Florida woman pleads guilty to defrauding fund for Jeffrey Epstein
victims
[September 17, 2026]
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
NEW YORK (AP) — A Florida woman who was paid $750,000 by a fund for
people sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein has pleaded guilty to
falsifying records she used in her application for the money.
Jennifer Percival, a scholar who has written books on autism, entered
the plea in federal court in New York on Monday, the same day that she
was charged in the case. A transcript of the proceeding was entered in
the court record Wednesday.
During her brief court appearance, Percival didn't speak about Epstein
and prosecutors didn’t say whether they had reached a conclusion about
whether she was, or wasn’t, one of his victims.
Percival, 46, said she applied in late 2020 to a fund set up by
Epstein's estate to compensate his victims after he killed himself while
awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. That fund, however, decided
she was ineligible for a payment. Court records didn't say why she was
turned down.
Then, in 2024, she applied for a share of a new fund created by JPMorgan
Chase, which had agreed to pay $290 million to Epstein victims to settle
legal claims that the bank should have cut him off as a customer after
he was publicly accused of being a serial sexual abuser of underage
girls.
In support of that application, she falsely claimed the Epstein estate
fund had found her eligible for compensation and paid her $500,000. She
provided a copy of her rejection letter, but altered it to make it look
like she had been approved.
“The purpose of these actions was to obtain money, which gave me a sense
of validation,” she told a magistrate judge, according to the transcript
of Monday's court hearing.
The bank's compensation fund wired her $750,000 in 2024 based on her
misstatements, but at some point the FBI began investigating.
When she was confronted by agents in late 2025 with the true and
accurate rejection letter from the Epstein fund, she falsely said she
had successfully appealed and was found eligible after all, Percival
said. Then, she gave her own lawyer at the time altered and fabricated
emails that were submitted to a federal prosecutor as part of a request
for a deferred prosecution deal.
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“I know that my actions were wrongful, and I accept full
responsibility,” Percival said.
She brought a check to the plea hearing for the $776,031 she owes in
restitution. A sentencing date wasn't immediately set.
Percival is the director of Florida Atlantic University’s Center for
Autism and Related Disabilities and lives in Boca Raton.
Messages sent to Percival, her lawyer, the autism center and media
contacts for Florida Atlantic University were not immediately
returned Wednesday.
Neither court records nor anything said in open court make it
explicitly clear why Percival claimed to have been entitled to
Epstein settlement money.
Federal sentencing guidelines call for her to spend from three to
four years behind bars, according to the plea deal she signed with
prosecutors, though a judge does not have to follow that
recommendation. She was released from custody after the hearing
while she awaits sentencing.
Her defense lawyer is likely to argue at sentencing that she has
earned leniency through her life’s work helping people with
disabilities. A university website listing described her as an
“award-winning researcher in disability studies” and said she
“participates on national and regional advisory boards.”
A prosecutor said evidence that would have been introduced at trial
would have included Percival’s bank records; search warrant returns
for her email account, along with testimony by the administrator of
two Epstein settlement funds.
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