Jeffrey Epstein’s estate is legally controlled by two co-executors, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, who administer it through a private trust Epstein signed two days before his death. The trust, called the 1953 Trust, names 41 beneficiaries, with his then-girlfriend Karyna Shuliak set to receive the largest share at $100 million. But the question of who owns Epstein’s estate has a very different practical answer than it did in 2019: after more than $121 million paid to sexual abuse survivors, a $105 million settlement with the U.S. Virgin Islands, and years of taxes and legal fees, the estate that was once valued at $578 million held roughly $127 million at its most recent court accounting.
Who Controls the Estate
Indyke and Kahn are the people with legal authority to manage, sell, and distribute Epstein’s assets. Indyke was Epstein’s primary attorney. Kahn was his accountant. Both worked with him for decades, and both remained in their roles as of August 2025, when a congressional subpoena addressed to them confirmed their continued authority.
Their duties include filing tax returns, paying creditors, responding to lawsuits, selling property, and reporting all financial activity to the U.S. Virgin Islands probate court. Every major transaction requires court approval, and no funds can go to beneficiaries until debts, legal claims, and administrative costs are satisfied.
The two men are also, by a wide margin, the second- and third-largest beneficiaries of the trust they administer. Indyke is allocated $50 million and Kahn $25 million. The U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General later amended the territory’s lawsuit to name them as individual defendants, alleging they acted as “captains” of Epstein’s criminal enterprise with “direct participation in virtually all of the business operations and financial activities of Epstein’s trafficking network.”1United States Virgin Islands Department of Justice. U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Files Amended Lawsuit Against Estate of Jeffrey Epstein Those allegations were resolved as part of the broader $105 million settlement between the estate and the territory.
The 1953 Trust
On August 8, 2019, two days before he was found dead in a Manhattan federal detention center, Epstein signed a will and created a trust he named for his birth year. The will is a pour-over structure, so every asset Epstein owned at death funneled automatically into the trust. The trust was filed in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he maintained residency.
The arrangement was built for privacy. Wills become public once filed with a probate court; trust documents can stay sealed. The identities of the 41 beneficiaries remained hidden for years and were only revealed in early 2026, when the Justice Department released the trust documents.
The 41 Named Beneficiaries
Karyna Shuliak, Epstein’s last known girlfriend, is the primary beneficiary. Epstein designated $50 million to her outright plus a $50 million lifetime annuity payable monthly. The trust document said he had “contemplated marrying” Shuliak and wanted her to receive his 33-carat diamond ring.
After Shuliak, Indyke, and Kahn, the remaining allocations went to a mix of family, employees, associates, and at least one co-conspirator:
- Ghislaine Maxwell: $10 million, despite her later conviction on federal sex trafficking charges.
- Mark Epstein, Jeffrey’s brother: $10 million held in trust for the benefit of his children.
- Lawrence Visoski Jr., Epstein’s longtime pilot: $10 million.
- Household staff and property managers, including housekeepers, groundskeepers, and personal assistants: amounts ranging from $1 million to $5 million each.
Fourteen of the 41 beneficiaries remain redacted in the released documents, with individual allocations between $1 million and $15 million.
Why Beneficiaries May Receive Far Less Than Promised
Before any beneficiary sees a dollar, the estate must satisfy its legal debts, and those debts have consumed most of Epstein’s wealth.
The Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program, an independent voluntary fund administered without a cap on total payouts, received roughly 225 applications. Of the 150 applicants deemed eligible, more than 92 percent accepted their offers, and the program paid out over $121 million before winding down.2United States District Court Southern District of New York. Independent Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program Protocol
The U.S. Virgin Islands settlement resolved claims that Epstein had used the territory as the base for a decades-long sex trafficking operation while fraudulently obtaining economic development tax benefits. The estate agreed to pay $105 million in cash, hand over half the proceeds from the sale of Little St. James island, and return more than $80 million in tax benefits.3United States Virgin Islands Department of Justice. U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Settles Sex Trafficking Case Against Estate of Jeffrey Epstein
To cover these obligations, the executors liquidated nearly every significant property Epstein owned. His Manhattan townhouse sold for approximately $51 million. His two private islands, Little St. James and Great St. James, sold in 2023 for $60 million. His Palm Beach mansion sold in January 2021 for $18.5 million, his Paris apartment for roughly €10 million in late 2022, and his Zorro Ranch in New Mexico at public auction in 2023 for an undisclosed price. Every sale required probate court approval.
The estate’s trajectory shifted in the fall of 2024, when the IRS issued a $111.6 million tax refund. Before that refund, one of the executors had predicted the estate would shrink to under $40 million. Instead, total assets climbed to around $145 million, and the most recent public court accounting in the U.S. Virgin Islands showed roughly $127 million remaining.
Even with the refund, the math does not work for the beneficiaries. Epstein allocated more than $300 million in bequests across the 41 names in the trust, well above what the estate holds. How the executors and the probate court will reconcile those promises with the available funds is unresolved, and the proceedings remain open in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
So the practical answer to who owns Epstein’s estate: no one does, yet. The co-executors control it. The probate court supervises it. Victims and the U.S. Virgin Islands have already claimed most of its value. And 41 named beneficiaries, from his girlfriend to his household staff to a convicted sex trafficker, are waiting to learn what, if anything, is left for them.