The head of a special fund created to compensate victims of disgraced sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein announced Monday she has concluded the claims process, having paid out nearly $125 million.

In a statement released Monday morning, the head of the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program said roughly 150 victims were compensated from a fund that began operating on June 25, 2020. Approximately 75 claimants were turned away but can still seek legal remedy against the estate.

About 92% of the claimants accepted the offer from the compensation fund, which was seeded by sales of the disgraced financier’s real estate and financial assets. These victims accounted for $121 million of the payout. The other 8% of victims either failed to respond to the compensation offer or rejected it.

“I think that the process was very intense and raw and physically exhausting. It was physically exhausting, psychologically exhausting for the victims. But it also gave them a sense of [being] empowered in having come forward and reclaiming their narrative in some way,” Jordana “Jordy” Feldman, the independent administrator of the fund, said in an interview with the Miami Herald and McClatchy Washington Bureau.

While some victims continue with litigation against the estate, many took advantage of the confidential process to stay out of the headlines, Feldman said, adding claimants had “an opportunity to be heard in a setting that was not confrontational, where they didn’t have to fear that their identity could be exposed in some way.”

The announcement from Feldman comes a day before the second anniversary of Epstein’s death, ruled a suicide under questionable circumstances in a New York jail cell. His death by hanging robbed many victims of a sense of justice, escaping what likely would have been a life sentence if convicted. He had been arrested in July 2019, aided in part by revelations in the Miami Herald’s groundbreaking Perversion of Justice series.

Two years later, executors of his estate remain mired in litigation, with the U.S. Virgin Islands having gone to court in an effort to label the estate and its executors an ongoing criminal enterprise.

The victims’ fund almost didn’t happen. Bitter legal fights between the Epstein estate and the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands, who had placed liens on Epstein properties, almost derailed efforts. It was proposed by the estate in November 2019 but held up for almost half a year in the Virgin Islands over its design.

Then this past February, the fund was forced to temporarily suspend its operation because it had not received the promised funds to continue compensation. The estate blamed the attorney general’s liens on bank accounts and properties, and a month later funds were freed up and the program resumed.

The Virgin Islands were Epstein’s principal place of residence in his final years. While his mansions in Florida and New York have sold, the estate, for reasons unclear, has failed to sell the two islands Epstein owned — Little St. James and Great St. James.

The Epstein compensation fund presented a unique challenge for Feldman, an experienced executive who had helped lead the 9/11 victims’ compensation fund. Payouts for that fund, initially at least, were easier to determine because the first round went to families who’d lost loved ones on the airplanes or in the towers that collapsed.

Determining who was an Epstein victim was tougher. Where possible, priority was put on documentation such as emails or a victim appearing on a passenger manifest and things of the sort.

“Sex abuse doesn’t lend itself to heavy documentary evidence. We put weight on meetings with claimants,” said Feldman, noting she met with more than 90% of them, often over online video calls.

Lawyers who filed claims on behalf of victims privately acknowledged they were often unsure what the criteria was for accepting a claim and determining a payout.

Feldman said that was due to the unique nature of the fund. She chose against a formulaic approach in favor of a subjective read of the victim.

“We set out a number of factors in the protocol — age, severity, frequency, impact of abuse,” explained Feldman. “I look at each claim on its individual merits and make a very individualized determination.”

Barry Salzman, an attorney who said he represented 20 victims pro bono in the claims process, said the program restored a measure of dignity to victims.

“As a result of compassionate efforts to right Epstein’s horrific wrongs, their pain is finally being turned into purpose, inspiring other victims to know that it is possible to emerge triumphant over the trauma.” said Salzman, a partner at the New York law firm of Barasch, McGarry, Salzman & Penson. “The hard work conducted by Administrator Feldman is helping to minimize the suffering of these women and ensure that justice is accessible for all.”

The estate continues to be wound down in probate court.

Before creation of the fund, and based on discussions with the lawyers involved in many cases and the Epstein estate, the expectation was for about 100 victims to come forward. Instead, more than twice that number did.

“I do think that the numbers are relatively straightforward, and I think speak to the confidence in the program,” Feldman said. “The level of participation, amount of money paid out, percentage of claimants who accepted their offers, and the time that we did it — even despite the pandemic and the temporary suspension of operations — I think we were able to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time.”

While the claims process officially closed as of Monday, Feldman will stay on the job a few more months. She is working with some victims to resolve liens placed on the victims by healthcare providers through the Medicare or Medicaid systems. The victims sought medical and psychological help and often could not pay for it, and Feldman is negotiating with the agencies to extinguish those liens.

As the compensation process ended, Feldman reflected on the grim process of trying to help victims for whom the money is secondary.

“These programs are really as much about validation as compensation,” she said. “I recognize that this type of program doesn’t make someone whole, it doesn’t erase the experience. But I do hope it has provided some meaningful measure of justice and healing for victims.”