Jeffrey Epstein in 2017. Photo: New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP

A compensation fund for the victims of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein is set to go into effect as early as June 15, after a judge in the U.S. Virgin Islands approved the program earlier this week.

The fund, which was proposed in response to dozens of lawsuits by Epstein's accusers, would free up hundreds of millions of dollars from the deceased financier's Virgin Islands estate to settle claims out of court following Epstein's suicide while awaiting trial in Manhattan federal court.

The protocols for the claims process, which were finalized within the past week, allow survivors to submit a claim to administrator Jordana Feldmen, who will then review the application and make a proposed settlement offer, said attorney David Boies, whose firm represents five Epstein victims in the Southern District of New York.

The offer can not be withdrawn by the estate, though victims participating in the claims process would have the option of whether to accept the settlement, he said.

In exchange, victims would relinquish all claims against Epstein's estate, as well as any of its agents or employees. Those releases, however, would not apply to any alleged participant in Epstein's sex-trafficking scheme. If a victim declines the offer, she would still be able to pursue her claims in court, said Boies, chairman and managing partner of Boies Schiller Flexner.

"It's potentially quite a favorable process for the survivors in the sense that the survivors' right to go to court is protected," Boies said in an interview Thursday.

"I think it is likely that all of our plaintiffs in the Southern District would go through the claims process," he said.

An attorney for Epstein's estate told a Manhattan federal magistrate judge in February that while the program initially gained little traction among plaintiffs, the "vast majority" have since come around on the idea, which he said had won "almost uniform support" among the victims.

The status of the fund, however, had remained in limbo after U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George in January hit the estate with liens for alleged criminal activity, freezing all of its assets, including an account used to fund its regular operations.

On Tuesday, Magistrate Judge Carolyn P. Hermon-Percell of the Virgin Islands Superior Court in St. Thomas and St. John said that "all interested parties" there had finalized the program's protocols, clearing the way for it to proceed. In a footnote, Hermon-Percell said that George had reached an agreement with the estate to "promptly lift" the liens in order to "pay amounts owed for the program and to begin funding the program's active operations, including payment of compensation determinations to eligible claimants."

Bennet Moskowitz, a Troutman Sanders partner who represents estate executors Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, filed the order Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

He did not return a call Thursday seeking comment on the fund.

Boies said his firm had already submitted names and information for victims, and the claims process for each victim was expected to take a matter of weeks, not months.

"The protocol is set up so this process should go relatively quickly," he said. "There are quite a few claimants, but I think you will see many claims resolved over the next few months."

Epstein, a prominent Manhattan and South Florida-based financier, was found dead in a secure housing unit of the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in August, after federal prosecutors charged him in an underage sex ring that preyed on women and girls as young as 14 years old. His death was later ruled a suicide by hanging.

Just days before he died, Epstein filed his will in the U.S. Virgin Islands and placed Indyke and Kahn, his longtime corporate attorneys, as the heads of his estate. The move was seen as complicating a host of civil cases seeking to recover money from his personal finances and shadowy business network that was alleged to have enabled his abuses.

While his death in federal custody ended the criminal case against him, a criminal investigation of Epstein's associates remains ongoing.

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