Cash totalling around $20,000 found in Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan and Virgin Islands homes raise new concerns about whether the late financier was paid as part of a sex-trafficking ring or as hush money for his bold name clientele.

An evidence log of the items the FBI seized from Epstein’s Manhattan home and property in the Virgin Islands, released on Thursday for the first time by the Department of Justice, show that agents seized the cash, that had no known purpose. 

Previously, members of Congress have raised questions about whether or not Epstein, whose airplane flight logs show had extensive connections with the American and foreign political classes, was engaged in a blackmailing scheme and whether he was working directly with any government. Epstein also hosted several famous players in finance and investment banking.

Some Epstein accusers alleged that some of the powerful or politically connected individuals associated with him participated in the abuse, but the claims are murky and are, so far, backed by slim evidence.  

“I don't know if it's true… but I want to know"

“I want to know about the Epstein list. I don't just want to know who's on the Epstein list. I want to know is the government working with Epstein to blackmail certain people? Because that's that's one of the theories that float around out there,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show earlier this month. 

“I don't know if it's true… but I want to know, and I think the American people want to know, and they deserve to know, and that's one of the things Donald Trump said he would do, is he would release a lot of our American secrets,” Comer continued. 

Prior reports suggest that Epstein was no stranger to blackmail. In May 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported that Epstein attempted to threaten Bill Gates with knowledge of an affair the Microsoft founder allegedly had with a Russian bridge player in order to secure an investment in one of his charities.

The incident was confirmed by Gates spokeswoman. “Mr. Gates met with Epstein solely for philanthropic purposes. Having failed repeatedly to draw Mr. Gates beyond these matters, Epstein tried unsuccessfully to leverage a past relationship to threaten Mr. Gates,” she told the Journal. 

The evidence log, which was released alongside several pages of a heavily redacted address book belonging to Epstein—most of which has been published previously—contained the most detailed information to date of what the FBI found when it raided Epstein’s New York City townhouse in 2019 as well as his island home in the Caribbean. NPR reported that Financier Stephen Deckoff paid $60 million in 2023 to buy Jeffrey Epstein's private islands, with plans to create a resort.

Two entries denote the cash agents recovered from the properties in the 2019 raids. 

“[One] yellow envelope marked ‘SK' dated 08/27/08 containing multiple smaller envelopes containing $17,115 USC (152 x $100, 35 x $50, 4 x $20, 6 x $10, 5 x $5),” and “one small white envelope with writing ‘2000-SK' containing $4,400 USC (44 x $100),” the agents recorded. 

You can read the evidence list below:

Diamonds found but not listed

During the search of the Manhattan townhouse, agents reportedly found diamonds alongside the cash, though the precious stones do not appear to be a part of the government’s evidence list and it is unclear what happened to them.

In addition to the cash, the FBI collected dozens of electronic devices, including cell phones, computers, tablets, and hard drives, showing the government retains mountains of evidence that much of which remains secret years after Epstein’s untimely death in a New York jail as he awaited trial for sex trafficking charges. 

The Justice Department accused Epstein of a sex trafficking scheme in which from 2002 to 2005 he recruited and exploited “dozens of underage girls by enticing them to engage in sex acts with him in exchange for money.” 

His accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell was also charged and sentenced to 20 years in prison on five counts related to the sex trafficking scheme. Prosecutors said Maxwell groomed women as young as 14 to be abused sexually by Epstein from 1994 to 2004. 

More than just a personal endeavor?

Some Epstein accusers alleged that the sex trafficking scheme was more than just a personal endeavor for Epstein. One accuser, Johanna Sjoberg alleged an encounter with the United Kingdom’s Prince Andrew, claiming she was groped the the member of the royal family during a meeting at Epstein’s New York home. The British royal family denied any knowledge of Epstein's crimes, said the BBC. Prince Andrew has denied the allegations as well as another brought by Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, with whom he ultimately settled a lawsuit, The Washington Post reported.

Seamus Bruner, Director of Research at the Government Accountability Institute, told the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show that he hopes transparency about who Epstein served as clients, if anyone, could lead to prosecutions. 

“You know, what we need to see is the people who were so called clients. And really, I mean, documents are going to be great. I'm looking forward to, you know, some 2000 pages, apparently, that Pam Bondi is going to get from the FBI. At least we hope so. We hope it hasn't been deleted,” Bruner said. 

“There's no statute of limitations on some of these crimes like human trafficking and crimes against children. There's no statute of limitations. So what we need are arrests,” he continued. 

Patel: "If records have been hidden, we will uncover them“

I don't want to read anymore, you know, flight logs. Flight logs are not evidence of anything. I mean, people fly on Jeffrey Epstein's flight. It's not the best move, but some of these people didn't know what he was up to. So it's not a sign of guilt that someone flew on his plane, and it's not a sign of guilt that they were in his black book or in his contact list, and so more details about people who are in contact lists or on the flight logs. That's old news,” he explained. 

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a directive to FBI Director Kash Patel on Thursday ordering the bureau to turn over all Epstein evidence to her office by Friday morning, alleging that agents at the New York Field Office had failed to comply with her earlier requests for the materials. 

"Late yesterday, I learned from a source that the FBI Field Office in New York was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein. Despite my repeated requests, the FBI never disclosed the existence of those files,” Bondi wrote. 

Patel, who took the helm at the FBI last week, made a pledge to secure the documents for the attorney general. 

“If there are gaps, we will find them. If records have been hidden, we will uncover them," Patel said. "We will bring everything we find to the DOJ to be fully assessed and transparently disseminated to the American people as it should be.”