An attorney originally from Glen Cove helped convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein operate an international sex trafficking ring that preyed on young women and girls, according to a new lawsuit filed by two of Epstein’s victims.
Darren Indyke, a Glen Cove High School graduate who was Epstein’s attorney for two decades, was accused of helping build a “complex financial infrastructure” used to obscure the crimes from law enforcement, the victims claimed in a lawsuit filed on Feb. 16 in Manhattan federal court.
“Indyke provided the corporate structure cover-up which included creating sham marriages and a web of corporate entities designed to hide the criminal conduct,” said Sigrid McCawley, managing partner at the Manhattan-based law firm of Boies Schiller Flexner, which is representing the plaintiffs in the case.
The development comes after JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank last year reached $290 million and $75 million settlements, respectively, to resolve lawsuits from victims who accused the banks of turning a blind eye to red flags in Eptein’s finances. Epstein’s ex-girlfriend, socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted in 2012 of luring to his home girls that he then molested and was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. Epstein — a financier whose high-powered friends included former presidents — killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial five years ago.
The lawsuit, which seeks class action status, alleges conspiracy, negligence, gender-motivated violence, participation in a sex-trafficing venture, intentional infliction of emotional distress, obstruction of the enforcement of the Trafficking Victim Protection Act and aiding, abetting and facilitating battery. The plaintiffs are Daneille Bensky, who was an aspiring dancer at the time she met Epstein, and a second unidentified woman.
Also named as a defendant was Richard Kahn, Epstein’s longtime accountant who owns a home in Water Mill. He and Indyke are also executors of Epstein’s $634 million estate, which has paid out millions in settlements to his victims.
“Knowing that they would earn millions of dollars in exchange for facilitating Epstein’s sex abuse and trafficking, Indyke and Kahn chose money and power over following the law,” the lawsuit states. “At each step, defendants denied and concealed their personal involvement in the Epstein Enterprise to evade prosecution and civil liability from individuals.”
Daniel Weiner, a lawyer for the men, denied the allegations, which he said in a statement were “baseless and legally frivolous,” adding that they were “surprised and disappointed” by the suit.
McCawley and her law partner David Boies responded in a joint statement: “If there was any surprise or disappointment it was only that they were finally being held to account for their crimes after avoiding it for so long.”
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