One of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s alleged victims is asking his estate for more than $25million in compensation, court documents reveal.
The unnamed woman, who claims Epstein recruited her aged 13 and abused her for five years, says the amount is to reflect ‘significant past and future pain and suffering’.
She claims to have suffered extensive ’emotional distress and loss of enjoyment of life’ after enduring ‘horrific’ rapes and sexual assaults at the hands of Epstein.
The request for compensation ‘in excess’ of $25million is one of the first numbers to emerge for individual claims against Epstein’s estate.
Given that there are more than 100 potential claimants already, a sizable portion of his $650million estate looks set to be handed over in compensation.
The sum is not what the woman is seeking from the compensation fund, which is being administered independently of the estate.
Instead it is what she is seeking from Epstein’s estate in a civil lawsuit she has brought against it.
The lawsuit is one of the few still in progress as most others have been stayed.
While the women do not have to stay their cases to take part in the compensation scheme, they do have to do so in order to get a payout.
The figure emerged in a filing by Mary Grace Metcalfe, an attorney with New York based law firm Troutman Sanders, which is representing Epstein’s estate.
She said that the woman stated in documents provided to the estate that her ‘damages are in excess of $25,000,000’.
The filing stated: ‘That computation is based upon the damages caused by decedent Jeffrey E. Epstein to Plaintiff as a result of repeated and malicious acts of sexual abuse, including rape, committed against Plaintiff.
‘As a result of this repeated and horrific sexual abuse committed by Decedent Epstein on Plaintiff, Plaintiff has suffered significant past and future pain and suffering, emotional distress and loss of enjoyment of life.
The woman’s lawsuit says that Epstein and Maxwell, his alleged ‘madam’, recruited her in the summer of 1994 at the Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan where she was in voice training.
Epstein ‘started to slowly display his pedophilic ways when shopping with Doe and Maxwell. Instead of letting Doe pick out clothes she wanted to wear, Epstein insisted that she pick out and wear little children’s cotton underwear’, the lawsuit says.
The first abuse happened in a pool house when Epstein pulled the girl onto his lap and masturbated.
The attacks escalated to more serious sexual assaults and rapes which took place at his mansions in Palm Beach, New York and his New Mexico ranch.
The court papers claim Epstein introduced her to Donald Trump when she was 14 years old and said: ‘This is a good one, right?’
The lawsuit claims that the President ‘smiled and nodded in agreement’.
During a hearing at Manhattan’s Federal Court last week both sides said they have been unable to agree on a way forward and Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman told them to figure it out.
Judge Freeman raised the prospect of staying the case like the others but Robert Glassman, one of the woman’s lawyers, said that it wasn’t in his client’s interests to do so.
In addition to the executors of Epstein’s estate the woman names Maxwell as a defendant.
The 58-year-old British socialiate has pleaded not guilty to six counts of sex trafficking and perjury and is due to stand trial next year.
The compensation fund is being run by Jordy Feldman who will be assisted by Kenneth Feinberg and Camille Biros who have between them worked on compensation schemes for the victims of the September 11 attacks and abuse by the Catholic church priests.
Among those who have stayed their civil lawsuits so they can get a payout is Maria Farmer.
She alleges that Epstein and Maxwell molested her at his home in Ohio in 1996.
She complained to the FBI but her allegations were not followed up and Epstein was free to abuse hundreds more victims.
Farmer was recently diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and her friends set up an online fundraiser to pay for her medical costs which raised $89,000.
Another high profile compensation fund – the proposed one for Harvey Weinstein’s dozens of victims – recently collapsed after some of them rejected it.
The proposed $25million – less than this one single victim is seeking in the Epstein case – was branded ‘insulting’ by lawyers for Weinstein’s victims.
A spokesman for the Epstein compensation fund said in a statement: ‘The program has sent claim forms to over 100 potential claimants, and over 25 claims have already been filed.
‘The review process is underway for those filed claims, including meetings for claimants who wish to discuss their claims with the administrator’.
Glassman and Kevin Boyle, another of the woman’s lawyers, did not respond to requests for comment.
This article originally appeared on Brinkwire.
