Nearly 3,000 km from Washington, D.C., nestled southeast of St Thomas, the capital of the US Virgin Islands, is a small isle, a tropical paradise called Little St James.
Hours from nowhere, with nowhere to go to, it is the perfect island getaway.
A 72-acre, star-shaped parcel of land bathed in the warm Caribbean Sea with white sand beaches and palm trees, and a gently rolling hillock providing picture-perfect views of utopia, or as close as is possible in this world.
Aerial photographs reveal a clutch of blue-roofed buildings in the north of the island and structures scattered across the rest, including an impossibly picturesque swimming pool tucked into its western arm and what seems to be a helicopter landing pad in the eastern.
Paradise, indeed.
Except, it will now be forever associated with disgraced American financier and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and accounts of the world's elite drowning in luxury while allegedly raping women and girls, some as young as 12, some reportedly trafficked from as far as southeast Asia.
Unannounced visitors were not encouraged. Photo: US House Oversight Committee
The New York Times cited a 2011 e-mail to Epstein from a member of his staff that spoke of having 'ordered sweet young coconuts from Thailand' and a 2014 e-mail from a visitor, who wrote: "Thank you for a fun night ... your littlest girl was a little naughty."
In another instance, British broadcaster BBC said, a 15-year-old girl tried to swim the two miles to St Thomas island to escape alleged acts of sexual abuse, including rape.
Epstein's island
Purchased for an estimated US$8 million in 1998, the 72-acre island was already quite the luxurious destination with a main house, three guest cottages, a helipad, and a dock.
Support facilities include accommodation for staff and a desalination system.
One of four independent villas on the island. Photo: US House Oversight Committee
By 2010 Epstein had completely overhauled Little St James. The main villa was renovated and four more were built. A new pool. Stone cabins.
One of two pools on the island. Photo: US House Oversight Committee
And a mysterious box-shaped blue-and-white striped building, spread over 3,500 square feet and sitting by itself on an elevated point, with an arch over the entrance.
US broadcaster NBC said it accessed the building records; it was supposed to be a 'music pavilion'.
But the building shown in those records and the one built were different.
The 'temple'. Photo: US House Oversight Committee
For one thing, the planned building - dubbed 'the temple' by some - had no windows.
Pictures taken in 2020, and released by the US' House of Representatives' Oversight Committee in December last year, showed a mix of simply furnished but large bedrooms, opulent living spaces, and bathrooms that seemed straight out of a magazine photoshoot.
One of several bedrooms. Photo: US House Oversight Committee
There was also a yellow dentist's chair, an unexpected addition that has invited plenty of macabre speculation about its possible use.
The yellow denist's chair. Photo: US House Oversight Committee
The DoJ's photo dump also shows restaurant-style kitchens, improbably perfectly manicured lawns, and a collection of art and statues, some of which were rotting away in storehouses.
Photo: US House Oversight Committee
Who were the visitors?
They came by boat. They had to because the island is too small for an airstrip.
Over three million page of files and e-mails, according to Al Jazeera, were released by the US' Department of Justice and names dozens, including President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman.
Donald Trump is among the names in the Epstein Files. Credit: US House Oversight Committee
British royal family member Prince Andrew was named; the DoJ released multiple photos of him crouched over on all fours over a woman lying on the floor. In two of them, he is seen touching a clothed woman's waist and stomach. In the third image, he is looking into the camera.
Britain's former prince, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, is in the Epstein Files
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and actors Woody Allen and Kevin Spacey also find mention.
READ | Putin Named 1,005 Times In Epstein Files, Who He Hoped For A Meet
Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, accused of sexual assault and rape by over 100 women, including prominent actresses, and convicted in multiple cases, was also named.
A Wikipedia page titled 'List of people named in the Epstein files' has 129 entries, with royals from Norway and the Netherlands alongside celebrities like Michael Jackson.
There are at least three million more pages, reports indicate.
Of course, mention does not equal guilt. Many of those who are named in the Epstein Files have firmly denied any improper or criminal association with him or his island.
But there is enough to believe Epstein, and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, may not have been the only sexual predators on Little St James.
jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's many victims and who died by suicide in April last year, said in her posthumously published memoir a "well-known Prime Minister (described elsewhere as a "former minister") had raped her.
Accounts by others, including Sarah Ransome, who was flown to Little St James thinking she was going on a vacation but then raped, she said in her book, 'Silenced No More: Surviving My Journey to Hell and Back', by Epstein. She said he told her: "I will kill you. I will hunt your mother and father down, and I will kill them", if the assault was ever reported to the police.
Yet despite the stack of unread files, the full story may be buried because it is too inconvenient for the global political and economic order.
What now for Little St James?
In May 2023 the island, and its larger northern neighbour, Great St James, were both sold to another American financier, Stephen Deckoff, who paid US$60 million, NPR reported.
That was a steep discount from the listed price of US$125 million
The plan, for now, is to turn them into a Caribbean resort.
An aerial view of the island. Photo: US House Oversight Committee
Deckoff, a resident of the US Virgin Islands, said the project would transform the isle's sordid history, and be born again as a "world-class" holiday destination.
But the last word, in this case, must never forget the past.
The last word should belong to the survivors and the victims of Epstein's island of horrors.
Of her harrowing story, told in 'Nobody's Girl', Guiffre wrote, "In my years with them, they lent me out to scores of wealthy, powerful people. I was habitually used and humiliated - and in some instances, choked, beaten, and bloodied... I believed that I might die a sex slave."
