New York | A billionaire investor with ties to the US Virgin Islands paid $US60 million ($90 million) to buy Jeffrey Epstein’s island residences, closing another chapter in the financial dealings of the disgraced financier who died by suicide in 2019 in a New York jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

The investor, Stephen Deckoff, paid roughly 50 per cent less for the two private islands off the coast of St Thomas than the price that was listed last year by Epstein’s estate. A portion of the sale proceeds will go toward a $US105 million settlement that Epstein’s estate reached last year with the government of the US territory in the Caribbean.