Virgina Giuffre, a victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring and the first of Epstein’s victims to go public in 2015, died by suicide on Friday, her family announced. The 41-year-old’s death is a stark reminder of the all-too-human cost of professional negligence, and why ethics and compliance are such critical issues in any organization or industry prone to corporate greed.

Aly McDevitt is Data & Research Journalist at Compliance Week. She has a background in education and college consulting. Prior to teaching, she was an editor/author at Thomson Reuters, where she reported...