FILE – This July 27, 2006 arrest file photo made available by the Palm Beach, Fla., Sheriff’s Office shows Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender, has been arrested in New York on sex trafficking charges. Two law enforcement officials said Epstein was taken into federal custody Saturday, July 6, 2019, on charges involving sex-trafficking allegations that date to the 2000s. (AP Photo/Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office, File)

U.S. Virgin Islands Senator Oakland Benta (D-St. Croix) spoke to Breitbart News’ Matt Roper on Thursday about billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. At one time, Benta was the island’s Chief of Police. He told Breitbart “there is widespread corruption within the territory that needs to be addressed and looked at with fresh eyes.”

Benta said:

Being an investigator as well, and understanding the dynamics, the police department now needs to work with its federal partners very closely because we have interstate trafficking across state lines of minors. If you move across state lines, that is a trafficking offense. At the end of the day, there are so many souls that have been placed in these positions that don’t have the wherewithal or the assistance and they’re saying ‘please help.’ Now we can actually encourage them to come forward because they know that justice will be served once it is brought to the correct ears here in the territory. Now, there is a belief and a trust that services will be rendered and justice will be served based on who they speak to within the territory.

Benta alleged that Little St. James Island “served as a home base for alleged illicit activities, ran a massive influence operation to get powerful politicians, nonprofit organizations, law enforcement, and government agencies charged with stopping such corruption and criminal activity from focusing on him. He said:

He [Epstein] has people on his payroll. He has [made] campaign contributions. He has donated to a lot of agencies and nonprofits. Maybe part of the reason why they’re not vocal is a lot of the nonprofit organizations have been recipients of contributions from Jeffrey Epstein and a lot of surrounding programs with children.

In a 2012 article, Roper revealed that Cecile de Jongh, the wife of former U.S.V.I. Governor, John de Jongh, had been working for Epstein as his “office manager.”  (At the time, the Governor himself was facing a bribery scandal.) That article can be read here.

According to a Bloomberg News report this week, per his company’s published records, she is still on Epstein’s payroll.

Benta said he is the only official to have addressed the issue so far and calls on his colleagues to “step up and root out the public corruption.” He said:

Yesterday, I made a point of privilege and launched a skirting address to my colleagues that we need to engage in this process of dire concern within our territories because at the end of the day it falls on our shoulders whether we will continue to work under the auspices of a corrupt enterprise which is identified as a white collar crime destination—which under the U.S. jurisdiction we are identified as such—and these sort of behaviors, we are not by ourselves because we have a lot of agencies that are funded federally that are supposed to safeguard this territory from these types of behaviors and crimes against persons most of all our children,” Benta told Breitbart News on Thursday.

I’m the only one—the only elected official in the territory, the only government official in the territory, who has said anything about this issue from the time it has begun until now. It’s everywhere. It needs to be the responsibility of all of us—every single person in the government—we now need to hold every single person within the respected agencies accountable for doing what they are supposed to and if not address it appropriately if they are not doing what they are supposed to. If you know something, say something. Or if you should have known something, that also is a caveat for us to apply justice when it comes to corruption in the other direction.

Bent told Breitbart that law enforcement throughout the territory “have been using kid gloves when combating corruption in the territory.”

The gloves are off. I say that because we love boxing. I for sure have called this to the attention of all my colleagues. Combating this vexing issue, as disturbing as it is, is important to protect our children who we created in order to protect our future.”

Mother justice will serve her purpose. If you use our soil, our region, to perpetrate these acts against our children, we must see justice.

Benta has called on the territory’s Attorney General, Denise George, to open an inquiry.

The attorney general, she is a female—Denise George—and just got seated into the position within the last two weeks, she needs to pay attention to the sex offenders list that falls under her purview and needs to make sure we have an account of all who are in the territory and who comes into contact with our children from elementary through high school and any sports like baseball or softball—any organization that has children being the main caveat to those programs—that we hold each one of those registered pedophiles in the region close to our chests as far as our observation in terms of who they are engaging with in the territory.