New Mexico authorities on Oct. 21 sued two men who worked for sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in a bid to block the men from benefiting from Epstein’s estate.
Darren Indyke, who was Epstein’s lawyer for more than 20 years, and Richard Kahn, Epstein’s accountant beginning in the mid 2000s, helped conceal the operations of Epstein’s criminal enterprise, New Mexico’s attorney general alleged in the civil complaint.
Kahn, for instance, told bank compliance officers that Epstein’s payments of tuition for young women were not “red flags for abuse or trafficking,” while Indyke signed off on payments to girls and young women, according to the complaint.
The pair violated federal and state law by participating in a sex trafficking venture and receiving proceeds from racketeering activity, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court.
Epstein, a convicted sex offender, died in federal prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. The trafficking is alleged to have taken place in part on a ranch in New Mexico. A co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted and is serving a prison sentence.
Indyke and Kahn are now co-executors of Epstein’s estate—valued at over $107 million—and beneficiaries of a trust that inherits assets from the estate.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez asked the federal court to find Indyke and Kahn improperly made money from the enterprise and order them to disgorge all money they received as a result of illegal practices. He also requested damages to people injured by the racketeering, payment to the state for costs associated with its investigation and prosecution efforts, and an order blocking distribution of money from the estate as the case proceeds.
“It is unconscionable in my mind that people who actively participated in the efforts of that trafficking enterprise, that they should in any way benefit from what is left of his estate,” Torrez said during a briefing on Wednesday.
“Those resources rightfully belong in the hands of survivors. There should be no distribution of Mr. Epstein’s remaining assets to people like Mr. Indyke, Mr. Kahn for participation in what I think is one of the most horrific criminal enterprises in modern American history.”
A lawyer representing Indyke and Kahn told The Epoch Times in an email that the men “emphatically reject the New Mexico Attorney General’s allegations that they were complicit in or in any way knowingly facilitated Mr. Epstein’s sexual abuse or trafficking—conduct that by all accounts occurred behind closed doors, in secluded locations, and at times when neither Mr. Indyke nor Mr. Kahn was present.”
The lawyer said that neither the New Mexico attorney general nor anyone from his office sought to speak to Indyke or Kahn before the filing of the lawsuit, and noted that the men have testified in depositions and before a U.S. House of Representatives committee.
“We did not interact socially, and I never attended any of his parties of his social functions,” Kahn said in a March deposition before the congressional committee. “While Epstein was alive, I never observed any sexual abuse or trafficking of women and never received a complaint—either by one of Epstein’s victims or anyone else—of such abuse or trafficking.”
Indyke said in a separate deposition that month that he did not know of Epstein’s wrongdoings.
“My complete lack of involvement in that misconduct is a matter of record. Not a single woman has ever accused me of committing sexual abuse or witnessing sexual abuse, nor claimed at any time that she or anyone else reported to me any allegation of Mr. Epstein’s abuse,” he said at the time.
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