned by Epstein, for US$60 million ($83.5 million) in 2023; this was less than half the asking price. When the founder of Black Diamond Capital Management moved to buy the land, he said he planned to build a luxury resort to help it rid itself of its sordid past.
The holiday hasn’t happened yet. A spokesman for the property declined to comment on its condition.
Deep-pocketed Wall Street executives didn’t hesitate to make deals in real estate owned by Epstein, despite the notoriety and conspiracy clouds that haunt everything tied to the disgraced financier.
Michael Daffey, former head of equity trading at Goldman Sachs Group, pounced on Epstein’s Manhattan mansion in 2021, paying $51 million for the mansion, which was listed for more than double the price. At the time, the executive said he bought it because he “had great faith in the future of New York.”
What the opportunistic buyers did not take into account was the persistence of Epstein’s shadow in politics and culture.
One of Deckoff’s ventures noted his Wall Street prowess at the time of the acquisition, boasting that he had “built a successful career by devising and executing plans to transform distressed situations into successful ventures.”
His company, Black Diamond, which oversees nearly $11 billion in assets, has carved out a niche in the rough-and-tumble world of distressed investing, specializing in paying off loans tied to troubled companies at deep discounts.
“The current owner and his family have never met or been associated with Jeffrey Epstein and will not tolerate this endangerment of the safety and well-being of the people living and working on the island,” a spokesperson for the property said.
He said the owners were co-operating with police and “will also pursue every legal action available against anyone who enters this property illegally”.
Bloomberg
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