By Rusty Brooks
“This Program provides victims of Jeffrey Epstein the opportunity to be heard outside the glare of public courtroom proceedings, and to receive acknowledgment by an independent third party as to the legitimacy of their experience and the long-term suffering it has wrought”
A statement released from a new fund which allows victims of the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein to seek compensation announced.
There are at least 70 announced victims who would seek justice, according to the NY Post.
The victim’s fund was in the making since November of last year, Jeffrey Epstein’s estate was being hit with so many lawsuits that it has hired the former head of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund to steer a first-of-its-kind program to settle with his “victims.”, NY Post reported.
Law.com explained: The protocols for the claims process, which were finalized, allow survivors to submit a claim to administrator Jordana Feldmen, who will then review the application and make a proposed settlement offer, said attorney David Boies, whose firm represents five Epstein victims in the Southern District of New York. The offer can not be withdrawn by the estate, though victims participating in the claims process would have the option of whether to accept the settlement, he said.
In exchange, victims would relinquish all claims against Epstein’s estate, as well as any of its agents or employees. Those releases, however, would not apply to any alleged participant in Epstein’s sex-trafficking scheme. If a victim declines the offer, she would still be able to pursue her claims in court, said Boies, chairman and managing partner of Boies Schiller Flexner.
Epstein’s estate is valued at $577 million headed by Jordana Feldman, who was previously Deputy Special Master of the Victims Compensation Fund.
The suit filed in the US Virgin Islands in January alleged that Epstein used a system of private planes, helicopters, boats and vehicles to bring young women and girls to his island residence on Little St. James, CNN reported.
There, the victims were “deceptively subjected to sexual servitude, forced to engage in sexual acts and coerced into commercial sexual activity and forced labor,” the lawsuit said.
The 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) was initially created in 2001 and ran through 2004. It was revived in 2011 and went into law in 2015, but only gave victims the opportunity to make claims until 2020
During its first four years, the fund gave out $7 billion to the families of more than 2,880 people who died and to 2,680 people who were injured in the 9/11 attacks, according to testimony on late 2019 by the VCF’s Special Master Rupa Bhattacharyya.
“When it was reactivated in 2011, it expanded eligibility and allotted $2.775 billion. The fund was set to end in 2016, but in 2015, Congress and President Obama allowed for the bill to continue another five years, until 2020, with another $4.6 billion”, Fox News reported Bhattacharyya’s remarks.
In 2019:, the Senate voted 97-2 to permanently replenish the fund that would benefit police officers, fire fighters and other first responders who suffered harm or were killed because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. Without the reauthorization, the $7.4 billion fund would run out of money by December 2020, ABC reported.
