From her office on St. Thomas, **Erika Kellerhals** spent years naming, structuring, and briefing Jeffrey Epstein on specialized financial entities — and the documents that prove it now run to more than 2,300 pages in the federal archive.
Kellerhals was a partner, later member, at Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC, a law firm headquartered in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. Beginning at least in December 2012, she exchanged emails directly with Epstein about setting up Island Base Entities — a category of USVI financial structure known for significant tax advantages — and continued meeting with him on island through at least 2017.
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Naming the Entity
Document EFTA01911273, dated December 27, 2012, captures the moment the IBE project began. The subject line reads: "need name for IBE company." Epstein emailed Kellerhals directly at her law firm address, floating names — "J.E. Morgan," "United States bank," "Pan am bank" — while she checked for conflicts and pushed back on each.
Kellerhals responded: "I don't think it need to have 'bank' in the name if that makes it easier." Epstein's reply settled the question: "ok, lets try . financial straggy group."
The exchange shows Kellerhals was not a peripheral contact. She was a working collaborator, helping Epstein structure his USVI-based financial operations from the ground up.
The IBE Framework Takes Shape
Three months later, in March 2013, Epstein was still expanding the structure. Document EFTA01902796 shows him asking Kellerhals whether he could "add in insurance arm to either bank or stc." Kellerhals replied with a single line: "more likely IBE."
The shorthand suggests a standing understanding between them — Kellerhals knew Epstein's entity map well enough to redirect him without explanation. "STC" refers to his St. Thomas compound; "IBE" the Island Base Entity she was building for him. By this point she was already his go-to counsel for the USVI financial architecture.
Island Base Entities are authorized under USVI law to conduct certain offshore financial activities and qualify for territorial tax benefits. For a financier operating globally from a Caribbean base, they offered structural advantages unavailable in most U.S. jurisdictions.
Briefings at the Compound
By March 2015, Kellerhals was scheduling dedicated briefings with Epstein to update him on the IBE's progress. Document EFTA02083133 captures the request: a staff member relayed to Epstein that Kellerhals "is asking if she could meet with you when she gets back from vacation (after March 18th) to go over where she is with the IBE."
Epstein's reply — "yes" — triggered a series of scheduling emails, documented across EFTA01902796 and EFTA02083163, in which Kellerhals and Epstein's staff coordinated a meeting at STC on March 30, 2015 at 1:30 p.m.
Kellerhals wrote ahead of the meeting: "Tell him I'm going to want to go over the IBE stuff." The session went ahead as planned. What the documents do not show is the substance of what was reported — those details, if recorded at all, are not in this release.
Payments From Deutsche Bank
Epstein's legal retainer with Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC was paid through his Deutsche Bank Trust accounts, which prosecutors later scrutinized as part of the broader financial investigation.
Document EFTA01346958 shows a check for $176.25 drawn on June 10, 2015, payable to Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC. A year later, document EFTA01347671 records a check for $7,050 dated May 23, 2016, referencing invoice #36973. By December 2016, document EFTA01347613 shows another payment of $1,636.83 on invoice #38425.
The invoices span a period after Epstein's 2008 conviction and release. While the payments individually appear modest for legal work, they confirm an active, ongoing billing relationship during the years he was rebuilding his financial network on the island.
Still Coordinating in 2017
Document EFTA00446150 shows that as late as March 2017 — two years before Epstein's federal arrest — Kellerhals was still scheduling direct meetings with him. The exchange involves Lesley Groff, Epstein's longtime personal assistant, coordinating a noon meeting between Kellerhals and Epstein at STC.
Kellerhals told Groff: "I am going to call him instead." Groff replied: "sounds like you have been in touch with him on this." The exchange places Kellerhals in direct contact with Epstein at least into 2017, bypassing staff when needed.
The meeting thread in EFTA00446150 runs through March 8-9, 2017, as the two sides negotiated a time slot. The documents do not record the purpose of that particular meeting.
Why It Matters
Erika Kellerhals's name appears more than 2,300 times across the federal archive — not as a bystander, but as an active participant in structuring Epstein's financial infrastructure on U.S. soil. From naming IBE entities in 2012 to meeting him at his compound through 2017, the relationship was continuous and operational.
Her firm received documented payments from the same Deutsche Bank Trust accounts that federal prosecutors would later place at the center of their financial crime investigation. What the IBE entity ultimately became — and what it held — remains a question the released documents do not fully answer.
All individuals mentioned are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.
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This analysis references publicly released documents from the Epstein case archive. All individuals mentioned are presumed innocent unless convicted in a court of law. Language such as “documents indicate” reflects what appears in source materials, not conclusions of guilt. Readers are encouraged to review the cited source documents directly.