Just like the Clinton Foundation, yet another Charity used to alunder money and cover for human trafficking operations.
***Article first published by 'The New York Post' on July 27, 2019***
A mysterious do-nothing charity founded by Jeffrey Epstein’s socialite gal pal is being investigated by the FBI for possible links to the convicted pedophile, The Post has learned.
The TerraMar Project was incorporated in London and Delaware in 2012, purportedly to raise awareness of environmental and other issues facing the oceans, and exclusively funded by hundreds of thousands in loans by heiress Ghislaine Maxwell, public filings show.
Maxwell, 57, the daughter of the late British media mogul Robert Maxwell, has been accused by three women of procuring girls to work as sex slaves for convicted pedophile Epstein, according to court filings. Two of the women said both Maxwell and Epstein sexually assaulted them. She has not been charged with a crime.
Maxwell was listed as president of TerraMar, and her Upper East Side home was its official office. She pumped $283,429 into it between 2012 and 2017. In that time, the so-called charity gave out a total of $874 in grants.
Between 2002 and 2005, Epstein used his private jets — dubbed the “Lolita Express” — to shuttle girls for sex between his estates in New York, Palm Beach, Fla., and the Virgin Islands, according to prosecutors.
One girl, aged 19 at the time — whose name appears on the manifests of two Epstein flights in February 2005 from JFK Airport to Columbus, Ohio, and Palm Beach — became a member of the founding board of directors of the Maxwell charity seven years later.
She also lived in a three-bedroom, $430,000 home in Teaneck, NJ, that is linked in public documents to Maxwell, although neighbors told The Post they never saw Maxwell at the property.
The Post is withholding her name. It is not known what she was doing on those Epstein flights. She did not return calls for comment.
An FBI source would not say if the charity probe is focused on the question of whether it served as a slush fund to pay hush money to Epstein’s young victims.
Members of TerraMar’s blue-ribbon board included Westchester businessman and UN official Amir Dossal, “Dead Poets Society” producer Steven Haft, and Calvo-Platero, Maxwell’s best friend from Oxford.
Katie Vaughan-Edwards and Ariadne Calvo-Platero, Maxwell’s socialite friends from London, were also listed in the original incorporation documents.
Multiple calls and e-mails to the charity’s past and current board members were not returned.
Larry Coben, a NYC-based founding director, told The Post he couldn’t remember being connected to the charity and hung up the phone.
Jeffrey Pagliuca, a Colorado-based criminal defense lawyer who is representing Maxwell, did not return The Post’s calls and e-mails.
After The Post began making inquiries this month, the charity blocked its public website and made it password-accessible. Last week, the home page included this message: “The TerraMar Project is sad to announce that it will cease operations.” No reason was given.
The nonprofit’s latest federal tax filings show only $583 in total contributions in 2017 and expenses of $18,462. They also show the charity owes Maxwell $549,093 in loan repayments.
Epstein, 66, was arrested this month for allegedly sexually abusing “dozens” of minor girls.
Additional reporting by Susan Edelman