Epstein may have gamed the system from beyond the grave

The will that Jeffrey Epstein signed just two days before his jailhouse suicide puts more than USD 577 million in assets into a trust fund that could make it more difficult for his dozens of accusers to collect damages.

Estate lawyers and other experts say prying open the trust and dividing up the financier's riches is not going to be easy and could take years.

"This is the last act of Epstein's manipulation of the system, even in death," said attorney Jennifer Freeman, who represents child sex abuse victims.

Epstein, 66, killed himself August 10 in New York while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

The discovery of the will with its newly created 1953 Trust, named after the year of his birth, instantly raised suspicions he did it to hide money from the many women who say he sexually abused them when they were teenagers.

By putting his fortune in a trust, he shrouded from public view the identities of the beneficiaries, whether they be individuals, organisations or other entities.

For the women trying to collect from his estate, the first order of business will be persuading a judge to pierce that veil and release the details.

From there, the women will have to follow the course they would have had to pursue even if Epstein had not created a trust: convince the judge that they are entitled to compensation as victims of sex crimes.

The judge would have to decide how much they should get and whether to reduce the amounts given to Epstein's named beneficiaries, who would also be given their say in court.

"Wealthy people typically attempt to hide assets in trusts or other legal schemes. I believe the court and his administrators will want to do right by Epstein's victims, and if not, we will fight for the justice that is long overdue to them," attorney Lisa Bloom, who represents several Epstein accusers, said in an email.

She said attorneys for the women will go after Epstein's estate in the US Virgin Islands, where the will was filed and where he owned two islands.

Bloom said it was "gross negligence" on the part of Epstein's lawyers and jail personnel to allow him to sign a new will, given that he had apparently attempted suicide a short time before.

Bloom called a will "a classic sign of impending suicide for a prisoner."