Two women, whose childhood images were discovered in explicit material seized from Jeffrey Epstein, have initiated a class action lawsuit against the late sex offender’s estate. Filed on Wednesday, the lawsuit seeks damages for individuals depicted in Epstein’s extensive collection of child sexual abuse images and videos. The case highlights the ongoing legal repercussions stemming from Epstein’s criminal activities and the impact on victims.
The lawsuit aims to broaden legal reckoning against Epstein beyond women who have sued his estate over sexual assaults, to those he exploited as children through pictures he and his associates took of them or obtained. In some cases the images were then distributed to others. The lawsuit was filed against Epstein’s former attorney Darren Indyke and his former accountant Richard Kahn, the co-executors of the Epstein estate. Daniel Weiner, a lawyer representing Indyke, declined to comment. An attorney for Kahn did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawsuit calls for Epstein’s estate and federal authorities to work with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to identify individuals in the collection and inform them.
It asks for the estate to pay class action members $150,000 each, as well as other penalties.
The lawsuit seeks at least $6 million on behalf of more than 40 people, some of whom were in Epstein’s so-called “modeling book,” a collection of sexualized images of children seized by federal investigators in 2019 from his New York home, according to the filing in Manhattan federal district court. Hillary Nappi, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said the lawsuit could potentially involve thousands of class members. She said in an interview that most people pictured in Epstein’s collection had never been identified.
