[imagesource:wikimediacommons]

The pair of islands once owned by Jeffrey Epstein, where he committed some of his most heinous alleged crimes, have finally been sold.

Flogging the islands – dubbed ‘Paedophile Island’ or ‘Orgy Island’ depending on who you asked – was proving to be tricky with an asking price of $125 million.

After more than a year on the market, the Caribbean islands finally found a buyer: Stephen Deckoff, founder of private equity firm Black Diamond Capital Management.

Forbes reported that he got the islands for quite a lekker deal, buying them at $60 million, less than half of their initial asking price.

The property, which spans the 70-plus-acre Little St. James and 160-plus-acre Great St. James islands, is located just off the shores of tourism hub St. Thomas and already boasts a helipad, multiple pools and several guest villas.

Deckoff, who stated that he definitely never met Epstein and never stepped foot on the island pre-sale, plans to develop a 25-room luxury resort on the property:

“I’ve been proud to call the U.S. Virgin Islands home for more than a decade and am tremendously pleased to be able to bring the area a world-class destination benefitting its natural grace and beauty,” Deckoff tells Forbes. “I very much look forward to working with the U.S. Virgin Islands to make this dream a reality.”

Deckoff is in the process of recruiting architects and engineers to work on developing the resort, which he plans to open in about two years.

With Epstein’s dark shadow over the islands, he has a lot of work to do. The sicko died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while facing federal charges for trafficking minors in Florida and New York.

Half of the $60 million sale price will go to the U.S. Virgin Islands and will be “put into a trust to provide counselling and other services for victims of sexual abuse”.

Hopefully, that will settle all the ghosts before Deckoff brings guests into his pedo-island turned luxury resort.

[source:forbes]