Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan mansion sells for $51 million, profits go to victims' compensation fund

The late Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan mansion has reportedly been sold to an unidentified buyer for approximately $51 million. According to The New York Times, Daniel Weiner—a lawyer for the disgraced financier's estate—revealed that the sale of the seven-story mansion on East 71st Street was completed last week for considerably less than the initial $88 million asking price. Weiner told Forbes that the proceeds from the sale were transferred Thursday to the Epstein Victims' Compensation Program to "allow that program to resume issuing new claims determinations."

According to CNN, the independent administrator of the EVCP, Jordy Feldman, suspended claim payouts from the program on February 4 "due to uncertainty about the liquidity of Estate assets to fund the Program." Feldman said that the estate was too low on cash to support the program and that she will lift the suspension once she evaluates the financial situation. "We are eager to resume issuing compensation offers as soon as possible," she said in a statement at the time. "Once we have more information about the amount of funds that will be made available to the Program and when, I will decide when we can lift the suspension and get back to full Program operations."

The sale of the sprawling 28,000 square foot Neoclassical mansion was completed after a magistrate judge in US Virgin Islands Probate Court rejected an attempt by USVI Attorney General Denise George to freeze the sale of any further asset by Epstein's estate. Filing the motion to freeze the assets in February, George argued that the estate co-executors had failed to sufficiently fund the Epstein Victims' Compensation Program. According to The Guardian, when setting up the program in 2019, the attorney general had sought and received assurances from the estate that there were sufficient assets to fully fund the program.

The estate also assured at the time that there would be no upper limit on the amount it could set aside to pay claims. The protocol of the EVCP requires Epstein's estate to pay all eligible claims based solely on the administrator's determination and to supplement the available money for compensation from other funds in the estate when the account falls below a certain threshold. The fund has reportedly received over 150 applications since beginning operations last June and has distributed about $55m in compensation for an undisclosed number of victims.

While the judge overseeing the administration of Epstein’s estate ruled that George did not have legal standing to request the asset freeze, the USVI attorney-general welcomed the news that the compensation program might resume work and issue new claims. "The Attorney General's Office will continue to work to ensure that the Estate's assets are not wasted or used improperly but maintained to compensate claims by victims and the Government," George said in a statement Thursday. The Manhattan mansion is the first of Epstein's multiple high-end homes to be sold since the 66-year-old multimillionaire financier was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in August 2019.

Meanwhile, a New York City realtor with knowledge of the luxury market said that the property went for "a scandal discount" due to Epstein's disgraced reputation. "I had buyers who did not want to visit the property on principle. They didn't want to walk into the house and were afraid of the association," she said. According to multiple women who came forward years and decades after their interactions with Epstein, the mansion was the site of some of the alleged sexual abuse of underage girls. Federal agents who raided the home after the disgraced financier's 2019 arrest, are said to have found "an extraordinary volume" of "nude and semi-nude" photos of underage girls, among other questionable items, at the property.