ST. CROIX — Delegate to Congress Stacey Plaskett has denied all allegations in a second amended civil complaint filed by six women accusing her of participating in a sex trafficking operation through financial and nonfinancial transactions that financier and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein allegedly managed from New York City.
Plaskett, in an answer to the second amended complaint that her attorney, Eric Breslin, filed on Friday, requested the court dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice and award her costs of the suit and such further relief as the court may deem just and proper.
After being arrested July 6, 2019, and charged with sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors, guards found Epstein dead in his jail cell on August 10, 2019 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, where he was awaiting trial. Epstein previously pleaded guilty and was convicted in 2008 by a Florida state court of procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute.
A group of five women filed an individual and class action complaint on November 22, 2023 in U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York against Plaskett and others. The plaintiffs were identified as Jane Does in the complaint to protect their identities because of the sensitive and highly personal nature of this matter that allegedly involves sexual assault. They filed the complaint individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated.
The other defendants named in the lawsuit besides Plaskett were former Governor John de Jongh Jr., former First Lady Cecile de Jongh, former Governor Kenneth Mapp, former Attorney General Vincent Frazer, former Senator Celestino White, former Senator Carlton Dowe (current executive director of the Virgin Islands Port Authority), and 100 men identified as John Does, including air traffic controllers, baggage check agents, police officers, and U.S. Coast Guard agents. The defendants are accused of making the Virgin Islands a safe haven for Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking.
The plaintiffs allege violations of negligence and the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act. They claim the defendants and their officers, agencies, agents, servants, and/or employees regularly communicated with Epstein by electronic means about the formation, operation, and maintenance of a sex trafficking ring Epstein allegedly operated in New York. They allege the defendants received numerous substantial payments from Epstein’s bank accounts.
The five plaintiffs, joined by a sixth woman identified as Jane Doe, subsequently filed an amended complaint against all the defendants on December 12, 2023. Attorney Jordan Merson, of New York, filed a second amended complaint on behalf of the six plaintiffs against all the defendants on May 13, 2024.
The plaintiffs claim in their second amended complaint that all defendants used their political power and personal influence to coerce customs, U.S. Coast Guard, airport, and law enforcement agents so Epstein could bring New York men and women to the Virgin Islands to engage in commercial sex acts without intervention before leaving the territory without any intervention or repercussions.
The plaintiffs indicate in the second amended complaint that the lawsuit was properly filed in New York’s Southern District because substantial activities occurred in that district. The plaintiffs allege that Plaskett visited Epstein at his New York mansion to request a contribution to her political campaigns, resulting in Epstein and his colleagues paying her campaigns $30,000. The plaintiffs allege Plaskett also visited Epstein at his mansion to request a $30,000 contribution to the Democratic National Committee that was ultimately declined because Plaskett knew Epstein failed the committee’s vetting.
The plaintiffs outlined in the second amended complaint how the defendants allegedly participated in the alleged sex trafficking operation as well as the benefit they allegedly received. They claim Plaskett’s role as general counsel for the Virgin Islands Economic Development Commission, which approved $300 million in tax breaks for Epstein despite being a sex offender, resulted in her landing a job at the law office of Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC. Plaskett admitted in her answer to serving as general counsel for the Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority, which administers the EDC program, from about 2007 to 2012 in addition to serving in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2015. After leaving the EDA and before being elected for the first time as delegate to Congress, Plaskett worked at Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC from 2013 to 2014.
On March 21, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian dismissed all claims other than those against Plaskett. All claims against the de Jonghs, Mapp, Frazer, White, and Dowe were dismissed in addition to those against Plaskett in her official capacity as an alleged Virgin Islands employee. Subramanian found the District Court of the Southern District of New York lacked personal jurisdiction over the six defendants who are no longer part of the lawsuit. The plaintiffs argued that defendants received money from Epstein’s New York bank account and therefore “transacted business” in New York, but the judge noted in his 17-page opinion and order that the plaintiffs failed to identify a single case in which merely receiving money from a New York bank account was considered “transacting business.”
Plaskett’s motion to dismiss was granted as to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act claim but denied as to all other claims. The judge found Plaskett, the last defendant standing, did have sufficient New York contacts in her individual capacity even though she may not have had any contacts while she was acting in her official capacity as an alleged VI employee. She is the only defendant that the second amended complaint alleges ever traveled to New York and the only defendant alleged to have actively solicited funds from Epstein in New York.
The second amended complaint alleges Plaskett received a position at Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC, a law firm affiliated with Epstein’s lawyer, Erika Kellerhals; and that Epstein made the maximum contributions to her campaigns, hosted a fundraiser for her, and loaned her $30,000. In exchange, Plaskett allegedly approved over $300 million in tax breaks for Epstein’s companies and used her political influence as a congresswoman to ensure Epstein’s clients, co-conspirators, and co-defendants traveled freely and had access to victims and plaintiffs.
On March 23, two days after the court dismissed the claims against all the defendants except Plaskett, a group of 17 Virgin Islands attorneys added their names to an open letter to Virgin Islanders that stated the allegations against Plaskett would ultimately prove not to be based on facts. The attorneys indicated in the letter that they were confident there would be a finding that the case should be dismissed once the time comes for the court to review the evidence, as opposed to allegations. They noted the judge’s order dismissing the claims against all the other defendants except Plaskett was based on technical arguments of jurisdiction and prior settlements rather than facts.
While the letter included the names of 17 members of the Virgin Islands Bar Association, two of the attorneys are affiliated with Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC — Greg Ferguson, member, and Shari D’Andrade, partner.
Breslin, Plaskett’s attorney, also issued a statement on March 23, noting it was “good news for all of us” that the court dismissed certain counts or specific allegations against Plaskett. He wrote in the statement that the dismissals for the other defendants were due to technicalities like jurisdictional issues, settlements they signed, and arguments about their positions as elected officials. He noted a single count remains for Plaskett.
“Our legal team is confident that this remaining allegation is not only factually unsupported but impossible to sustain,” Breslin wrote in his statement. “And it will allow us to show, through the court, that the allegation against her should be dismissed not simply through a technicality but because the allegation is wrong, false, and frankly is not supported by the facts! We are prepared to demonstrate this in the next phase of the legal process.”
Breslin, while speaking with the WTJX Radio NewsFeed on March 24, emphasized the court ruling is primarily procedural and should not be interpreted as a substantive judgment on the case’s merits.
“The claims against Miss Plaskett, some of them were dismissed, some of them were not but that failure cannot be taken as an endorsement or a finding by the court that anything in this lawsuit has any merit or truth to it at all,” he said. “We are confident that it will become apparent that Delegate Plaskett had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein’s terrible acts of abuse and misconduct, did not knowingly cooperate with him in anything like that, and would never have knowingly cooperated with him in anything like that.”
