Florida woman pleads guilty to defrauding fund for Jeffrey Epstein victims

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.

“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.