00:00I'm being sued for going to Epstein's island, which is insane because it's like,
00:04out of all the god-awful things that have gone down there,
00:06barely anyone faced any real repercussions.
00:08Alright, be really careful right here.
00:10This video shows YouTubers sneaking onto the island that once belonged to Jeffrey Epstein,
00:14and the new owner isn't happy about it.
00:17Billionaire Steven Deckhoff bought Epstein's two islands in 2023 to build a resort.
00:21He's since sued nine influencers and conspiracy theorists, accusing them of trespassing.
00:26YouTuber Andrew Peterson told me, that's like buying a concentration camp from the Holocaust,
00:31and like, yeah, we're going to turn this into a resort.
00:33What are you talking about?
00:35I've spent years reporting on Epstein, and at this point it's pretty hard to surprise me.
00:39But I was shocked when I read these court filings about the island's caretaker.
00:42She was originally hired by Epstein and was recently charged with assault
00:46for allegedly capturing and hog-tying one of these influencers.
00:49So how did all this happen, and what the heck is going on on that island?
00:55Jeffrey Epstein actually owned two islands in the Caribbean, off of St. Thomas.
00:58The larger one is uninhabited.
01:00The smaller one, Little St. James, was where he tasked his former girlfriend,
01:04Ghislaine Maxwell, with setting up a sprawling compound.
01:07Ghislaine not only brought in home furnishings, but also sand and palm trees.
01:11This was the main house.
01:12The bedrooms inside were where accusers say Epstein raped them.
01:16This room, with dental equipment and face masks,
01:19have been the center of many conspiracy theories.
01:22Epstein's fiancee at the time was a dentist, but that doesn't really explain the masks.
01:26In this picture, you can see there were security cameras all over.
01:29Victims said they felt trapped on the island.
01:31Epstein used the island to host powerful people.
01:34Visitors included Google co-founder Sergey Brin, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman,
01:38who said it was part of a fundraising trip for MIT, and Howard Lutnick, who's now commerce secretary.
01:43And we had lunch on the island. That is true, for an hour.
01:47Brin, Hoffman, and Lutnick haven't been accused of any wrongdoing related to Epstein.
01:52One of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Giuffre, wrote in her memoir that then-Prince Andrew had sex with
01:57her there. The ex-Prince settled a lawsuit with her without admitting wrongdoing.
02:01After Epstein killed himself in a federal jail cell in August 2019, the two islands were placed under
02:06the control of his executors. And in March 2022, they put them on the market for $125 million.
02:12About a year later, a billionaire private equity firm founder, Stephen Dekhoff, bought the island
02:17for $60 million and announced his plans to build a resort. His spokesperson told me that Dekhoff and
02:23Epstein had never met. But a resort has never been built, and Little St. James looks largely the same.
02:28The only visible change was that the so-called temple was repainted white, and the only construction
02:32permit Dekhoff has filed was to build a warehouse. That temple was at the center of many conspiracy
02:38theories that drew influencers to the island. And as far as I know, more than a dozen YouTubers
02:43have gone to film it. I spoke to Andrew Peterson behind the YouTube channel SideQuestDrew. He
02:48chronicled his August 2025 journey to the island in this video.
02:52Wait, wait, watch out. There might be a camera out there.
02:54We're going to be gone in a second, right?
02:56No, we still have to go to the temple.
02:57He told me he was dead set on landing on Little St. James because he wanted to seek the truth
03:02about the
03:02island once owned by a famous pedophile. But YouTube videos like his are why he and eight
03:07other people are being sued for trespassing. The footage shows Andrew and his friends renting
03:12kayaks in St. Thomas and paddling to Little St. James. Oh yeah, and a category 5 hurricane
03:18was pummeling the area at the time.
03:20Paddle, paddle! Go, go, go, go!
03:25The videos show them rummaging around the temple and the main house. They had a lot to say about this
03:30art.
03:31Bro, that's literally a tortured person statue.
03:34By then, the storm was getting worse and Andrew told me he realized they had made a huge miscalculation.
03:39When this winds, there's no way I'm good on the kayak because it opened us. There's no way.
03:44Right now, 100% no. Yeah, we're, we're, I think we got to, we got to camp here.
03:49So they decided to save the night.
03:52Yeah, I was thinking they'd have this guest house like stocked with snacks.
03:55I got really upset when just looking at that. I feel the tears in my eyes, like that's how heavy
03:59it is.
04:00He told me they didn't find any underground tunnels,
04:02a conspiracy theory that had taken the internet by storm.
04:04In the morning, the group put up a release the files flag next to the temple.
04:09At the time of filming, the Trump administration hadn't dropped any documents.
04:12The Justice Department did release some files later that year.
04:15Then the group left, and as they paddled away,
04:17they heard security yelling at them from the shore.
04:22Sorry, we lost control of the boat.
04:26Based on my reporting, Andrew and his friends were lucky they didn't encounter the island's
04:30caretaker, Ann Rodriguez. In March, she caught two YouTuber brothers flying a drone over the island.
04:36According to one of the brother's accounts to the US Virgin Islands police,
04:40she pulled a boat up to theirs and ordered one of them to swim to her boat.
04:43She was pointing what looked like a gun at his head.
04:46A Coast Guard member found that brother hogtied and totally naked in the back of her boat.
04:51The weapon ended up being a BB gun designed to look like a Glock.
04:55A rental company blamed Deckhoff's employees for destroying the two jet skis the brothers rented.
05:00In May 2026, US Virgin Islands authorities brought false imprisonment,
05:05assault, and destruction of property charges against Ann Rodriguez.
05:09When I called her for comment, she said,
05:10Hell no. Have a good day.
05:12Deckhoff then turned around and filed a lawsuit against both of the YouTuber brothers,
05:16as he did against Andrew Peterson and Ryan Dalton, creator of this conspiracy theory crowdfunding site
05:22who visited in April, and against the YouTuber behind this video.
05:27Deckhoff's lawsuits seek any money the content creators made from their videos.
05:31Andrew said his group had already donated $30,000 of the revenue from the videos to Polaris,
05:37an organization that fights human trafficking.
05:39A spokesperson for Deckhoff told me that trespassers pose a danger for the people who work on the island,
05:44and they will continue to pursue every legal remedy,
05:48particularly for people who film themselves trespassing and make money off these videos.
05:53Andrew told me his group anticipated potential legal consequences, including going to jail,
05:58which he said would be pretty insane.
06:00But because he viewed going to the island as necessary for his role as an independent journalist,
06:05he went anyway.
06:05I don't see this trend stopping anytime soon.
06:08As long as people have questions about Jeffrey Epstein, people will have questions about the island.
06:12Just like the influencers Deckhoff is suing, a lot of Americans still want answers.
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