The US Virgin Islands, where Plaskett is from, doesn't have normal congressional representation. Like Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, it has a nonvoting delegate. She can serve on committees but doesn't have any say when the full House of Representatives votes on a bill.
One part of her job, however, is the same as that of every other Democrat in Congress: She's expected to fundraise for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. That year's campaign cycle, the committee gave her a target of around $250,000 to raise for the organization, which recruits and supports candidates for the party, she said in a deposition taken earlier this year.
Plaskett had a list of people to ask for money. It included previous donors, alumni, and "individuals who were interested in the same topics for which committees I sat on," she said in the deposition.
On that list, she said, was Jeffrey Epstein.
A financier worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Epstein owned two islands in the US Virgin Islands (
there are roughly 50 islands overall). His main residence, on the island of Little St. James, was lavishly furnished in the style of a resort. He had even shipped in more sand and palm trees to make it look exactly as he desired. Plaskett wanted to persuade Epstein to donate $30,000, the maximum amount an individual could donate to a national campaign committee at the time.
There was just one issue for Plaskett. Epstein was a convicted sex offender, having pleaded guilty 11 years earlier to soliciting sex from a minor. Law enforcement had separately concluded he sexually abused scores of underage girls at his home in Palm Beach, Florida. But, with the help of high-powered lawyers, Epstein got a light sentence.
For two decades, Epstein had also flexed his political muscles and exerted control in the US Virgin Islands' halls of power. New court documents show how the territory's first lady steered him through political waters, guiding donations to key politicians. Epstein weighed in on an overhaul of sex-offender laws, considered putting a lawmaker "on retainer," and made a customs office look the other way by simply buying all 78 staff members turkeys for Thanksgiving, court filings say.
Plaskett, though, was focused on hitting her $250,000 goal. A $30,000 donation was a feasible ask for Epstein. He had donated generously to Democratic politicians from the US Virgin Islands for years. In exchange, recent court filings say, he got $300 million in tax incentives and was able to fly girls to his islands without customs batting an eye.
And Plaskett had taken Epstein's money before, for her own campaign.
Earlier that year, on July 12, Plaskett sent an email to
Epstein's assistant Lesley Groff,
inviting the pedophile to a fundraiser for her campaign. She said she would be "grateful" for whatever support Epstein could provide.
Epstein responded just two minutes later in his typically typo-marred prose.
He wrote: "get maximum ampounts allowed."
Stacey Plaskett represents the territory where Epstein brought his victims. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
'We would have a friend in Stacey'
Epstein kept up the generosity. In September that year, a consultant on Plaskett's campaign invited Epstein to two dinners on St. Thomas and St. Croix, the two main islands in the US Virgin Islands, emails show.
Epstein swiftly promised he would donate the "max" but said he didn't want his name attached.
At some point in fall 2018, Plaskett visited Epstein at his Manhattan mansion. Plaskett said Groff greeted her at the foyer and brought her to Epstein, who was sitting at a long dining-room table. He agreed to give the full $30,000 that Plaskett had asked him to contribute to the DCCC.
The committee ended up rejecting the donation.
"He had not passed their vetting," Plaskett said in the deposition. "I was informed by my chief of staff that the DCCC informed him that Mr. Epstein's contribution would not be accepted by the DCCC."
A representative for Plaskett didn't respond to multiple requests for comment.
Just a few months after Plaskett's 2018 reelection, federal prosecutors in Manhattan brought a sex-trafficking indictment against him. He
died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial, so he had no other chance to donate to one of Plaskett's campaigns.
She did, however, accept money from him on previous occasions.
Epstein donated $5,400 to Plaskett's campaigns in the 2016 campaign cycle, hitting the contribution limits for the primary and general elections, Federal Election Commission records show. He maxed out his donation to her unopposed campaign in the 2018 cycle as well.
His financial support of Plaskett's political career stretched back to 2014, the first year she won her seat in the House.
It was a close campaign. In the Democratic Party primary, Plaskett, then a lawyer for the Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority, was running against Shawn-Michael Malone, who held a powerful perch as the president of the US Virgin Islands Senate.
Jeffrey Epstein built a temple-like structure on his island of Little St. James, where he kept musical instruments. AP Photo/Gabriel Lopez Albarran
At that time, Epstein was
getting political advice from Cecile de Jongh, the first lady of the US Virgin Islands. Her husband, John de Jongh Jr., served as governor from 2007 to 2015.
In addition to her duties as first lady, Cecile de Jongh had a day job at the Southern Trust Co. Epstein claimed to use the corporation for his philanthropic foundations, though several lawsuits have alleged it served as a vehicle for his sex-trafficking operation. Epstein appeared to be a generous employer, paying tuition for de Jongh's children in addition to her salary,
court records show. A representative for de Jongh declined to make her available to comment.
Malone,
de Jongh wrote in a June 2014 email to Epstein, was no fan of the financier. De Jongh pleaded for Epstein to donate to Plaskett's campaign — and to ask his rich friends to contribute more money. Malone, she said, had criticized Epstein at a recent hearing.
"Shawn is the one who came after you in the senate hearing last week,"
she wrote. "He is nasty and needs to be defeated and we would have a friend in Stacey."
Epstein assented and offered the names of several associates who might donate as well. Among those suggestions was Groff, along with Epstein's lawyers Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, who became his estate executors when he died five years later. All of them donated to Plaskett's campaign, FEC records reviewed by Insider show.
There's no evidence that Epstein reimbursed his associates for their donations, but the remarks raised red flags for Stuart McPhail, a lawyer for the government-ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. McPhail told Insider that if Epstein was using other people to bring more of his own money into Plaskett's campaign, it could amount to a straw-donor scheme — an illegal practice of using a conduit to make political donations on someone's behalf when they've exceeded campaign-finance limits.
"There's enough here to raise concern. And I think the questions should be asked if these individuals were actually the source," McPhail said. "And if they weren't — if this was actually Jeffrey Epstein's money that was passed through them — then yes, that would be an unlawful straw-donor violation."
A lawyer representing Indyke and Kahn said they weren't reimbursed for the donations. An attorney representing Groff declined to comment.
The August 2014 primary was a close race.
Plaskett won,
defeating the well-known Malone by just 737 votes.
One local news organization called it "one of the biggest upsets in Virgin Islands politics."
It wasn't until a month later that Plaskett and Epstein met for the first time in person, introduced by Erika Kellerhals, a local lawyer. They had a meeting on September 5, according to copies of Epstein's schedules obtained by Insider through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Plaskett was expected to coast to victory in the general election. The local Democratic Party has a firm grip on the territory's politics. Since 1981, the Virgin Islands has only once sent a non-Democrat to Congress.
Nonetheless, de Jongh pushed for more money to support Plaskett.
In October 2014,
she wrote an email to Epstein memorializing a $13,000 donation to a Democratic Party operation in Plaskett's support from the Southern Trust Co.
"Hi Jeffrey, I am confirming with you that STC will send $13K to the Democratic Party for the benefit of Stacey Plaskett," de Jongh wrote.
Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in prison in August 2019. Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images
