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FBI VOL00009
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Archives: New York Post Page 1 of 2 THE TITLE FIGHT: NEW YORK - THE MAGAZINE, THAT IS - AWAITS NEW OWNER KEITH J. KELLY. New York Post. New York, N.Y.: Dec 14, 2003. pg. 031 Abstract (Document Summary) BIDDER: David Pecker's American Media BIDDER: Investor group of U.S. News and World Report boss Mort Zuckerman, Miramax co-Chairman (Harvey Weinstein], Cablevision CEO Jimmy Dolan, bigtime adman [Donny Deutsch] and New York Columnist [Michael Wolff]. The editing question has mostly centered on the Zuckerman team. Since Wolff bought in Deutsch and [Jeffrey Epstein], the New York mag columnist undoubtedly expects to be picked as some kind of editorial uber boss. Weinstein is in the coalition but is still smarting over the drubbing he took in Wolff s book, "Autumn of the Moguls." Full Text (441 words) (Copyright 2003, The New York Post. All Rights Reserved) In the weeks to come, the city's chattering classes will be consumed with handicapping who'll be editor-in-chief of New York magazine after Henry Kravis and Primedia get through selling it. Nobody was talking officially last week, pending a deal as final bids arrived Thursday. The consensus is the highest offer is for about $55 million - coming from a motley team of millionaires and billionaires around Mort Zuckerman. The coalition includes: Zuckerman, the owner of the Daily News and U.S. News & World Report; billionaire financier Nelson Peitz; mysterious money manager Jeffrey Epstein; ad executive Donny Deutsch, Miramax co- chairman Harvey Weinstein; and non-cash contributors Michael Wolff of New York magazine and possibly Jim Dolan, CEO of Cablevision. The other two rival bidders are almost diametrically opposite: Bill Curtis' Curtco Media publishes super-upscale glossies, The Robb Report and Worth. American Media publishes the downmarket supermarket tabloids National Enquirer, Star and Globe, plus health and fitness magazines such as Men's Fitness and Shape. "Whoever the editor is has to have a strong point of view," offers Clay Felker, who launched the magazine as an independent weekly in 1967. It was not a particularly bright time in the city. But Felker and his young writers took on the challenges, exposing the best and the worst of the city. "We believed the city was the imperial center of the United States and possibly the world," he said. The editing question has mostly centered on the Zuckerman team. Since Wolff bought in Deutsch and Epstein, the New York mag columnist undoubtedly expects to be picked as some kind of editorial uber boss. Weinstein is in the coalition but is still smarting over the drubbing he took in Wolff's book, "Autumn of the Moguls." Weinstein is thought to favor Radar founder Maer Roshan as editor. New York Observer Editor Peter Kaplan's name has surfaced - but he and Wolff have had a public feud. A deal on the winning bid could be announced early next week. The announcement would probably be delayed until after the annual New York Awards, being staged tomorrow at the Four Seasons. The world has changed and the question now is: can the new owners regain that old glory - or will there be too many sacred cows in the ownership mix? As one observer asked as the Zuckerman coalition emerged as the favorite, "Who will be left to make fun of?" Henry Kravis, watch out. http://pgasb.pqarchiver.com/nypost/503203971.html?MAC=8562d59151d6ab55b4753a2... 11/30/2005 EFTA00188412
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Archives: New York Post Page 2 of 2 [Illustration] BIDDER: David Pecker's American Media BIDDER: Investor group of U.S. News and World Report boss Mort Zuckerman, Miramax co-Chairman Harvey Weinstein, Cablevision CEO Jimmy Dolan, bigtime adman Donny Deutsch and New York Columnist Michael Wolff. Reproduced with permission. People: Section: Text Word Count Document URL: permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without Kravis, Henry, Deutsch, Donny, Weinstein, Harvey, Wolff, Michael, Zuckerman, Mort Business 441 http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nypost/503 203971.html?MAC=8562d59151d6ab55 b4753a2... 11/30/2005 EFTA00188413
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'Archives: New York Post Page 1 of 4 BILL, STARS ENJOY AFRICAN TREK New York Post. New York, N.Y.: Sep 25, 2002. pg. 010 Abstract (Document Summary) JASON Mewes is alive and well. Mewes, who played the long- haired, drug-loving "Jay" in Kevin Smith's "Clerks," "Mall Rats," "Chasing Amy" and "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," was reportedly on the lam or even feared dead after his friends told the Chicago Sun-Times they hadn't seen him in 10 months. An arrest warrant had been issued for him after he violated probation on a heroin conviction. But last month, Mewes made an appearance at a film festival in Malibu to promote his new indie movie "RSVP," and he'll host a talent show Oct. 17 at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. "The rumors of his death are greatly exaggerated," chuckled Mewes' agent, Nancy Oeswein. "I just got off the phone with him. He's certainly not in hiding. He just moved to L.A." For some folks, living on the Left Coast is as good as being dead. IS Sen. John McCain going to quit the Republican Party and become the running mate of Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race? McCain's chief political adviser, John Weaver, has become a Democrat and is now working for Dick Gephardt. McCain's new legislative director, Christine Dodd, last worked for a liberal congressman - a Democrat. Now Kerry of Massachusetts, who has made clear his plans to run in 2004, is making overtures towards McCain. A rumored head- to-head between Kerry and McCain is said to be scheduled at McCain's cabin in Sedona, Ariz., next month. And for "Man of the People," the new McCain biography by Paul Alexander, Kerry provided a blurb that reads more like a love letter. After noting that McCain's 2000 presidential campaign "set the standard for honor, dignity, courage, and truth," Kerry declares: "I have had no greater privilege in all my life than finding and then standing on common groundwith John McCain, and I look forward to fighting side by side with him on yet another day to make our country stronger." Full Text (1634 words) (Copyright 2002, The New York Post, All Rights Reserved) CALL it "The Three Amigos' Most Excellent African Adventure." Former President Bill Clinton is on a trip through Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Mozambique and South Africa with Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker, the star of "Rush Hour' and its sequel. The three are being flown around Africa on the private plane of financial wizard Jeffrey Epstein. The secretive Epstein handles the billions of Leslie Wexner, head of the retail empire that includes The Limited, Victoria's Secret and Express. How Clinton, who took off on Saturday, hooked up with his traveling companions is a mystery - as is his relationship to Epstein. Little is known about Epstein except that his offices are in the landmarked Villard House across from Le Cirque, and he once employed Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the late British press lord Robert Maxwell, in an unspecified capacity. But Tucker is playing America's first black president in "Mr. President," a movie he's been working on since 1999. Tucker has already shot footage of Clinton, Nelson Mandela, and Bahrain's crown prince endorsing his candidacy, and the comic accompanied U2 frontman Bono and Treasury Secrtary Paul O'Neill on their debt- relief tour of Africa this summer. At the Congressional Black Caucus' annual awards dinner earlier this month, Clinton mentioned that Tucker had asked to visit him in the Oval Office to prepare for playing the first black president. "I didn't have the heart to tell him that I've already taken the position," Clinton joked. In an October 1998 essay in The New Yorker, author Toni Morrison argued that Clinton, "white skin notwithstanding, (is] our first black president." Kevin Spacey has no presidential aspirations we know of. Last we heard, he wanted to portray Bobby Darin. He might be bored during some parts of the trip. littn://oaasb.oaarchiver.com/nypost./1 95152701.html?MAC=8282d8da 1 05ae0258d6c121 31.. 11/30/2005 EFTA00188414
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'Archives: New York Post Page 2 of 4 In Ghana, Clinton will launch a new initiative with Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto to give deeds and land titles to poor people who now have no legal status and are considered squatters. In South Africa, Clinton will deliver a speech and join Mandela in promoting prevention of AIDS. Clinton will also meet in that country with the first class of Clinton Democracy Fellows -11 young South African men and women who just completed three months in the U.S. Clinton will also meet with the presidents of the other nations on his itinerary. Perfect angel THE producer of Tara Reid's latest flick says she's a perfect angel and that Us Weekly misquoted him as saying that he and the bar- friendly hellcat "went out drinking all the time." J. Todd Harris, producer of "Heaven's Pond," blasts Us in a letter to the editor: "I specifically said that our working relationship with the actress was nothing short of spectacular." He also shoots down the mag's source who claims Reid needed to have a baby sitter escort her out every night tomake sure she didn't wake up with any regrets. We hear . . . THAT eyebrows are flexing over tonight's U.N. black-tie dinner honoring Muhammad Ali, Mayor Bloomberg and Paul and Heather Mills McCartney. Seems Heather insists on being referred to as "Lady Heather Mills McCartney" ... THAT Steve Martin, Paul Morrissey, Glenda Bailey and Elizabeth Kieselstein-Cord attended last night's 15th anniversary party of Modern Painters magazine at the Cheim and Read Gallery. Headlines heal SARAH Ferguson, the former Duchess of York, credits the media for keeping her weight down. Once dubbed the "Duchess of Pork" by the British press, the now stunning and skinny Weight Watchers rep says every time she thinks of pigging out, she remembers the old headlines. Among those she cited during an appearance at an Albany Weight Watchers seminar, according to The Post's Kenneth Lovett: "Fat, Selfish, Greedy Fergie" and "82 Percent Would Rather Sleep With a Goat." "It does help me when I read articles that [say] the 'slim svelte Fergie,'" Ferguson said. "I don't want them to have a go at me again. I'm tired of that." Lost actor pops up in L.A. JASON Mewes is alive and well. Mewes, who played the long- haired, drug-loving "Jay" in Kevin Smith's "Clerks," "Mall Rats," "Chasing Amy" and "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," was reportedly on the lam or even feared dead after his friends told the Chicago Sun-Times they hadn't seen him in 10 months. An arrest warrant had been issued for him after he violated probation on a heroin conviction. But last month, Mewes made an appearance at a film festival in Malibu to promote his new indie movie "RSVP," and he'll host a talent show Oct. 17 at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. "The rumors of his death are greatly exaggerated," chuckled Mewes' agent, Nancy Oeswein. "I just got off the phone with him. He's certainly not in hiding. He just moved to L.A." For some folks, living on the Left Coast is as good as being dead. Sex sells ABERCROMBIE & Fitch has outdone itself. The store chain's new "magalog," a catalog disguised as a magazine, is even more salacious than past efforts, with a naked Heidi Klum on the cover - one hand hiding her nipples, the other holding a Santa hat over a naked man's crotch. The tag line reads: "180 pages of sex and Xmas fun! Heidi Klum adds inches, Spike Lee catches it on tape, Larry Flynt breaks tapes, Heidi Fleiss gets what she wants, streetcorner Santa brawls and morel" One spy said: "There Is a ton of bums and breasts inside. Everyone is naked." The quarterly, targeted at teens and college students, will be featured on "Entertainment Tonight" later this week. Janney's' jam http://pgasb.pqarchiver.corthypost/195152701.html?MAC=8282d8da105ae0258d6d2131.. 11/30/2005 EFTA00188415
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• Archives: New York Post Page 3 of 4 THE ex-fianc of Emmy-winning "West Wing" star Allison Janney (above) is being evicted from her Central Park West pad. Janney has been illegally subletting the rent-stabilized, $1,100- a-month apartment to former beau Dennis Gagomiros, says Keith Rubenstein, a lawyer for landlord Michael Tauber. "We are starting the eviction process," says Rubenstein, who estimated the "fair market" value of Janney's joint at $3,000 a month. Janney's lawyer, Sam Himmelstein, insists Janney "surrendered possession" of her pad several weeks ago to the landlord. "Her ex-fianc belives that he has the succession rights to the apartment, but she has nothing to do with that," he said. Flasher chic WONDER why Stella McCartney never took her black satin coat off during the opening of her boutique last Friday? She had nothing under it but a very sexy bra and satin knickers. The highlight of the afterparty at Gaslight was Stella, Gwyneth Paltrow and Usher singing karaoke for the likes of Bono, Britney Spears, Liv Tyler, Debbie Harry, Russell Simmons, Graydon Carter, Christy Tur lington, Karolina Kurkova, Helena Christensen and others too fashionable to mention. Dueling Dems DON'T invite Ed Koch and Pete Grannis to the same political party. The former mayor has no use for the assemblyman who has represented the Upper East Side for 28 years. The feud began with Koch's endorsement of Andrew Eristoff, a Republican challenger for the State Senate seat currently occupied by Democrat Liz Krueger. Grannis observed in community weekly Our Town: "Our former mayor seems to have a thing for Republicans and an aversion to endorsing women of either party." Now Koch has responded in a letter to Our Town to Grannis' "gutter attack" and "vile comments." Koch lists no fewer than 9 women he's endorsed for election over the years, plus seven women he appointed to office, and concludes, "I am sure Grannis has harbored thoughts of higher office, indeed ran for Congress and lost. I doubt that he will ever attain higher office, and I truly believe he does not deserve the office he currently holds and has held for 28 years." Single again THIS year's ladies' man, Matthew Perry, is single again. After squiring around Amanda Peet, Jennifer Capriati and a host of other hot young things this summer, the "Friends" star was on the prowl Sunday night. After losing the Emmy to his co-star Matt LeBlanc, Perry and Hank Azaria showed up in fine spirits to the Glamour/ Entertainment Weekly post-Emmy party at the Mondrian in Los Angeles and flirted with a gaggle of girls. "He was so excited he startedto sweat and had to massage his head," said our spy. Perry eventually left alone. MCCAIN MUTINY IN WORKS? IS Sen. John McCain going to quit the Republican Party and become the running mate of Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race? McCain's chief political adviser, John Weaver, has become a Democrat and is now working for Dick Gephardt. McCain's new legislative director, Christine Dodd, last worked for a liberal congressman - a Democrat. Now Kerry of Massachusetts, who has made clear his plans to run in 2004, is making overtures towards McCain. A rumored head- to-head between Kerry and McCain is said to be scheduled at McCain's cabin in Sedona, Ariz., next month. And for "Man of the People," the new McCain biography by Paul Alexander, Kerry provided a blurb that reads more like a love letter. After noting that McCain's 2000 presidential campaign "set the standard for honor, dignity, courage, and truth," Kerry declares: "I have had no greater privilege in all my life than finding and then standing on common groundwith John McCain, and I look forward to fighting side by side with him on yet another day to make our country stronger." lustratIonj -Allison Janney, Stella McCartney -Just call him David Cop-a-feel. Modelizing magician David Copperfield seems to have cast his spell over two babealicious blondes. We caught Copperfield holding hands with Marilyn Guma (above), 21, an Estonian-born assistant manager at Nello's. Copperfield has been wooing the gorgeous Gurna for a few weeks now t stop him from stepping out with another squeeze (below) on Madison Avenue just a week earlier. Schwartzwatd (above); Adam Nemser/PHOTOLink (below) [color] - Matthew Perry. LFI [color] http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nypost/195152701.html?MAC=8282d8da105ae0258d6d2131.. 11/30/2005 EFTA00188416
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Archives: New York Post Page 4 of 4 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission. People: Clinton, Bill, Tucker, Chris, Epstein, Jeffrey, McCain, John, Kerry, John F Section: Page Six Text Word Count 1634 Document URL: http://pciasb.pqarchiver.com/nypost/195152701.1ilm1MAC=8282d8da105ae0258d6d213f... 11/30/2005 EFTA00188417
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Page 1 2 of 2 DOCUMENTS Copyright 2003 The Conde Nast Publications Inc. All Rights Reserved Vanity Fair March 2003 SECTION: The Talented Mr. Epstein; No. 511; Pg. 300 LENGTH: 7494 words HEADLINE: The Talented Mr. Epstein; Lately, Jeffrey Epstein's high-ying style has been drawing oohs and aahs: the bachelor nancier lives in New York's largest private residence, claims to take only billionaires as clients, and ies celebrities including Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey on his Boeing 727. But pierce his air of mystery and the picture changes. VICKY WARD explores Epstein's investment career, his ties to retail magnate IsFilie—Agaer, and his complicated past BYLINE: Vicky Ward, Contributing Editor BODY: On Manhattan's Upper East Side, home to some of the most expensive real es- tate on earth, exists the crown jewel of the city's residential town houses. With its 15-foot-high oak door, huge arched windows, and nine floors, it sits on-or, rather, commands-the block of 71st Street between Fifth and Madison Ave- nues. Almost ludicrously out of proportion with its four- and five-story neighbors, it seems more like an institution than a house. This is perhaps not surprising-until 1989 it was the Birch Wathen private school. Now it is said to be Manhattan's largest private residence. Inside, amid the flurry of menservants attired in sober black suits and pris- tine white gloves, you feel you have stumbled into someone's private Xanadu. This is no mere rich person's home, but a high-walled, eclectic, imperious fan- tasy that seems to have no boundaries. The entrance hall is decorated not with paintings but with row upon row of individually framed eyeballs; these, the owner tells people with relish, were imported from England, where they were made for injured soldiers. Next comes a marble foyer, which does have a painting, in the manner of Jean Dubuffet ... but the host coyly refuses to tell visitors who painted it. In any case, guests are like pygmies next to the nearby twice-life-size sculpture of a naked African warrior. Despite its eccentricity the house is curiously impersonal, the statement of someone who wants to be known for the scale of his possessions. Its occupant, financier Jeffrey Epstein, 50, admits to friends that he likes it when people think of him this way. A good-looking man, resembling Ralph Lauren, with thick gray-white hair and a weathered face, he usually dresses in jeans, knit shirts, and loafers. He tells people he bought the house because he knew he "could never live anywhere bigger." He thinks 51,000 square feet is an appropriately large space for someone like himself, who deals mostly in large concepts-especially large sums of money. EFTA00188418
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Page 2 The Talented Mr. Epstein;Lately, Jeffrey Epstein's high-ying style Guests are invited to lunch or dinner at the town house-Epstein usually re- fers to the former as "tea," since he likes to eat bite-size morsels and drink copious quantities of Earl Grey. (He does not touch alcohol or tobacco.) Tea is served in the "leather room," so called because of the cordovan-colored fabric on the walls. The chairs are covered in a leopard print, and on the wall hangs a huge, Oriental fantasy of a woman holding an opium pipe and caressing a snarling lionskin. Under her gaze, plates of finger sandwiches are delivered to Epstein and guests by the menservants in white gloves. Upstairs, to the right of a spiral staircase, is the "office," an enormous gallery spanning the width of the house. Strangely, it holds no computer. Com- puters belong in the "computer room" (a smaller room at the back of the house), Epstein has been known to say. The office features a gilded desk (which Epstein tells people belonged to banker J. P. Morgan), 18th-century black lacquered Por- tuguese cabinets, and a nine-foot ebony Steinway "D" grand. On the desk, a pa- perback copy of the Marquis de Sade's The Misfortunes of Virtue was recently spotted. Covering the floor, Epstein has explained, "is the largest Persian rug you'll ever see in a private home-so big, it must have come from a mosque." Amid such splendor, much of which reflects the work of the French decorator Alberto Pinto, who has worked for Jacques Chirac and the royal families of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, there is one particularly startling oddity: a stuffed black poo- dle, standing atop the grand piano. "No decorator would ever tell you to do that," Epstein brags to visitors. "But I want people to think what it means to stuff a dog." People can't help but feel it's Epstein's way of saying that he always has the last word. In addition to the town house, Epstein lives in what is reputed to be the largest private dwelling in New Mexico, on an $18 million, 7,500-acre ranch which he named "Zorro." "It makes the town house look like a shack," Epstein has said. He also owns Little St. James, a 70-acre island in the U.S. Virgin Is- lands, where the main house is currently being renovated by Edward Tuttle, a de- signer of the Amanresorts. There is also a $6.8 million house in Palm Beach, Florida, and a fleet of aircraft: a Gulfstream IV, a helicopter, and a Boeing 727, replete with trading room, on which Epstein recently flew President Clin- ton, actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey, supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, Lew Wasserman's grandson, Casey Wasserman, and a few others, on a mission to explore the problems of aids and economic development in Africa. Epstein is charming, but he doesn't let the charm slip into his eyes. They are steely and calculating, giving some hint at the steady whir of machinery running behind them. "Let's play chess," he said to me, after refusing to give an interview for this article. "You be white. You get the first move." It was an appropriate metaphor for a man who seems to feel he can win no matter what the advantage of the other side. His advantage is that no one really seems to know him or his history completely or what his arsenal actually consists of. He has carefully engineered it so that he remains one of the few truly baffling myster- ies among New York's moneyed world. People know snippets, but few know the whole. "He's very enigmatic," says Rosa Monckton, the former C.E.O. of Tiffany & Co. in the U.K. and a close friend since the early 1980s. "You think you know him and then you peel off another ring of the onion skin and there's something else extraordinary underneath. He never reveals his hand... He's a classic iceberg. What you see is not what you get." Even acquaintances sense a curious dichotomy: Yes, he lives like a "modern maha- raja," as Leah Kleman, one of his art dealers, puts it. Yet he is fastidiously, EFTA00188419
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Page 3 The Talented Mr. Epstein;Lately, Jeffrey Epstein's high-ying style almost obsessively private-he lists himself in the phone book under a pseudonym. He rarely attends society gatherings or weddings or funerals; he considers eat- ing in restaurants like "eating on the subway"-i.e., something he'd never do. There are many women in his life, mostly young, but there is no one of them to whom he has been able to commit. He describes his most public companion of the last decade, Ghislaine Maxwell, 41, the daughter of the late, disgraced media baron Robert Maxwell, as simply his "best friend." He says she is not on his payroll, but she seems to organize much of his life-recently she was making telephone inquiries to find a California-based yoga instructor for him. (Epstein is still close to his two other long-term girlfriends, Paula Heil Fisher, a for- mer associate of his at the brokerage firm Bear Stearns and now an opera pro- ducer, and Eva Andersson Dubin, a doctor and onetime model. He tells people that when a relationship is over the girlfriend "moves up, not down," to friendship status.) Some of the businessmen who dine with him at his home-they include newspaper publisher Mort Zuckerman, banker Louis Ranieri, Revlon chairman Ronald Perelman, real-estate tycoon Leon Black, former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold, Tom Pritzker (of Hyatt Hotels), and real-estate personality Donald Trump-sometimes seem not all that clear as to what he actually does to earn his millions. Cer- tainly, you won't find Epstein's transactions written about on Bloomberg or talked about in the trading rooms. "The trading desks don't seem to know him. It's unusual for animals that big not to leave any footprints in the snow," says a high-level investment manager. Unlike such fund managers as Soros and Stanley Druckenmiller, whose client lists and stock maneuverings act as their calling cards, Epstein keeps all his deals and clients secret, bar one client: billionaire Leslie Wexner, the respected chairman of Limited Brands. Epstein insists that ever since he left Bear Stearns in 1961 he has managed money only for billionaires-who depend on him for discretion. "I was the only person crazy enough, or arrogant enough, or misplaced enough, to make my limit a billion dollars or more," he tells people freely. According to him, the flat fees he receives from his clients, combined with his skill at playing the currency markets "with very large sums of money," have afforded him the lifestyle he enjoys today. Why do billionaires choose him as their trustee? Because the problems of the mega-rich, he tells people, are different from yours and mine, and his unique philosophy is central to understanding those problems: "Very few people need any more money when they have a billion dollars. The key is not to have it do harm more than anything else... You don't want to lose your money." He has likened his job to that of an architect-more specifically, one who spe- cializes in remodeling: "I always describe (a billionaire) as someone who started out in a small home and as he became wealthier had add-ons. He added on another addition, he built a room over the garage ... until you have a house that is usually a mess... It's a large house that has been put together over time where no one could foretell the financial future and their accompanying needs." He makes it sound as though his job combines the roles of real-estate agent, accountant, lawyer, money manager, trustee, and confidant. But, as with Jay Gatsby, myths and rumor swirl around Epstein. Here are some of the hard facts about Epstein-ones that he doesn't mind peo- ple knowing: He grew up middle-class in Brooklyn. His father worked for the city's parks department. His parents viewed education as "the way out" for him and his younger brother, Mark, now working in real estate. Jeffrey started to EFTA00188420
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Page 4 The Talented Mr. Epstein;Lately, Jeffrey Epstein's high-ying style play the piano-for which he maintains a passion-at five, and he went to Brook- lyn's Lafayette High School. He was good at mathematics, and in his early 20s he got a job teaching physics and math at Dalton, the elite Manhattan private school. While there he began tutoring the son of Bear Stearns chairman Ace Greenberg and was friendly with aJAlightsr of Greenberg's. Soon he went to Bear Stearns, where, under the mentorship of both Greenberg Ind current Bear Stearns C.E.O. James Cayne, he did well enough to become a limited partner-a rung be- neath full partner. He abruptly departed in 1981 because, he has said, he wanted to run his own business. Thereafter the details recede into shadow. A few of the handful of current friends who have known him since the early 1980s recall that he used to tell them he was a "bounty hunter," recovering lost or stolen money for the govern- ment or for very rich people. He has a license to carry a firearm. For the last 15 years, he's been running his business, J. Epstein & Co. Since Leslie Wexner appeared in his life-Epstein has said this was in 1986; others say it was in 1989, at the earliest-he has gradually, in a way that has not generally made headlines, come to be accepted by the Establishment. He's a member of various commissions and councils: he is on the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the In- stitute of International Education. His current fan club extends to Cayne, Henry Rosovsky, the former dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Larry Summers, Harvard's current president. Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz says, "I'm on my 20th book... The only person outside of my immediate family that I send drafts to is Jef- frey." Real-estate developer and philanthropist Marshall Rose, who has worked with Epstein on projects in New Albany, Ohio, for Wexner, says, "He digests and decodes the information very rapidly, which is to me terrific because we have shorter meetings." Also on the list of admirers are former senator Mitchell and a gaggle of distinguished scientists, most of whom Epstein has helped fund in recent years. They include Nobel Prize winners Gerald Edelman and Murray Gell-Mann, and mathematical biologist Martin Nowak. When these men describe Epstein, they talk about "energy" and "curiosity," as well as a love for theoretical physics that they don't ordinarily find in laymen. Gell-Mann rather sweetly mentions that "there are always pretty ladies around" when _m goes to dinner chezippatein, and he's under the impression that Epstein's clients include the Queen of England. Both Nowak and Dershowitz were thrilled to find themselves shaking the hand of a man named "Andrew" in Epstein's house. "Andrew" turned out to be Prince Andrew, who subsequently arranged to sit in the back of Dershowitz's law class. Epstein gets annoyed when anyone suggests that Wexner "made him." "I had really rich clients before," he has said. Yet he does not deny that he and Wex- ner have a special relationship. Epstein sees it as a partnership of equals. "People have said it's like we have one brain between two of us: each has a side." "I think we both possess the skill of seeing patterns," says Wexner. "But Jeffrey sees patterns in politics and financial markets, and I see patterns in lifestyle and fashion trends. My skills are not in investment strategy, and, as everyone who knows Jeffrey knows, his are not in fashion and design. we fre- quently discuss world trends as each of us sees them." By the time Epstein met Wexner, the latter was a retail legend who had built a $3 billion empire-one that now includes Victoria's Secret, Express, and Bath & EFTA00188421
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Page 5 The Talented Mr. Epstein;Lately, Jeffrey Epstein's high-ying style Body Works-from $5,000 lent him by his aunt. "Wexner saw in Jeffrey the type of person who had the potential to realize his (Jeffrey's) dreams," says someone who has worked closely with both men. "He gave Jeffrey the ball, and Jeffrey hit it out of the park." Wexner, through a trust, bought the town house in which Epstein now lives for a reported $13.2 million in 1969. In 1993, Wexner married Abigail Koppel, a 31- year-old lawyer, and the newlyweds relocated to Ohio; in 1996, Epstein moved into the town house. Public documents suggest that the house is still owned by the trust that bought it, but Epstein has said that he now owns the house. Wexner trusts Epstein so completely that he has assigned him the power of fi- duciary over all of his private trusts and foundations, says a source close to Wexner. In 1992, Epstein even persuaded Wexner to put him on the board of the Wexner Foundation in place of Wexner's ailing mother. Bella Wexner recovered and demanded to be reinstated. Epstein has said they settled by splitting the foun- dation in two. Epstein does not care that he comes between family members. In fact, he sees it as his job. He tells people, "I am there to represent my client, and if my client needs protecting-sometimes even from his own family-then it's often bet- ter that people hate me, not the client." "You've probably heard I'm vicious in my representation of my clients," he tells people proudly; Leah Kleman describes his haggling over art prices as something like a scene out of the movie Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Even a for- mer mentor says he's seen "the dark side" of Epstein, and a Bear Stearns source recalls a meeting in which Epstein chewed out a team making a presentation for Wexner as being so brutal as to be "irresponsible." One reporter, in fact, received three threats from Epstein while preparing a piece. They were delivered in a jocular tone, but the message was clear: There will be trouble for your family if I don't like the article. On the other hand, Epstein is clearly very generous with friends. Joe Pagano, an Aspen-based venture capitalist, who has known Epstein since before his Bear Stearns days, can't say enough nice things: "I have a boy who's dyslexic, and Jeffrey's gotten close to him over the years... Jeffrey got him into music. He bought him his first piano. And then as he got to school he had difficulty ... in studying ... so Jeffrey got him interested in taking flying lessons." Rosa Monckton recalls Epstein telling her that her daughter, Domenica, who suffers from Down syndrome, needed the sun, and that Rosa should feel free to bring her to his house in Palm Beach anytime. Some friends remember that in the late 80s Epstein would offer to upgrade the airline tickets of good friends by affixing first-class stickers; the only prob- lem was that the stickers turned out to be unofficial. Sometimes the technique worked, but other times it didn't, and the unwitting recipients found themselves exiled to coach. (Epstein has claimed that he paid for the upgrades, and had no knowledge of the stickers.) Many of those who benefited from Epstein's largesse claim that his generosity comes with no strings attached. "I never felt he wanted anything from me in return," says one old friend, who received a first- class upgrade. Epstein is known about town as a man who loves women-lots of them, mostly young. Model types have been heard saying they are full of gratitude to Epstein for flying them around, and he is a familiar face to many of the Victoria's Secret girls. One young woman recalls being summoned by Ghislaine Maxwell to a concert EFTA00188422
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Page 6 The Talented Mr. Epstein;Lately, Jeffrey Epstein's high-ying style at Epstein's town house, where the women seemed to outnumber the men by far. "These were not women you'd see at Upper East Side dinners," the woman recalls. "Many seemed foreign and dressed a little bizarrely." This same guest also at- tended a cocktail party thrown by Maxwell that Prince Andrew attended, which was filled, she says, with young Russian models. "Some of the guests were horri- fied," the woman says. "He's reckless," says a former business associate, "and he's gotten more so. Money does that to you. He's breaking the oath he made to himself-that he would never do anything that would expose him in the media. Right now, in the wake of the publicity following his trip with Clinton, he must be in a very difficult place." According to S.E.C. and other legal documents unearthed by Vanity Pair, Epstein may have good reason to keep his past cloaked in secrecy: his real mentor, it might seem, was not Leslie Wexner but Steven Jude Hoffenberg, 57, who, for a few months before the S.E.C. sued to freeze his assets in 1993, was trying to buy the New York Post. He is currently incarcerated in the Federal Medical Center in Devens, Massachusetts, serving a 20-year sentence for bilking investors out of more than $450 million in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history. When Epstein met Hoffenberg in London in the 1980s, the latter was the char- ismatic, audacious head of the Towers Financial Corporation, a collection agency that was supposed to buy debts that people owed to hospitals, banks, and phone companies. But Hoffenberg began using company funds to pay off earlier investors and service a lavish lifestyle that included a mansion on Long Island, homes on Manhattan's Sutton Place and in Florida, and a fleet of cars and planes. Hoffenberg and Epstein had much in common. Both were smart and obsessed with making money. Both were from Brooklyn. According to Hoffenberg, the two men were introduced by Douglas Leese, a defense contractor. Epstein has said they were introduced by John Mitchell, the late attorney general. Epstein had been running International Assets Group Inc. (I.A.G.), a consult- ing company, out of his apartment in the Solo building on East 66th Street in New York. Though he has claimed that he managed money for billionaires only, in a 1989 deposition he testified that he spent 80 percent of his time helping peo- ple recover stolen money from fraudulent brokers and lawyers. He was also not above entering into risky, tax-sheltered oil and gas deals with much smaller in- vestors. A lawsuit that Michael Stroll, the former head of Williams Electronics -Int, filed against Epstein shows that in 1982 I.A.G. received an investment from Stroll of $450,000, which Epstein put into oil. In 1984, Stroll asked for his money back; four years later he had received only $10,000. Stroll lost the suit, after Epstein claimed in court, among other things, that the check for $10,000 was for a horse he'd bought from Stroll. "My net worth never exceeded four and a half million dollars," Stroll has said. Hoffenberg, says a close friend, "really liked Jeffrey... Jeffrey has a way of getting under your skin, and he was under Hoffenberg's." Also appealing to Hoffenberg were Epstein's social connections; they included oil mogul Cece Wang (father of the designer Vera) and Mohan Murjani, whose clothing company grew into Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans. Epstein lived large even then. One friend recalls that when he took Canadian heiress Wendy Belzberg on a date he hired a Rolls- Royce especially for the occasion. (Epstein has claimed he owned it.) In 1987, Hoffenberg, according to sources, set Epstein up in the offices he still occupies in the Villard House, on Madison Avenue, across a courtyard from the restaurant Le Cirque. Hoffenberg hired his new protege as a consultant at EFTA00188423
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Page 7 The Talented Mr. Epstein;Lately, Jeffrey Epstein's high-ying style $25,000 a month, and the relationship flourished. "They traveled everywhere to- gether-on Hoffenberg's plane, all around the world, they were always together," says a source. Hoffenberg has claimed that Epstein confided in him, saying, for example, that he had left Bear Stearns in 1981 after he was discovered executing "illegal operations." Several of Epstein's Bear Stearns contemporaries recall that Epstein left the company very suddenly. Within the company there were rumors also that he was in- volved in a technical infringement, and it was thought that the executive com- mittee asked that he resign after his two supporters, Ace Greenberg and Jimmy Cayne, were outnumbered. Greenberg says he can't recall this; Cayne denies it happened, and Epstein has denied it as well. "Jeffrey Epstein left Bear Stearns of his own volition," says Cayne. "It was never suggested that he leave by any member of management, and management never looked into any improprieties by him. Jeffrey said specifically, 'I don't want to work for anybody else. I want to work for myself.'" Yet, this is not the story that Epstein told to the S.E.C. in 1981 and to lawyers in a 1989 deposition involving a civil business case in Philadelphia. In 1981 the S.E.C.'s Jonathan Harris and Robert Blackburn took Epstein's tes- timony and that of other Bear Stearns emicrWann part of what became a pro- tracted case about insider trading around a tender offer placed on March 11, 1981, by the Seagram Company Ltd. for St. Joe Minerals Corp. Ultimately several Italian and Swiss investors were found guilty, including Italian financier Giuseppe Tome, who had used his relationship with Seagram owner Edgar Bronfman Sr. to obtain information about the tender offer. After the tender offer was announced, the S.E.C. began investigating trades involving St. Joe at continued on page 343 continued from page 305 Bear Stearns and other firms. Epstein resigned from Bear Stearns on March 12. The S.E.C. was tipped off that Epstein had information on insider trading at Bear Stearns, and it was therefore obliged to question him. In his S.E.C. testimony, given on April 1, 1981, Epstein claimed that he had found "offensive" the way Bear Stearns management had handled a disciplinary action following its discovery that he had committed a possible "Reg D" violation-evidently he had lent money to his closest friend. (In the 1989 deposition he said that he'd lent approxi- mately $20,000 to Warren Eisenstein, to buy stock.) Such an action could have been considered improper, although Epstein claimed he had not realized this un- til afterward. According to Epstein, Bear Stearns management had questioned him about the loan around March 4. The questioners, Epstein said, were Michael (Mickey) Tar- nopol and Alvin Einbender. In his 1989 deposition Epstein recalled that the partner who had made an "issue" of the matter was Marvin Davidson. On March 9, Epstein said, he had met with Tarnopol and Einbender again, and the two partners told him that the executive committee had weighed the offense, together with previous "carelessness" over expenses, and he would be fined $2,500. "There was discussion whether, in fact, I had ever put in an airline ticket for someone else and not myself and I said that it was possible, ... since my secretary handles my expenses," Epstein told the S.H.C. In his 1989 testimony he stated that the "Reg D" incident had cost him a shot at partnership that year. What the S.E.C. seemed to be especially interested in was whether there was a connection between Epstein's leaving and the alleged insider trading in St. Joe Minerals by other people at Bear Stearns: Q: Sir, are you aware that certain rumors may have been circulating around your firm in connection with your reasons for leaving the firm? A: I'm aware that there were many rumors. EFTA00188424
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Page 8 The Talented Mr. Epstein;Lately, Jeffrey Epstein's high-ying style Q: What were the rumors you heard? A: Nothing to do with St. Joe. Q: Can you relate what you heard? A: It was having to do with an illicit affair with a secretary. Q: Have you heard any other rumors suggesting that you had made a presentation or communication to the Executive Committee concerning alleged improprieties by other members or employees of Bear Stearns? A: I, in fact, have heard that rumor, but it's been from Mr. Harris in our con- versation last week. Q: Have you heard it from anyone else? A: No. A little later the interview focuses on James Cayne: Q: Did you ever hear while you were at Bear Stearns that Mr. Cayne may have trader or insider information in connection with St. Joe Minerals Corporation? A: No. Q: Did Mr. Cayne ever have any conversation with you about St. Joe Minerals? A: No. Q: Did you happen to overhear any conversations between Mr. Cayne and anyone else regarding St. Joe Minerals? A: No. And still later in the questioning comes this exchange: Q: Have you had any type of business dealings with Mr. Cayne? A: There's no relationship with Bear Stearns. Q: Pardon? A: Other than Bear Stearns, no. Q: Have you been a participant in any type of business venture with Mr. Cayne? A: No. Q: Do you have any expectation of participating in any business venture with Mr. Cayne? A: No. Q: Have you had any business participations with Mr. Theram? A: No; nor do I anticipate any. Q: Mr. Epstein, did anyone at Bear Stearns tell you in words or substance that you should not divulge anything about St. Joe Minerals to the staff of the Secu- rities and Exchange Commission? A: No. Q: Has anyone indicated to you in any way, either directly or indirectly, in words or substance, that your compensation for this past year or any future mon- ies coming to you from Bear Stearns will be contingent upon your not divulging information to the Securities and Exchange Commission? A: No. Despite the circumstances of Epstein's leaving, Bear Stearns agreed to pay him his annual bonus-which he anticipated as being approximately $100,000. The S.E.C. never brought any charges against anyone at Bear Stearns for in- sider trading in St. Joe, but its questioning seems to indicate that it was skeptical of Epstein's answers. Some sources have wondered why, if he was such a big producer at Bear Stearns, he would have given it up over a mere $2,500 fine. Certainly the years after Epstein left the firm were not obviously prosperous ones. His luck didn't seem to change until he met Hoffenberg. One of Epstein's first assignments for Hoffenberg was to mastermind doomed bids to take over Pan American World Airways in 1987 and Emery Air Freight Corp. in 1988. Hoffenberg claimed in a 1993 hearing before a grand jury in Illinois that EFTA00188425
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Page 9 The Talented Mr. Epstein;Lately, Jeffrey Epstein's high-ying style Epstein came up with the idea of financing these bids through Towers's acquisi- tion of two ailing Illinois insurance companies, Associated Life and United Fire. "He was hired by us to work on the securities side of the insurance compa- nies and Towers Financial, supposedly to make a profit for us and for the compa- nies," Hoffenberg reportedly told the grand jury. He also alleged that Epstein was the "technician," executing the schemes, although, having no broker's li- cense, he had to rely on others to make the trades. Much of Hoffenberg's subse- quent testimony in his criminal case has proven to be false, and Epstein has claimed he was merely asked how the bids could be accomplished and has said he had nothing to do with the financing of them. Yet Richard Allen, the former treasurer of United Fire, recalls seeing Epstein two or three times at the com- pany. He and another executive say they had direct dealing with Epstein over the finances. And in his deposition of 1989, Epstein stated that he was the one who executed "all" Hoffenberg's instructions to buy and sell the stock. He called it "making the orders." He could not recall whether he had chosen the brokers used. To win approval from the Illinois insurance regulators for Towers's acquisi- tion of the companies, Hoffenberg promised to inject $3 million of new capital into them. In fact, in his grand-jury testimony Hoffenberg claimed that he, his chief operating officer, Mitchell Brater, and Epstein came up with a scheme to steal $3 million of the insurance companies' bonds to buy Pan Am and Emery stock. "Jeffrey Epstein and Mitch Brater arranged the various brokerage accounts for the bonds to be placed with in New York, and I think one in Chicago, Rodman & Renshaw," Hoffenberg reportedly said. Then, said Hoffenberg, while making it appear as though they were investing the bonds in much safer financial instru- ments, they used them as collateral to buy the stock. "Epstein was the person in charge of the transactions, and Mitchell Brater was assisting him with it in co- ordination on behalf of the insurance companies' money," Hoffenberg claimed at the time. At one point, according to Hoffenberg, a broker forged the documents neces- sary for a $1.8 million check to be written on insurance-company funds. The check was used to buy more stock in the takeover targets. Meanwhile, in order to throw the insurance regulators off, the $1.8 million was reported as being safely invested in a money-market account. United Fire's former chief financial officer Daniel Payton confirms part of Hoffenberg's account. He says he recalls making one or two telephone calls to Epstein (at Hoffenberg's direction) about the missing bonds. "He said, 'Oh, yeah, they still exist.' But we found out later that he had sold those assets ... leveraged them ... (and) used some margin account to take some positions in ... Emery and Pan Am," says Payton. Epstein's extraordinary creativity was, according to Hoffenberg, responsible for the purchase by the insurance companies of a $500,000 bond, with no money down. "Epstein created a great scheme to purchase a $500,000 treasury bond that would not be shown ... (as) margined or collateralized," he reportedly told the grand jury. "It looked like it was free and clear but it actually wasn't," he said. Epstein has denied he ever had any dealings with anyone from the insurance companies. But Richard Allen says he recalls talking to Epstein at Hoffenberg's direction and telling him it was urgent they retrieve the missing bonds for a state examination. According to Allen, Epstein said, "We'll get them back." He had "kind of a flippant attitude," says Allen. "They never came back." Epstein, according to Hoffenberg, also came up with a scheme to manipulate the price of Emery Freight stock in an attempt to minimize the losses that occurred EFTA00188426
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Page 10 The Talented Mr. Epstein;Lately, Jeffrey Epstein's high-ying style when Hoffenberg's bid went wrong and the share price began to fall. This was al- leged to have involved multiple clients' accounts controlled by Epstein. Eventually, in 1991, insurance regulators in Illinois sued Hof fenberg. He settled the case, and Epstein, who was only a paid consultant, was never deposed or accused of any wrongdoing. Barry Gross, the attorney who was handling the suit for the regulators, says of Epstein, "He was very elusive... It was hard to really track him down. There were a substantial number of checks for significant dollars that were paid to him, I remember... He was this character we never got a handle on. Again we presumed that he was involved with the Pan Am and Emery run that Hoffenberg made, but we never got a chance to depose him." "From the government's discovery in the main sentencing against Hoffenberg it would seem the government was perhaps a bit lazy," says David Lewis, who repre- sented Mitchell Brater. "They went for what they knew they could get ... and that was the fraudulent promissory notes (i.e., the much larger and unrelated part of Hoffenberg's fraud, based in New York State)... What they couldn't get, they didn't bother with." Another lawyer involved in the criminal prosecution of Hoffenberg says, "In a criminal investigation like that, when there is a guilty plea, to be quick and dirty about it, discovery is always incomplete... They don't have to line up witnesses; they don't have to learn every fact that might come out on cross- examination." Epstein was involved with Hoffenberg in other questionable transactions. Finan- cial records show that in 1988 Epstein invested $1.6 million in Riddell Sports Inc., a company that manufactures football helmets. Among his co-investors were the theater mogul Robert Nederlander and attorney Leonard Toboroff. A source close to this transaction claims that Epstein told Nederlander and Toboroff that he had raised his share of the money from a Swiss banker, whose identity they could not be allowed to know. But Hoffenberg has claimed the money came from him, and Towers's financial statements for that year show a loan to Epstein of $400,000. (Epstein has said he can't remember the details and has disputed the accuracy of the Towers financial reports.) Around the same time, Nederlander and Toboroff let Epstein come in with them on a scheme to make money out of Pennwalt, a Penns lvania chemical company. The plan was to group together with two other parties to ta e a substantial declared position in the stock. According to a source, Epstein was supposed to help Ned- erlander and Toboroff raise $15 million. He seemed to fail to find other inves- tors, say those familiar with the deal. (Epstein has said he was merely an in- vestor.) He invested $1 million, which he told his co-investors was his own money. But in his 1989 deposition he said that he put in only $300,000 of his own money. Where did the rest come from? Hoffenberg has said it came from him, in a loan that Nederlander and Toboroff didn't know about. Two things happened that alarmed Nederlander and Toboroff. After the group signaled a possible takeover, the Pennwalt management threatened to sue the would-be raiders. Epstein was reluctant initially to give a deposition about his share of the money, telling Toboroff there were "reasons" he didn't want to. Then, after the opportunity for new investors was closed, co-investors recall Epstein announcing that he'd found one at last: Dick Snyder, then C.E.O. of the publisher Simon & Schuster, who wanted to put up approximately $1O0,000. (Nei- tnerEpstein nor Snyder can now recall the investment. Yet in the 1989 deposi- tion Epstein said that he had recruited Snyder, whom he had met socially, into the deal.) EFTA00188427
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Page 11 The Talented Mr. Epstein;Lately, Jeffrey Epstein's high-ying style According to a source, Toboroff and Nederlander told Epstein that Snyder was too late, but, without their realizing it, Hoffenberg has claimed, Snyder wrote a check to Hoffenberg and bought out some of his investment. But then Snyder wanted out. "Nederlander started to get these irate calls from (Snyder,) who wasn't part of the deal, saying he was owed all this money," says someone close to the deal. Toboroff and Nederlander were baffled. Eventually, a source close to Hoffenberg says, Hoffenberg paid Snyder off. Just as Nederlander and Toboroff were growing wary of Epstein, he became in- creasingly involved with Leslie Wexner, whom he had met through insurance execu- tive Robert Meister and his late wife. Epstein has told people that he met Wex- ner in 1986 in Palm Beach, and that he won his confidence by persuading him not to invest in the stock market, just as the 1987 crash was approaching. His story has subsequently changed. When asked if Wexner knew about his connection to Hof- fenberg, Epstein said that he began working for Wexner in 1989, and that "it was certainly not the same time." Wherever and whenever it was that Epstein and Wexner actually met, there was an immediate and strong personal chemistry. Wexner says he thinks Epstein is "very smart with a combination of excellent judgment and unusually high stan- dards. Also, he is always a most loyal friend." Sources say Epstein proved that he could be useful to Wexner as well, with "fresh" ideas about investments. "Wexner had a couple of bad investments, and Jeffrey cleaned those up right away," says a former associate of Epstein's. Before he signed on with Wexner, Epstein had several meetings with Hargis) Levin, then head of Wexner Investments in which he enunciated ideas about cur- rencies that Levin found incomprehensible. "In fact," says someone who used to work very closely with Wexner, "almost everyone at the Limited wondered who Ep- stein was; he literally came out of nowhere." "Everyone was mystified as to what his appeal was," says Robert Morosky, a former vice-chairman of the Limited. Much of Epstein's work is related to cleaning up, tightening budgets, and effi- ciencies. One person who worked for Wexner and who saw a contract drawn up be- tween the two men says Epstein is involved in "everything, not just a little here, a little there. Everythingi" In addition, he says, "Wexner likes having a hatchet man... Whenever there is dirty work to be done he'd stick Jeffrey on it... He has a reputation for being ruthless but he gets the job done." Epstein has evidently been asked to fire personal-staff members when needed. "He was that mysterious person that everyone was scared to death of," says a former employee. Meanwhile, he is also less than popular with some people outside Wexner's company with whom he now deals. "He 'inserted' himself into the construction process of Leslie Wexner's yacht... That resulted in litigation down the road between Mr. Wexner and the shipyard that eventually built the vessel," says are Forsberg, a lawyer whose firm at the time, Dickerson and Reily, was hired to deal with litigation stemming from the construction of Wexner's Limitless-at 315 feet, one of the largest private yachts in the world. Evidently, Epstein stalled on paying Dickerson and Reily for its work. "It's probably once or twice in my legal career that I've had to sue a client for payment of services that he'd re- quested and we'd performed ... without issue on the performance," says Forsberg. In the end the matter was settled, but Epstein claims he now has no recollection of it. EFTA00188428
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Page 12 The Talented Mr. Epstein;Lately, Jeffrey Epstein's high-ying style A< The incident is one of a number of disputes Epstein has become embroiled in. Some are for sums so tiny as to be baffling; for instance, Epstein sued invest- ment adviser Herbert Glass, who sold him the Palm Beach house in 1990, for $13,444-Epstein claimed this was owed him for furnishings removed by Glass. In 1998 the U.S. Attorney's Office sued Epstein for illegally subletting the. former home of the deputy consul general of Iran to attorney Ivan Fisher and others. Epstein paid $15,000 a month in rent to the State Department, but he charged Fisher and his colleagues $20,000. Though the exact terms of the agree- ment are sealed, the court ruled against Epstein. Wexner offers some insight into his friend's combative style. "Many times people confuse winning and losing," Wexner says. "Jeffrey has the unusual qual- ity of knowing when he is winning. Whether in conversations or negotiations, he always stands back and lets the other person determine the style and manner of the conversation or negotiation. And then he responds in their style. Jeffrey sees it in chivalrous terms. He does not pick a fight, but if there is a fight, he will let you choose your weapon." One case is rather more serious. Currently, Citibank is suing Epstein for de- faulting on loans from its private-banking arm for $20 million. Epstein claims that Citibank "fraudulently induced" him into borrowing the money for invest- ments. Citibank disputes this charge. The legal papers for another case offer a rare window into Epstein's fi- nances. In 1995, Epstein stopped paying rent to his landlord, the nonprofit Mu- nicipal Arts Society, for his office in the Villard Hpust. He claimed that they were breaking the terms of the lease by not letting his staff in at night. The case was eventually settled. However, one of the papers filed in this dispute is Epstein's financial statement for 1988, in which he claimed to be worth $20 mil- lion. He listed that he owned $7 million in securities, $1 million in cash, zero in residential property (although he told sources that he had already bought the home in Palm Beach), and $11 million in other assets, including his investment in Riddell. A co-investor in Riddell says: "The company had been bought with a huge amount of debt, and it wasn't public, so it was meaningless to attach a figure like that to it ... the price it cost was about $1.2 million." The co- investors bought out Epstein's share in Riddell in 1995 for approximately $3 million. At that time, when Epstein was asked, as a routine matter, to sign a paper guaranteeing he had access to a few million dollars in case of any subse- quent disputes over the sale price, Wexner signed for him. Epstein has explained that this was because the co-investors wanted an indemnity against being sued by Wexner. One of the investors calls this "bullshit." Epstein's appointment to the board of New York's Rockefeller University in 2000 brought him into greater social prominence. Boasting such social names as Nancy Kissinger, Brooke Astor, and Robert Bass, the board also includes such pre- eminent scientists as Nobel laureate Joseph Goldstein. "Epstein was thrilled to be elected," says someone who knows him. After one term Epstein resigned. According to New York magazine, this was be- cause he didn't like to wear a suit to meetings. A spokesperson for the Rocke- feller board says Epstein left because he had insufficient time to commit; a board member recalls that he was "arrogant" and "not a good fit." The spokesper- son admits that it is "infrequent" for board members not to be renominated after only one term. Still, the recent spate of publicity Epstein has inspired does not seem to have fazed him. In November he was spotted in the front row of the Victoria's EFTA00188429
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Page 13 The Talented Mr. Epstein;Lately, Jeffrey Epstein's high-ying style Secret fashion show at New York's Lexington Avenue Armory; around the same time the usual coterie of friends and beautiful women were whisked off to Little St. James (which he tells people has been renamed Little St. Jeff) for a long week- end. Thanks to Epstein's introductions, says Martin Nowak, the biologist finds himself moving from Princeton to Harvard, where he is assuming the joint posi- tion of professor of mathematics and professor of biology. Epstein has pledged at least $25 million to Harvard to create the Epstein Program for Mathematical Biology and Evolutionary Dynamics, and Epstein will have an office at the uni- versity. The program will be dedicated to searching for nature's algorithms, a pursuit that is a specialty of Nowak's. For Epstein this must be the summit of everything he has worked toward: he has been seen proudly displaying Harvard president Larry Summers's letter of commitment as if he can't quite believe it is real. He says he was reluctant to have his name attached to the program, but Summers persuaded him. He rang his mentor Wexner about it, and Wexner told him it was all right. An insatiable, restless soul, always on the move, Epstein builds a tremendous amount of downtime into his hectic work schedule. Yet there is something almost programmed about his relaxation: it's as if even pleasure has to be measured in terms of self-improvement. Nowak says that, when he goes to stay with Epstein in the Caribbean, they'll get up at six and, as the sun rises, have three-hour con- versations about theoretical physics. "Then he'll go off and do some work, re- appear, and we'll talk some more." Another person who went to the island with Epstein, Maxwell, and several beautiful women remembers that the women "sat around one night teasing him about the kinds of grasping women who might want to date him. He was amused by the idea... He's like a king in his own world." Many people comment there is something innocent, almost childlike about Jef- frey Epstein. They see this as refreshing, given the sophistication of his sur- roundings. Alan Dershowitz says that, as he was getting to know Epstein, his wife asked him if he would still be close to him if Epstein suddenly filed for bankruptcy. Dershowitz says he replied, "Absolutely. I would be as interested in him as a friend if we had hamburgers on the boardwalk in Coney Island and talked about his ideas." N GRAPHIC: LEFT, BY JAMES ESTRIN; RIGHT, BY DUBLIN CAINE; MR. BIG Jeffrey Epstein in New York, 2001. Left, Epstein's nine-floor, 51,000-square- foot town house. He also owns a 7,500-acre ranch in New Mexico, a house in Palm Beach, and a Car- ibbean island.; TOP TO BOTTOM: BY ALBERTO PINTO, LISA HINGE, J. B. SCHMITKA; un- real estate From top: the "leather room" in Epstein's house, where "tea" is served to guests; Epstein at his Zorro ranch in 1991 with his "best friend," Ghislaine Maxwell; Epstein in 1979.; TOP TO BOTTOM: BY LISA HINGE, SARAH ADAM SCULL; SPOILS OF SUCCESS From top: Epstein's 70- acre island, Little St. James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands-he now calls it Little St. Jeff; Epstein with President Clinton in Brunei, 2002; Leslie Wexner with his future wife, Abigail, at the 1990 C.F.D.A. Fashion Awards, in New York, 1991.; ALBERTO PINTO; OFFICE SPACE The "office" in Epstein's house. It has no computers, but it does have a desk that Epstein tells people once belonged to banker J. P. Morgan, and "the largest Persian rug you'll ever see in a private home."; Pages 300-301: Left, from The New York Times. Page 304: Bottom, from Globe Photos. LOAD-DATE: January 24, 2005 EFTA00188430
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Prince Andrew's billionaire friend is accused of preying on girl of 14 I News I This is Lon... Page 1 of 4 thaestertalondIon.co.uk nment gue from lb, Evening Standard PRINCE ANDREW'S BILLIONAIRE FRIEND IS ACCUSED OF PREYING ON GIRL OF 14 28.04.07 Add your view One of Prince Andrew's closest friends is being Investigated by the FBI for allegedly paying under-age girls for tawdry sexual encounters. Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein has stayed at Sandringham and holidayed with the Prince in Thailand, while Andrew has visited his luxurious New York townhouse at least twice. Police in Florida are so concerned by claims that the bachelor financier had sexual encounters with under- age girls at his exclusive Palm Beach villa that they have passed the case files to the FBI. Epstein, 54, leads a hedonistic lifestyle that has troubled Royal courtiers ever since he was introduced to the Prince by their friend Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the late disgraced media tycoon Robert Maxwell. During his Thai holiday with Epstein, Andrew was photographed surrounded by topless women on a yacht. And Epstein was a guest at the Queen's birthday party in 2000 at Windsor and has attended a weekend house party at Sandringham. According to official documents seen by this newspaper, Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter has asked the FBI to determine whether Epstein broke laws designed to protect children from prostitution and pornography. Some such offences carry minimum sentences of ten to 15 years. The documents reveal that Epstein was the subject of an 11-month undercover investigation by police after a complaint in 2005 from the stepmother of a 14-year-old girl, who claimed she was paid £150 to give him an erotic massage at his flamingo-pink villa. The girl is said to have been taken there by 18-year-old student who claims in a sworn statement that she was recruited at the age of 17 to provide the billionaire with a £100 nude massage. She told police he grabbed her after she began to rub him with oil. After the massage,' according to a police department affidavit, Epstein stated that he Concerns: Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein is under investigation for alleged sexual encounters with underage girls http://www.thisisiondon.co.ukinews/article-23394287-details/Prince+Andrew%27s+billiona... 5/3/2007 EFTA00188431