A Georgia man has filed a lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, claiming the late sex-trafficker sold him a Gulfstream jet in the weeks before his 2019 arrest without disclosing that the aircraft was used in a “criminal enterprise.”
Thomas Huff claims that JEGE LLC, the company Epstein once controlled and which owns the plane, has been “damaged by the stigma” connected to sex offender.
“JEGE’s customers, some of which are very well known to the public, are tracked, surveilled, and reported to the press for using, what they believed to be Jeffrey Epstein’s company,” states the federal suit filed in Atlanta last week.
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According to the complaint, Epstein’s minions traveled to the Peach State with the aircraft to show Huff, who runs a charter plane business based in Cobb County. The financier then sold Huff the “controlling interest in JEGE” without mentioning he “was engaged in a massive criminal enterprise involving rape, sex trafficking, sexual abuse, physical assault, blackmail, intimidation, fraud, and deceit,” court papers allege.
Huff “would not have purchased JEGE” had he known of wealthy predator’s sex ring, the lawsuit says, and tried to stop the sale once the feds cuffed Epstein. “Upon Mr. Epstein’s arrest and his crimes against children becoming public knowledge, Thomas Huff contacted Jeffrey E. Epstein’s counsel and gave him notice of rescission of the purchase agreement,” court papers state. “This was rejected by Jeffrey E. Epstein.”
“Mr. Epstein committed fraud by failing to disclose a material fact that could not have been known through any amount of due diligence by Thomas Huff,” the complaint alleges. It’s unclear whether Huff was aware of widespread news coverage in late 2018 and 2019 related to Epstein’s abuse of girls and controversial plea agreement in Florida.
An attorney for Richard Kahn and Darren Indyke, the co-executors of Epstein’s estate who are named as defendants in the lawsuit, could not be reached.
Jeff Banks, an attorney for Huff, told The Daily Beast that people have used the Gulfstream’s registration number, which includes Epstein’s initials, to monitor the aircraft’s whereabouts. “It’s truly affected my client being able to use it,” Banks said. “A lot of people track the plane, who flies on it, and of course, harass those people, and they don’t want to lease the airplane anymore. So it’s affected his business.”
Banks said Huff learned of the Gulfstream for sale through the aviation community—in particular, from one of Epstein’s pilots. “All the information he would have gotten about Epstein would have been through Epstein’s pilot,” Banks added. “He didn’t have any personal relationship with Epstein.”
The lawsuit alleges that “just prior” to Epstein’s arrest, the perverted moneyman’s plane company had assets worth more than $3.5 million. But after Epstein’s high-profile indictment in New York in summer of 2019, the firm “immediately depreciated in an amount in excess of” $1.5 million.
“Additionally, JEGE was not able to obtain financing, not because of credit worthiness, but because of the stigma of Jeffrey E. Epstein’s victimization of children attached to JEGE,” court papers allege.
Banks says that after Epstein was arrested, he tried to help Huff cancel the purchase agreement. “I did reach out early to Jeffrey Epstein’s attorneys and their thought was, ‘Well, you should have known he was this terrible person.’
“They had somebody contact me and say that if I’d done research, I could have figured out what a sleaze he was.”
Epstein “violated his fiduciary duty to JEGE” by raping and molesting underage girls while he was a director of the firm, the lawsuit states. Epstein’s “lies were a breach of the duty of candor,” the complaint adds. “He knew or should have known that his ongoing criminal enterprise would undermine the value of JEGE if and when it was discovered.”
Corporation records show that JEGE, LLC was registered in Georgia in March of this year. The company’s registered agent is the same law firm that’s representing Huff in his suit against Kahn and Indyke.
According to Federal Aviation Administration records, a Boeing 727 is registered to JEGE Inc., while a Gulfstream IV jet is registered to JEGE LLC, a company which still lists the address of Epstein’s compound in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It’s unclear why JEGE’s FAA records haven’t been updated to reflect Huff’s alleged ownership. (Epstein owned at least three jets, including a Gulfstream G550, which was listed for sale last summer.)
An Insider database of Epstein’s flights appears to back up Huff’s claims that the Gulfstream was flown to Georgia for him to examine before the purchase. The aircraft was in Atlanta twice in April 2019, the records show.
On June 19, 2019, the jet traveled from Palm Beach to an undisclosed location in Georgia, and from there to Atlanta one week later. The flight logs also show the plane traveled from Atlanta to Anguilla on July 2, 2019, and returned on July 6, 2019—the day Epstein was arrested.
Multiple accusers have named JEGE Inc. or JEGE LLC in their lawsuits against Epstein’s estate and the financier’s companies.
In August 2020, the New York Post reported that Epstein's swanky Boeing airliner, which the tabloids dubbed the “Lolita Express,” was mothballed at a Georgia airport.
