ST. THOMAS — Erika A. Kellerhals, the ubiquitous Virgin Islands tax lawyer, appears to have remained a loyal attorney and confidante to dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein up until his final days.
“I received the Last Will and Testament of Jeffrey E. Epstein from Jeffrey E. Epstein, and the said Jeffrey E. Epstein died on or about August 10, 2019,” Ms. Kellerhals swore in an affidavit affixed to Epstein’s 11-page will. The document was signed by Epstein on August 8th. Two days later he hung himself. Five days after that, the will was filed with the Virgin Islands Superior Court. Included in the court filing was Ms. Kellerhals’ sworn testimony.
The existence of Mr. Epstein’s will raises questions about his final days inside the Metropolitan correctional center, where he was waiting for trial on child sex trafficking and conspiracy charges. If Mr. Epstein delivered to Ms. Kellerhals legal instructions about about how the fortune he left behind should be disbursed, Ms. Kellerhals may have been among the last to interact with Mr. Epstein in his final days.
The will provides no details about beneficiaries of his estate, but it does list Mr. Epstein’s assets at more than $577 million. Legal activity involving the will is being followed closely by lawyers representing women who claim they were child victims of Mr. Epstein. At least one woman filed suit against the estate last week, claiming Mr. Epstein repeatedly raped her when she was a teenager. Mr. Epstein’s assets, as outlined in the will received by Ms. Kellerhals from Epstein, is a certain target.
Epstein Lawyers Need Lawyers
Mr. Epstein’s will names his longtime New York lawyers Darren K. Indyke and Richard D. Kahn as the primary executors of the estate. Indyke and Kahn turned to the St. Thomas firm of Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC (KFK) to act as their attorneys. The Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin firm, located on St. Thomas, describes itself as “ … a full service business law firm with offices in the U.S. Virgin Islands and New York,” providing clients legal counsel in corporate transactions, tax planning, civil litigation and real estate matters.
Indyke and Kahn lawyers are slated to receive $250,000 each from the estate. It is not known how much the Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin will be paid for its role in the distribution of the Epstein fortune. But as Mr. Epstein’s sordid affairs have come to light, so has the extent of Ms. Kellerhals’s legal work for the perverted multimillionaire.
Fox News reported in July that when Mr. Epstein gained control of the historic Herbert N. Straus House in the Upper East Side of Manhattan “for no money” in 2011, Ms. Kellerhals handled the transaction on Mr. Epstein’s behalf. According to Fox News, “ … Epstein’s home on 9 E. 71st St. is adorned with massive front doors that dwarf those of his neighbors. Inside, his penchant for strange, and often disturbing, design only becomes more obvious. During a raid conducted by the FBI and NYPD after Epstein’s arrest, authorities said they found in a locked safe a trove of pornographic material featuring apparently underage girls.”
From its earliest days in 2012, a private foundation launched by Mr. Epstein quietly distributed millions of dollars in charitable contributions worldwide. Gratitude America Ltd. listed an address in the Royal Palm Professional Building on the St. Thomas waterfront. Ms. Kellerhals served as secretary and treasurer of the foundation during the years for which tax returns were available. Gratitude America reported assets of $8 million to $10 million on its recent tax returns.
Kellerhals: ‘We Don’t Comment’
Ms. Kellerhals has no interest in commenting on Epstein-related affairs. “No … We don’t comment on anything related to clients,” she told the Consortium during an attempt to interview her after a recent West Indian Company board meeting.
You see, in legal and social circles around St. Thomas, Ms. Kellerhals’s name is well-known. Born and raised in New York, she graduated from NYU and practiced at a boutique New York firm that specialized in providing tax advice to the extraordinarily rich. She relocated to the Virgin Islands in the early 2000s, lawyering at local firms until launching her own practice in 2008. Today Ms. Kellerhals is well-known in legal and social circles. She sits on the board of the elite Antilles School in Frenchman’s Bay. She provides legal counsel to the West Indian Company.
The first-name partner in the KFK firm, Ms. Kellerhals, specializes in “.. all facets of federal tax law, including individual, corporate, partnership, and international taxation.” But her transactional practice “ …is rooted in her years of practice in the Virgin Islands and in depth knowledge of the U.S. Virgin Islands incentive programs. She advises clients on obtaining economic development incentives from the U.S. Virgin Islands Economic Development Commission,” according to the KFK website. Mr. Epstein’s primary businesses in the U.S.V.I. were beneficiaries of Economic Development Commission tax breaks.
Mr. Epstein owned Little St. James — “Pedophile Island” — and Greater St. James, sister islands off the east coast of St. Thomas. The Federal Bureau of Investigations and other law enforcement agencies raided Little St. James last week searching for further evidence of sex-trafficking allegations against him.
Feature Image: Erika A. Kellerhals at a Senate hearing, courtesy Barry Leerdam for the V.I. Legislature
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