Jeffrey Epstein has a steel safe in a room nobody can enter on his Caribbean island, ex-employee says

Little St. James, Jeffrey Epstein's island
(Image credit: AP Photo/Gianfranco Gaglione)

The size and provenance of his wealth and the intricacies of his alleged sex trafficking operation are not the only mysteries surrounding Jeffrey Epstein. There are questions about why he did not have to register as a sex offender in New Mexico, where he owns a large ranch with a 26,700-square-foot mansion, and why prosecutors and police in New York — where his Manhattan townhouse is worth at least $100 million according to luxury real estate agent Dolly Lenz — but not judges appeared to treat him leniently.

And then there's Epstein's private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. With Epstein in jail in New York, "it's quiet now on the island of Little St. James," Bloomberg News reports. "Epstein dubbed it Little St. Jeff's. Locals have other names for it: Pedophile Island and Orgy Island." On St. Thomas, where Epstein's businesses are headquartered in an unmarked office in a nondescript strip mall, "he has been a subject of lurid speculation for as long as anyone can remember," Bloomberg says. "Tourists still take boats out to get a glimpse of the island," topped with a blue-and-white building that resembles a temple.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.