loading
loading
New Mexico's attorney general on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit accusing Jeffrey Epstein's long-time personal lawyer and accountant of facilitating Epstein's sex trafficking operation. The civil suit alleges the attorney, Darren Indyke, and the accountant, Richard Kahn, helped finance and conceal Epstein's sex trafficking, which included the abuse of girls and young women at his Zorro Ranch in Santa Fe County, New Mexico. Indyke and Kahn are beneficiaries of Epstein's 1953 Trust, co-executors of Epstein's estate, and administrators of the revocable trust, whose name comes from the year of the convicted sex offender's birth. New Mexico's suit asks a judge to block Indyke and Kahn from receiving payments from the estate as the case proceeds in U.S. District Court in New Mexico. The suit alleges the two men participated in a sex trafficking venture in violation of the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act; and that they violated New Mexico's Racketeering Act by engaging in kidnapping, criminal solicitation and conspiracy. Attorney General Raul Torrez's office said Epstein's estate is currently valued at more than $107 million, and the suit says Indyke and Kahn are eligible for bequests of $50 million and $25 million, subject to the availability of funds. "Jeffrey Epstein did not operate alone, and his death does not end the pursuit of accountability for the people who helped make his crimes possible," Torrez said in a statement, which was released as he appeared at a press conference flanked by two survivors of abuse by Epstein, Anouska De Georgiou and Julia Molchanova. "The allegations in this lawsuit describe a network of people and financial arrangements that helped sustain and conceal the abuse of vulnerable girls and young women, including here in New Mexico," Torrez said. "Those who allegedly enabled this exploitation should not be allowed to profit from it while survivors continue to live with its consequences." The suit comes a month after The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York had opened an investigation into Indyke and Kahn. De Georgiou said at the press conference that her abuse by Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, "did not happen in isolation." "It could not have continued for as long as it did without people facilitating it, looking the other way, or choosing to do nothing to stop it," De Georgiou said. "Accountability cannot end with Epstein and Maxwell. It must extend to those who knowingly made their abuse possible, especially those who stand to profit from it. That includes anyone who knowingly helped make Epstein appear legitimate to conceal his abuse of women and girls." Daniel Weiner, an attorney for Epstein's estate, in a statement to CNBC, said, "Both Mr. Indyke and Mr. Kahn reject as categorically false the allegations that they knowingly facilitated or assisted Mr. Epstein in his sexual abuse or trafficking of women, or that they were aware of Mr. Epstein's actions while they provided legal or accounting services to him." "They are confident that they will prevail on the claims asserted against them," Weiner said. "Neither the New Mexico Attorney General nor anyone from his office asked to speak with Mr. Indyke or Mr. Kahn to seek relevant information from them before filing this baseless lawsuit, raising serious questions about the thoroughness of the Attorney General's investigation and the motivations for his lawsuit," Weiner said. "Messrs. Indyke and Kahn have given multiple depositions in civil lawsuits and have testified at length before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform," the attorney said. "Had the New Mexico Attorney General wanted to learn the actual facts of their professional services for Epstein, the Attorney General or his staff could have reached out to schedule interviews. Messrs. Indyke and Kahn have cooperated with any and all investigations when asked to do so." The lawsuit alleges Indyke and Kahn personally profited from their relationship to Epstein, who killed himself in a federal jail in New York in August 2019, weeks after being arrested on child sex trafficking charges. "Between 2011 and 2019, Indyke received more than $16 million from Epstein and related entities, and Kahn received more than $10 million," Torrez's office said in a statement. Torrez, at a press conference Wednesday, said his office is continuing a criminal investigation of Epstein's sex trafficking operation. No criminal charges have been filed in connection with that probe. Epstein's estate in February agreed to pay out as much as $35 million to settle a class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that accused Indyke and Kahn of aiding and abetting Epstein's sex trafficking. The proposed settlement does not include any admission of misconduct by Indyke or Kahn. The judge handling the case last month endorsed a proposal by the suit's plaintiff to notify potential class members to submit claims on the settlement by conducting a four-week-long social media campaign on Facebook and Instagram.
document fetched 2026-10-22 03:00 · canonical https://cnbc.com/2026/10/21/epstein-new-mexico-lawsuit-sex-trafficking.html