NEW YORK — The Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program halted checks in February 2021. Independent administrator Jordana Feldman said the estate’s liquidity was the problem: too many claims, not enough cash on hand to pay every eligible survivor in full and on time. The freeze was supposed to last about seven weeks. The program had drawn roughly 225 applications — more than double the original estimate of about 100.
It closed in August 2021 after paying more than $121 million to about 150 people. Feldman said more than 92 percent of those offered an award accepted. People who refused, and the dozens found ineligible, could still sue the estate. NBC 新闻, CBS,以及 ABC all printed the closing numbers. A check from the estate of a dead trafficker is not a trial. It is a receipt. The AEGIS Alliance will not pretend otherwise.
The fund is closed. The record is not.
Ghislaine Maxwell is serving 20 years. On August 25, 2026, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer rejected her habeas petition as demonstrably meritless and frivolous, writing that her claims were based on speculation, distortions, and outright falsehoods and that nothing she put in dispute could disturb the trial outcome. Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November 2025. In December 2025 Engelmayer ordered Maxwell grand-jury material unsealed under that statute. On January 30, 2026 the Justice Department said it had posted more than 3.5 million additional pages. Maxwell’s lawyers tried to ride those pages back to a courtroom. The judge said the new material incriminated her.
The compensation program was always a pressure valve for the estate, not a substitute for a public docket. Survivors who took the money signed away claims against the estate. Survivors who did not kept their lawsuits. That split is the story. The $121 million is the price of a closed door.
Related from The AEGIS Alliance: the motherlode archive of Epstein documents, the unredacted black book, Maxwell’s arrest, the 2021 unsealing of Giuffre-Maxwell records, and the 60 Minutes autopsy file.
