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- A Georgia pilot is suing Jeffrey Epstein’s estate after he bought the disgraced financier’s old jet.
- Thomas Huff said he was duped into buying weeks before Epstein’s arrest on sex trafficking charges.
- He said the jet has been “damaged by the stigma” connected to the disgraced financier.
A Georgia pilot and businessman who bought a jet that once belonged to Jeffrey Epstein sued his estate, claiming he was duped into buying an aircraft “tainted” by the “stigma” of Epstein’s “criminal enterprise, The Daily Beast reported.
Thomas Huff bought the jet and a “controlling interest” in an adjoining limited liability company – together worth at least $3.5 million – in June 2019, weeks before Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking in July 2019.
Epstein was awaiting trial and held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, where he died by suicide last July.
Huff filed the lawsuit in Atlanta against the executors of Epstein’s estate last week, saying that JEGE LLC, the adjoining company once controlled by Epstein and which owns the jet, has been “damaged by the stigma” connected to the disgraced financier.
He accused Epstein of selling Huff the Gulfstream jet and controlling interest in JEGE without notifying him that he “was engaged in a massive criminal enterprise involving rape, sex trafficking, sexual abuse, physical assault, blackmail, intimidation, fraud, and deceit,” according to court documents, The Beast reported.
Huff’s lawsuit claimed that Epstein “knew or should have known that his criminal acts which resulted in the victimization and sexual exploitation against … children would, if and when discovered, have a dramatic impact on the assets and value of JEGE,” citing a report by The Washington Post.
The lawsuit went on to say that Huff “would not have purchased JEGE” had he been made aware of Epstein’s alleged involvement in the international sex ring and said that the Georgia pilot attempted to stop the sale after the financier was arrested.
“Upon Mr. Epstein’s arrest and his crimes against children becoming public knowledge, Thomas Huff contacted Jeffrey E. Epstein’s counsel and gave him notice of rescission of the purchase agreement,” according to court documents, citing The Daily Beast report. “This was rejected by Jeffrey E. Epstein.”
Jeff Banks, an attorney representing Huff, told The Daily Beast that his client “didn’t have any personal relationship with Epstein” and that all the information he could have gotten about Epstein would be through his own pilot.
“It’s truly affected my client being able to use it,” Banks said. “A lot of people track the plane, who flies on it, and of course, harass those people, and they don’t want to lease the airplane anymore, so it’s affected his business.”
Banks did not immediately return Insider’s request for comment.
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