This is an FBI investigation document from the Epstein Files collection (FBI VOL00009). Text has been machine-extracted from the original PDF file. Search more documents →
FBI VOL00009
EFTA00188312
170 pages
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SPOILS OF SUCCESS Awn tqr Epstein's 70- acre island. Little St. lames. in the U.S. Virgin Islands—he now calls it Little St. Jett 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. Larry Summers. Harvard's current presi- dent. Harvard law professor Alan Dersho- witz says. "I'm on my 20th book.... The only person outside of my immediate family that I send drafts to is Jeffrey." Real-estate developer and philanthropist Marshall Rose, who has %tacked 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. EdeIn= and 3ilunay Gel Mann. and mathematical biologist Martin Nowak. When these men describe Epstein. they talk about **energy" and "curiosity: as well as a love for theoreti- cal physics that they don't ordinarily find in laymen. Ge11-Mann rather sweetly mentions that **there are al- ways pretty ladies around" when he goes to dinner cht Epstein. and he's under the impression that Epstein's clients include the Queen of En- gland. 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 sug- gests that Wexner "made him." "I had real- ly rich clients before:' he has said. Yet he does not deny that he and Wexner have a special relationship. Epstein secs it as a partnership of equals. "People have said it's like we have one brain between two of us: "I think we both possess the skill of seeing patterns;' says Wexner. "But Jef- frey sees patterns in politics and fmaria cial markets, and I see patterns in lifestyle and fashion trends. My skills are not in in- vestment strategy, and, as everyone who knows Jeffrey knows, his are not in fash- ion and design. We frequently discuss world trends as each of us sees them:' y the time Epstein met Wexner, the latter was a retail legend who had built a $3 billion em- pire—one that now in- cludes Victoria's Secret. Express, and Bath & Body Works—from $5,000 lent him by his aunt. "Wexner saw in Jeffrey the type of person who had the potential to real- ize his (Jeffrey's) dreams." says some- one 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 1989. In 1993. Wex- ner married Abigail Koppel. a 31-year-old lawyer. and the newlyweds relocated to Ohio: in 1996. Epstein moved in- . - to the town house. Public documcnts 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 fidu- ciary over all of his private trusts and foun- dations, says a source close to Wexner. In 1992. Epstein even persuaded Wexner to put him on the board of the Wexner Foun- dation in place of Warices ailing mother. Bella Wexner recovered and demanded to be reinstated. Epstein has said they settled by splitting the foundation in two. Epstein does not care that he comes be- tween family members. In fact, he sees it as his job. He tells people. "I am there to .1 represent my client. and if my client needs protecting—sometimes even from his own family-then it's often better that people hate me, not the client." "You've probably heard I'm vicious ins my representation of my clients,- he tells people proudly; Leah Kiernan describes his haggling over art prices as something like ; a scene out of the movie Mad Mar Be- yond Thunderdome. Even a former mentor g says he's seen "the dark side- of Epstein. 5 and a Bear Stearns source recalls a meet- ing in which Epstein chewed out a team :. 1 t: a e: h. • • EFTA00188452
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0 S t 0. 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: "1 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 interestel in taking flying lessons?' Rosa Monckton recalls Epstein telling her that her. daughter. Domenica. who suf- . krs 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 air- line tickets of good friends by affixing first- class stickers: the only problem was that the stickers turned out to be unofficial. Some- times the technique ‘Corked. 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 knowiedge 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. Fl pstein is known about town as a man who loves wom- en—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 Victo- ria's Secret girls. One young woman recalls being summoned by Ghislaine Maxwell to a concert 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 tilled. she says. with young Russian mod- els. "Some of the guests were horrified," the woman says. "He's reckless," says a former business associate, "and he's gotten more so. Mon- ey does that to you. He's breaking the oath he made to himself—that he would never media. Right now, in the wake of the pub- licity following his trip with Clinton, he must be in a very difficult place." A ccording to S.E.C. and other legal documents un- earthed by Vanity Fair, 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 Hoffen- berg, 57, who, for a few months before the S.E.C. sued to freeze his assets in 093, was trying to buy the New York Asst. He is cur- rently incarcerated in the Federal Medical Center in Devens. Massachusetts, serving a 20-year sentence for bilking investors out of more than 5450 trillion in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history. When Epstein met Hoffenberg in Lon- don 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 peo- ple 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 Man- hanan'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 Brook- lyn. According to Hotlenberg. the two men were introduced by Douglas Leese. a de- fense contractor. Epstein has said they were introduced by John Mitchell. the late attor- ney. general. Epstein had been running International Assets Group Inc. (I.A.G.). a consulting 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 dep- osition he testified that he spent SO per- cent of his time helping people 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 investors. A lawsuit that Michael Stroll. the former head of Wil- liams Electronics Inc.. filed against Epstein shows that in 1982 I.A.G. received an in- vestment from Stroll of S450,000. 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 oth- er 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 mil- Hoffenberg, says a close friend, "really liked Jeffrey.... Jeffrey has a way of getting under your skin, and he was under Hof- fenberg's." Also appealing to Hoffenberg were Epstein's social connections; they in- cluded oil mogul Cece Wang (father of the designer Vera) and Mohan Murjani, whose clothing company grew into Gloria Van- derbilt Jeans. Epstein lived large even then. One friend recalls that when he took Cana- dian heiress Wendy Belzberg on a date he hired a Rolls-Royce especially for the oc- casion. (Epstein has claimed he owned it.) In 198'Z Hoffenberg. according to sources, set Epstein up in the offices he still occu- pies in the Villard House. on Madison Av- enue, across a courtyard from the restaurant Le Cirque. Hoffenberg hired his new pro- tégé as a consultant at 525.000 a month. and the relationship flourished. "They trav- eled everywhere together—on Hoffinberis plane. all around the world, they were al- ways 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 ex- ecuting "illegal operations.- Several of Epstein's Eizar Stearns contem- poraries recall that Epstein left the compa- ny very suddenly: Within the company there were rumors also that he was involved in a technical infringement. and it was thought that the executive committee asked that he resign after his two supporters. Ace Green- berg and Jimmy Clyne. were outnumbered. Greenberg says he can't recall this: Cayne denies it happened. and Epstein has de- nied 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' manage- ment 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.— let. 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 ease in Philadelphia. In 1981 the SEC's Jonathan Harris and Robert Blackburn took Epstein's testimony and that of other Bear Steams employees in part of what became a protracted case about insider trading around a tender offer placed on March IL 1981. by the Seagram Company Li.J. for St. Joe Minerals Corp. Ultimately several Italian and Swiss in- vestors 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 in- EFTA00188453
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contains a parody of Affleck and Matt Da- mon making Good Will Hunting 11, Affleck says to Damon, "What do I keep telling you? You gotta do the safe picture, then you do the art picture. Then sometimes you gotta do the payback picture because your friend says you owe him. Then sometimes you got- ta go back to the null." "Sometimes you do Reindeer Gaines," Damon says derisively. "That's just mean," Aifieck whines. But it's a pretty accurate description of his career to date. "Ben takes these franchise properties so he can go and experiment," says Harvey Weinstein. "He believes in trying to stretch himself and notikecp doing the same thing," ob- serves Bruce Willis. who starred with Aleck in Armageddon. "He's an awesome actor, and I think he's going to do great things." Several years ago, in a televised interview on Inside the Anon Studio, Affleck said that his goal was to make big commercial movies. He has since rested his ambitions. "That's an adolescent aspiration, in a way. I'd rather be in movies like Magnolia, which I think is a towering achievement. I'll con- tinue to act, but I won't act in a way that requires me to hang my name out there and do a lot of publicity. I'll do character roles and focus on writing and directing. It doesn't require the same kinds of sacri- fice, in terms of quality of life and person- al life, and it's a more holistic approach to the process. It's become increasingly frus- trating for me to have my role in the story- telling process limited to one character. You have to be respectful and judicious about your input when is somebody else's project." Affleck has always impressed colleagues with his voracious appetite for information and skills. "He has made it a point to learn everything he can about how the business works—not just the craft of acting, but from the producing standpoint, from the studio standpoint," says Jon Gordon, exec- utive vice president of production at Mira- max. "He knows how deals work. It's what sets him apart. If he wanted to run a studio at some point, he could. He's about as sharp as they come A °leek is already juggling his acting with screenwriting and such other commit- ments as Project Greenlight. the contest he and Damon started to help launch the ca- reers of young filmmakers. Afileck's friends are certain net be directing soon. "There's no question," Weinstein says. "Both he and Matt. I think they're going to rewrite the rules. These guys can fix anything. There'll be home runs in both instances?' But there are other thoughts tickling the back of Affleck's mind as well. A passion- ate liberal, he campaigned for Al Gore. cares deeply about political issues. and is extremely well informed. He entertains him- self by writing imaginary political speeches in his head. He would rather discuss Acts in Africa than his movie career. When Lopez goes to Affieck's mother's house for dinner. Weinstein reports. "J.Lo told me that the conversation at the table is always about politics—about government initiatives. educational initiatives. what's go- ing on in the day.- So is Affleck planning to become the lib- teha raist haencswe nterrlains t° RotnhaledthReouni ghltn:ifilea someday drniis running for Congress at least "I think there's a real nobility to public service. It walkd be fun to run on a platform I really beb....ed in, without any of the kind of common: people make—without being beholden • the win-at-all-costs mentality." And the invasion of privacy would he nothing new. "What are you going to say about me that hasn't already been said? I don't cheat, I don't drink, I don't do drugs. I live a clean lik," Mika says, his eyes twinkling. "He's only 30 years old," says Jennifer Todd, who co-produced Boiler Room. "He still has an enormous amount of time to do things?' Tune, and drive.."I think he's incredibly hungry," says Sean Bailey. who founded the media and production company Live- Planet with Affleck, Damon, and Chris Moore. "I think the guy has very grand aspirations. I don't think he's going to be content with just being a movie star. He knows he has the potential to do very big things." Such ambitions could be derailed by any number of miscalculations. including a pd. sate life that generates too many sensational headlines, but Affieck has a clear idea of the ultimate goal. "On my deathbed. I have to be one who looks back and feels I lived a good and substantial and meaningful Ilk.- he says. In the meantime. however there's a wed- ding to plan. Z Jeffrey Epstein CONTINUED PROM PAGE i s Bear Stearns and other firms. Epstein resigned from Bear Steams on March 12. The S.E.C. was tipped oil that Epstein had information on insider trading at Bear Stearns. and it was therefore obliged to question him. In his S.E.C. testi- mony, given on April I. 1981, Epstein claimed that he had found "offensive" the way Bear Stearns management had handled a disci- plinary action following its discovery that he had committed a possible "Rea D" viola- tion—evidently he had lent money to his clos- est friend. (In the 1989 deposition he said that he'd lent approximately $20.000 to War- m Eisenstein, to buy stock.) Such an action could have been considered improper, al- though Epstein claimed he had not realized this until afterward. According to Epstein. Bear Stearns man- agement had questioned him about the loan _ . Alvin Einbender.. In his 1989 deposition Ep- stein recalled that the partner who had made an "issue" of the matter was Marvin David- son. On March 9. Epstein said. he had met with Tarnopol and Einbendcr again. and the two partners told him that the oxalate com- mittee had weighed the offense. together with previous "carelessness" over expenses. and he would be lined 51.500. "There was discussion whether, in fact. I had ever put in an airline ticket for some- one else and not myself and I said that it was possible. ... since my secretary han- dles my expenses?' Epstein told the S.E.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 con- nection between Epstein's leaving and the alleged insider trading in St. Joe Minerals by other people at Bear Steams: nection with your reasons for leaving the firm? A: I'm aware that there were many rumors. Q: What were the rumors ynu heard? A: Nothing to do with St. Joe. Q: Can you relate what you heard? A: It was having to do with an Wien affair with a secretary. Q: Have you heard any other rumors suggest- ing that you had made a presentation or com- munication to the Executive Committee con- cerning alleged improprieties by other mem- bers or employees of Bear Stearns? A: I. in fact, haw heard that rumor, but it's been from Mr. Harris in our conversation last week. Q Have you heard it from anyone else? A: No. A little later the interview focuses on James Caync: Q: Did you ever hear while you were at Bear Steams that Mr. Cayne may have trader or iv. sider information in connection with Si t- • Minerals Corporation? A: No. Q: Did Mr. Cayne ever have any conversation with you about SI Joe Minerals? EFTA00188454
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Jeffrey Epstein lions between Mr. Cayne and anyone else re- garding St. Joe Minerals? A: No. And still later in the questioning comes this exchange: Q: Have you had any type of business deal- ings with Mr. Cayne? A: There's no relationship with Bear Steams. Q: Pardon? A: Other than Bear Steams, 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 participat- ing inpny business venture with Mr. Cayne? A: Nd. Q: Have you had any business participations with Mr. Therm? A: No; nor do I anticipate any. Q: Mr. Epstein. did anyone at Bear Steams tell you in words or substance that you should not divulge anything about St. Joe Minerals to the staff of the Securities and Exchange Com- mission? A: No. Q: Has anyone indicated to you in any way either directly or indirectly, in words or sub- stance. that your compensation for this past year or any future monies 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 be- ing approximately S100.000. The S.E.C. never brought any charges against anyone at Bear Stearns for insider 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 32.500 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. O ne of Epstein's first assignments for Hof- fenbcrg was to mastermind doomed bids to take over Pan American World Airways in 1987 and Emery Air Freight Corp. in 1988. Hofknberg claimed in a 1993 hearing before a grand jury in Illinois that Epstein came up with the idea of financing these bids through Towers's acquisition 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 companies and Towers Financial. supposedly to make a profit for us and for the companies," Hoffen- berg reportedly told the grand jury. He also ecuting the schemes, although, having no broker's license, he had to rely on others to make the trades. Much of Hoffenberg's sub- sequent 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 Rich- ard Allen, the former treasurer of United Fire, recalls seeing Epstein two or three times at the company. He and another a- ecutive say they had direct dealing with Ep- stein 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 "mak- ing the orders." He could not recall whether he had chosen the brokers used. To win approval from the Illinois insur- ance regulators for Towers's acquisition of the companies, Hoffenberg promised to in- ject S3 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 S3 million of the insurance companies bonds to buy Pan Am and Em- ery 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 & Ren- shaw.- Hoffenberg reportedly said. Then. said Hoffenbetg, while making it appear as though they were investing the bonds in much staler financial instruments, they used them as collateral to buy the stock. -Ep- stein was the person in charge or the trans- actions. and Mitchell Bracer was assisting him with it in coordination on behalf or the insurance companies' money." Hoffinberg, claimed at the time. At one point. according to Hoffinberg. a broker forged the documents necessary for a SI.S million check to be written on insurance- company funds. The check was used to buy more stock in the takeover targets. Mean- while. in order to throw the insurance regula- tors off the S 1.8 million was reported us being safely invested in a money-market account. United Fire's former chief financial officer Daniel Payton confirms part of Hotknberg's account. He says he recalls making one or two telephone calls to Epstein tat Rotten- berg'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 mar- gin account to take some positions in ... Emery and Pan Am." says Payton. Epstein's extraordinary creativity was, ac- cording to Hoffenberg, responsible for the purchase by the insurance companies of a $500,000 bond, with no money down. "Ep- stein created a great scheme to purchase a 5500.000 treasury bond that would not be 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 deal- ings with anyone from the insurance com- panies. But Richard Allen says he recalls talking to Epstein at Hofknberg's direction and telling him it was urgent they retrieve the missing bonds for a stale examination. According to Allen, Epstein said, "We'll get them back." He had "kind of a flippant atti- tude," says Allen. "They never came back." E pstein, according to Hoffenberg, also came up with a scheme to manipulate the price of Emery Freight stock in an at- tempt to minimize the losses that occurred when HotTenberg's bid went wrong and the share price began to fall. This was alleged to have imohed multiple clients' accounts con- trolled by Epstein. Eventually. in 1991, insurance regulators in ffiinois sued Hoffenberg. He settled the case. and Epstein. who was only a paid consul- tant, 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 vety 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 remem- ber.... 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 apinst Hoffenberg it would seem the government was perhaps a bit lazy;" says David Lewis. who represented Mitchell Bruer. "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 Hoffenbetg'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 Horknberg says. "In a crim- inal 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." E pstein was involved with Hoffcnberg in other questionable transactions. Finan- cial records show that in 1988 Epstein in- vested S1.6 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 Neder- !ander and Toboroff that he had raised his • •• • .•• • .11. • ••• • • • EFTA00188455
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whose identity they could not be allowed to know. But Hof enberg has claimed the mon- ey came from him, and Towers's financial statements for that year show a loan to Ep- stein of $400,000. (Epstein has said he can't remember the details and has dis- puted 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 Pennsylvania chemical company. The plan was to group together with two other parties to take a substantial declared position in the stock. According to a source. Epstein was supposed tp help Nederlander and Toboroff raise SIS million. He seemed to fail to find other investors, say those familiar with the deal. (Epstein has said he was merely an in- vestor.) He invested SI million, which he told his co-investors was his own money. But in his 1989 deposi- tion he said that he put in only S300,000 of his own money. Where did the rest come from? Hof- Feilberg 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 ini- tially 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 S: Schuster. who want- ed to put up approximately S500.000. (Nei- ther Epstein nor Snyder can now recall the investment. Yet in the 1989 deposition Epstein said that he had recruited Sny- der, whom he had met socially. into the deal.) According to a source. Toboroff and Ne- derlander told Epstein that Snyder was too late. but, without their realizing it. Hoffen- herg has claimed, Snyder wrote a check to lioffenberg and bought out some of his in- vestment. But then Snyder wanted out. "Nederlander started to get these irate calls from [Snyder.' who wasn't part of the deal, saying be was owed all this money." ; says someone close to the deal. Toboroff Tug as Nederlander and Toboroff were j growing wary of Epstein, he became in- creasingly involved with Leslie Werner, whom he had met through insurance executive Robert Meister and his late wile. Epstein has told people that he met Wexner 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 approach- ing. His story has subsequently changed. When asked if Wexner knew about his con- nection to Hoffenberg, 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 Ep- stein and Wexner actually met. there was an immediate and strong personal chem- istry. Werner says he thinks Epstein is "very smart with a combination of excellent judg- ment and unusually high standards. Also. he is always a most loyal friend." 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 rue you'll ever see in a ornate home Sources say Epstein proved that he could be useful to Wexner as well, with "fresh" ideas about investments. "Wexner had a cou- ple of bad investments. and Jeffrey cleaned those up right away." says a former associ- ate or Epstein's. Before he signed on with Wexner. Epstein had several ineetines with Harold Levin. then head of Wexner Investments, in which he enunciated ideas about currencies that Lain found incommthensibk. "In W." says some- one who used to work very closely with Wex- ner. "almost everyone at the Limited won- dered who Epstein was: he literally came out of nowhere." uch of Epstein's work is related to clean- ing up, tightening budgets, and efficien- cies. One person who worked for Werner and who saw a contract drawn up between the two men says Epstein is involved in "every- thing, not just a little here. a little there. Everything!" In addition, he says. "Wexner likes having a hatchet man.... Whenever there is ditty work to be done he'd stick Jef- frey 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 aerate was scared to death of." says a former employee. Meanwhile. he is also less than popular with some people outside %amt.'s company with whom he now deals. "He 'inserted' himself into the construction process of Les- lie Weamer's yacht.... That resulted in liti- gation down the road between Mr. Wexner and the shipyard that eventually built the ves- sel: says Lars Forsberg. a lawyer whose firm at the rime. Dickerson and was hired to deal with litigation stemming from the construction of Wexner's Limitless— at 3IS feet. one of the 'largest private yachts in the world. Evidently. Ep- stein stalled on paying Dickerson and Reily for its work "It's pntably once twice in my le- gal career that I've had to sue a client for payment of services that he'd re- quested and we'd per- formed ... without issue on the performance." says Forsberg. In the end the matter was settled. but Ep- stein claims he now has no recollection of it. The incident is one of a number of disputes Epstcin has become embroiled in. Some are for sums so tiny as to be baffling: for instance. Epstein sued investment adviser Herbert Glass, who sold him the Palm Beach house in 1990. for 513,444—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. EPA. CIO paid 515.000 a month in rent to die Wu. Department. but he charged fisher • an his colleagues $20.000. Though the mi. terms of the agreement are set tr: court ruled against Epstein. Wexner ofkrs some insight nth) :r. int EFTA00188456
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E pstein's appointment to the board of New York's Rockefeller University in 2000 brought him into greater social promi- nence. Boasting such social names as Nancy Kissinger. Brooke Astor, and Robert Bass. the board also includes such pre-eminent scientists as Nobel laureate Joseph Gold- stein. "Epstein was thrilled to be elected." says someone who knows him. After one term Epstein resigned. Accord- ing to New York magazine, this was because he didn't like to wear a suit to meetings. A Jeffrey Epstein 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 defaulting on loans from its private-banking arm for S20 million. Epstein claims that Citibank "fraud- ulent induced" him into borrowing the moire for investments. Citibank disputes this charge. The legal papers for another case offer a rare window into Epstein's finances. In 1995, Epstein stopped paying rent to his landlord, the nonprofit Municipal Arts Society, for his office in the Vi lard House. 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 state- ment for 1988. in which he claimed to be worth 520 million. He listed that he owned 57 million in securities, SI million in cash. zero in residential property (although he told sources that he had already bought the was "arrogant" and "not a good lit." The spokesperson admits that it is "infrequent" for board members not to be renominated after only one term. Still, the recent spate of publicity Ep- stein has inspired does not seem to have fazed him. In November he was spotted in the front row of the Victoria's Secret fashion show at New York's Lexington Avenue Ar- mory; around the same time the usual co- terie 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 weekend. Thanks to Epstein's introductions, says Martin Nowak, the biologist finds himself moving from Princeton to Harvard. where he is assuming the joint position of profes- sor of mathematics and prokssor of biolo- • gy. Epstein has pledged at least S25 million to Harvard to create the Epstein Program for Mathematical Biology and Evolutionary Dynamics, and Epstein will have an office at the university. The program will be dedi- cated to searching for natures algorithms, a pursuit that is a specialty of Nowak's. For Epstein this must be the summit of every- thing 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 FASHION Coven Ben Affleck's Double RL T-shirt from Dosiolo Rt. NXC. and LA. oe go to wwwPolacom. for Lents leans. cod 800-USA-LEVI; Deborah IMAM-. for Ad Ithe Agency/. Page 96: Chrome Hearts shirt from Chrome Hearts, NYC, a call for Ray-San sunglasses, call )388-l. Page 123: Peter Cinceni's Emporia Armani shirt from Emporio Amon boutimes nationwide: Ralph Lauren suspenders from selected Polo Ralph Laren storm: km Meehan for WSW ScImpfer Management Page 140: Noes Cocottes shirt by Thomas Pink; nil by Giorgio Annoni; lie by DKNY; Brioni mat by special ceder from selected Bocci men Par. 151: lay Glannon and Mina Roytberg styled by Aloe Henhips. Page 160: Styled by Angelo Grata- Emir. Inc Page 214: For June Havoc's Giro Simonelli Design start amiable by special order. coil 978.499.2°15. Page 220: Bernadette Peters's Donna Koran Na.. York dress 'rpm Donna <. non New York Pores natiorsece and Beegocel Goodman NYC. Paul Smith Women coat :ram Henn Bendel. NYC. and 'Fa9x. LA.: Chanel mwelty and gloss. from Chanel baArearationsode. or cat 800-550-000S; home in Palm Beach), and S II million in the program. but Summers persuaded him. Norc50 Rockily.. shoes fro„, Kohl. soma other assns. including his investment in He rang his mentor Wexner about it. and monica Cori_ and Carol Oxalate. N.C.: Riddell. A co-investor in Riddell sins: "The Wexner told him it was all right. Lamberison &we handbag by special order R.— company had been bought with a huge An insatiable, restless soul. always on the Bergdorf OCCO^NIA NYC.: Glsurka luggoge !IC." amount of debt. and it wasn't public. so it move. Epstein builds a tremendous amount was meaningless to attach a figure like that to of downtime into his hectic work schedule. it ... the price it cost was about S1.2 mil- Yet there is something almost programmed hon." The co-investors bought out Epstein's about his relaxation: it's as if even plea- share in Riddell in 1995 for approximately sure has to be measured in terms of self- 53 million. At that time, when Epstein was improvement. Nowak says that. when he asked. as a routine matter, to sign a paper goes to stay with Epstein in the Caribbean. guaranteeing he had access to a few million they'll get up at six and. as the sun rises. dollars in case of any subsequent disputes have three-hour conversations about theoret- over the sale price. Wexner signed for him. ical physics. "Then he'll go off and do some Epstein has explained that this was because work. re-appear. and we'll talk some more." the co-investors wanted an indemnity against Another person who went to the island being sued by Wexner. One of the investors with Epstein. Maxwell. and several beautiful calls this "bullshit." 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 some- thing innocent, almost childlike about Jef- frey Epstein. They see this as refreshing, given the sophistication of his surroundings. 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 hod bomb.. eon< r,n rhp Ghurbo. NYC. cr col 800.587.684. 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The Hari and Crimson :: News :: Donor Charged With Soliciting Sex from Women Page 1 of 2 The Harvard Critii"§"a News Donor Charged With Soliciting Sex from Women Dershowitz assisted Epstein in his defense, discredited witnesses with online profiles Published On 8/412006 1:05:25 AM By KATHERINE EA, GRAY Crimson Staff Writer Billionaire money manager Jeffrey E. Epstein, who donated $30 million to Harvard in 2003, has been charged with soliciting sex from prostitutes in his Palm Beach, Florida mansion. And though Epstein's case was originally to be presented to a grand jury in February, it was postponed after Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz, a longtime friend of Epstein, produced information weakening some the accusers' credibility, according to the Palm Beach Post. New York State Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Eliot L. Spitzer and New York attorney general candidate Mark A. Green have both returned gifts of $50,000 and $10,000 from Epstein, respectively, according to the New York Daily News. University President Derek C. Bok did not respond to requests for comment this week, and it is unclear what, if any, action will be taken against Epstein's $30 million, which was given in February 2003 to fund the research of mathematical biologist Martin A. Nowak. According to an indictment that was unsealed last week, Epstein allegedly solicited sex at least three times between Aug. 1 and Oct. 31 of last year. Epstein's charges stem from alleged sexual encounters with of-age women. The Palm Beach Police Department believed it had probable cause to charge Epstein with four counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor and of lewd and lascivious molestation, according to an affidavit. But a grand jury found the witnesses in the affidavit released by the police department not credible, according to Epstein 's defense attorney, Jack A. Goldberger. In an attempt to discredit the reliability of the girls' testimony, Dershowitz gave the police copies of two myspace.com profiles of girls who testified in the affidavit against Epstein, according to a Palm Beach Police report, One girl's profile showed messages from her friends that 'contain some profanity,' according to the report. The report further says that the other girl's profile "states that her interests include music, theater and weed (Marijuana)." Dershowitz declined to comment on this issue through an assistant. When asked whether Dershowitz was hired by Epstein or was working for him pro bono, Goldberger declined comment, and said only that Dershowitz and Epstein have been friends "for many years." In April, then-Epstein lawyer Guy Fronstin accepted a plea deal that would have the billionaire plead guilty to one count of aggravated assault with intent to commit a felony, and would give him five years' probation but no criminal record, according to the Post. That deal was to only apply to charges from one of the five alleged victims. Fronstin has since been fired, and Goldberger said that no such plea deal was made by any of Epstein's attorneys, according to the Post. it was absolutely clear to both the state attorney and grand jury that Epstein had no knowledge that any girl that came to his house was underaged," Goldberger told The Crimson Wednesday. "He passed a polygraph examination on that very issue." According to the probable cause affidavit released by the Palm Beach Police Department, one of the girls Epstein solicited was a 16-year- old girl who performed sexual acts for him in his bedroom on several occasions over a span of two years. The woman, whose name was blotted from the affidavit, told the police that she would completely remove her clothes and begin massaging Epstein's back, while he lay on a massage table, wearing only a towel. She would then massage his chest, and Epstein would begin to masturbate both himself and the woman. But "the woman referred to in the police report wasn't in the country at the time," Lefcourt said Wednesday, referring to the affidavit. "I do know that it was impossible to have happened the way it did." Prosecutor Lanna Belohlavek could not be reached for comment this week. Epstein, who in 2003 was named one of New York's most eligible bachelors by the New York Post, achieved fame after he took President Clinton, Chris Tucker, and Kevin Spacey on an African AIDS awareness tour via his personal jet in 2002. hi tn• //ninny therrim enn rnm /nrinterfrienrilv actve9ref=5 1 rIfIA 1 R/1 innnA EFTA00188458
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The Harvard Crimson :: News :: Donor Charged With Soliciting Sex from Women Page 2 of 2 In a 2002 New York Magazine article, Donald Trump described long-time friend Epstein as 'a lot of fun to be with? "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life," Trump said. —Materia/ from the Associated Press was used in the reporting of this article. —Staff writer Katherine M. Gray can be reached at kmgray©fas.haryard.edu. htipliwww.thecrimson.comlartIcle.aspx?ref=514961 httn•Min !!!!! the.° ri m et-in re-trn n terfri end Iv a snx?ref=514061 8/11/2006 EFTA00188459
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Jeffrey Epstein plea hearing moved to March Page 1 of 2 PalmBeachDailyNewscom Jeffrey Epstein plea hearing moved to March €K PRINTTHIS Powered by riakkability By MICHELE DARGAN Daily News Staff Writer Thursday, January 03, 2008 A plea hearing for part-time Palm Beacher Jeffrey Epstein will be rescheduled to March, his New York attorney confirmed Wednesday. The Manhattan money manager is expected to plead guilty to a felony charge of solicitation of prostitution. The hearing originally was scheduled for Friday. Sources have confirmed that the deal will put Epstein in prison for 18 months, followed by house arrest. "The plea conference will be moved to March, but it will be resolved, we believe," attorney Gerald Lefcourt said by phone. Although he declined to give a reason, Lefcourt said the date change was agreed to by both the defense and the prosecution. Mike Edmondson, spokesman for State Attorney Barry Krischer, declined to comment. "It's a matter of policy we don't comment on active cases," Edmondson said. In exchange for his guilty plea, federal authorities are expected to drop their probe into whether Epstein broke any federal laws, sources have said. Epstein, 54, was indicted in July 2006 on a felony charge of solicitation of prostitution. After completing an 11-month investigation, Palm Beach police said Epstein paid five underage girls for massages and sometimes sex at his El Brillo Way home. The investigation began after police received a call from a woman who said her 14-year-old stepdaughter might have been molested by a man in Palm Beach. Investigators watched Epstein's 7,234-square-foot waterfront home and private jet, and rummaged through his trash to build their case. They took sworn statements from five alleged victims and 17 witnesses. http://cox.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Jeffrey+Epstein+plea+hearing+... 1/3/2008 EFTA00188460
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Jeffrey Epstein plea hearing moved to March Page 2 of 2 Find this article at: http://vAinv.paimbeachdailynews.cominewsicontent/newsfepstein0103.html F Check the box to include the list of links referenced in the article. Copyright 2007 Palm Beach Daily News. All rights reserved. http://cox.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Jeffrey+Epstcin+plea+hearing+... 1/3/2008 EFTA00188461
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A Sex-Crime Investigation Reveals Jeffrey Epstein's Dangerous Dream World -- New Yo... Page 1 of 9 QN. ,1,WY 0 RIC .,„„Ag.,„m Features The Fantasist Gra PRINTTHIS Accused of paying underage girls for sex, superrich money manager Jeffrey Epstein is finding that living in a dream world is dangerous—even if you can pay for it. • By Philp Weiss • Published Dec 10, 2007 Jeffrey epstein is under indictment for sex crimes in Palm Beach, Florida, and I'd expected that when he came into the office of PR guru Howard Rubenstein, he would be sober and reserved. Quite the opposite. He was sparkling and ingenuous, apologizing for the half-hour lateness with a charming line— "I never realized how many one-way streets and no-right-turns there are in midtown. I finally got out and walked"—and as we went down the corridor to Rubenstein's office, he asked, "Have you managed to talk to many of my friends?" Epstein had been supplying me the phone numbers of important scientists and financiers and media figures. "Do you understand what an extraordinary group of people Hinwwww.nrintthis.clickabilitv.com/nt/cot?action=cnt&title=A+Sex-Crime+Investigatio... 12/10/2007 EFTA00188462
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A Sex-Crime Investigation Reveals Jeffrey Epstein's Dangerous Dream World -- New Yo... Page 2 of 9 they are, what they have accomplished in their fields?" One of the accusers—a girl of 14—had put his age at 45, not in his fifties, and you could see why. His walk was youthful, and his face was ruddy with health. He had none of the round-shouldered, burdened qualities of middle age. There was nothing in his hands, not a paper, a book, or a phone. Epstein had on his signature outfit: new blue jeans and a powder-blue sweater. "I've only ever seen him in jeans," his friend the publicist Peggy Siegal had reported, saying there was a hint of arrogance in that, Epstein's signal that he doesn't have to wear a uniform like the rest of us. I told Epstein and Rubenstein the sort of story New York wanted to do, and Epstein seemed to find ironic delight in every word. "A secretive genius," I'd said. "Not secretive, private," he corrected in his warm Brooklyn accent. "And if I was a genius I wouldn't be sitting here." "A guy with sex issues." A smile formed on Epstein's bow-shaped lips. "What do you mean by sex issues?" Well ... He was 54, had never married—I didn't finish. "Are you channeling my mother?" When I said we were interested in the agony of his ordeal, Rubenstein wrote out the word agony in capital letters on his pad. But agony seemed the last thing on Epstein's soul. "It's the Icarus story, someone who flies too close to the sun," I said. "Did Icarus like massages?" Epstein asked. Two years before, he had tried to explain himself to the Palm Beach police in the same way. After they came into his mansion with a search warrant and carted off massage tables and photos of naked girls and soaps shaped like genitalia, Epstein conveyed an urgent message to the detectives through his attorney. "Mr. Epstein is very passionate about massages ... The massages are therapeutic and spiritually sound for him; that is why he has had many massages." Epstein had even given $100,000 to Ballet Florida's massage fund, so that the dancers might also be treated. I never got to interview Epstein at length. His dream team of lawyers led by Gerald Lefcourt was negotiating a plea with Florida state prosecutors in advance of a January 7 trial date. It is expected that Epstein will plead guilty to soliciting prostitution and get an eighteen-month sentence—not that there's likely to be a shameful admission. He has always had the confidence that comes with the power to dazzle and, though accused of "doing everything in Sodom and Gomorrah," as one friend put it, seemed to believe that he could convince any halfway sophisticated person that he wasn't the least bit tawdry. "He lives in a different environment," says Siegal. "He's of this world. But he creates this different environment. He lives like a pasha. The most magnificent townhouse I've ever been in, and I've been in everything. I've seen a model of the house in Santa Fe ... a stone fortress. A model of the house in the Caribbean—it is not to be believed. I've seen photographs of the apartment in Paris ... How did he get himself into that pickle? That's the mystery of Jeffrey Epstein. He's very mysterious. Not that many people get close to him. Not that many people know him." The descriptions of Epstein's character veer between visionary and big talker. His world seems to be at an astral distance from normal humanity. He lives in what is described as the largest private residence in Manhattan, about 50,000 square feet in nine stories between Fifth and Madison on 71st. Visitors report a stuffed poodle is on the piano. The house, said one visitor, is like what Hollywood might imagine when it tries to show the superrich. When Epstein noticed the visitor's astonishment at his surroundings, he leaned against a wall with a soft smile and tapped the paneling. "It's all fake," he said. Epstein grew up in Coney Island, the son of a Parks Department employee. He never got a college degree. He studied science at Cooper Union and then NYU before migrating inevitably toward wealth. For two years, he was a charismatic teacher of physics and math at the Dalton School on the Upper East Side, till Ace Greenberg, a friend of the father of one of Epstein's students, offered him a job at Bear Stearns. In one httn://www.nrintthis.clickabilitv.cotn/nt/cot?action=ent&title=A+Sex-Crime+Investigatio... 12/10/2007 EFTA00188463
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A Sex-Crime Investigation Reveals Jeffrey Epstein's Dangerous Dream World -- New Yo... Page 3 of 9 of the charmingly inevitable accidents of Epstein's rise, Greenberg was a senior partner of the house; Bear Steams CEO Jimmy Cayne later told New York that Epstein's forte was dealing with wealthier clients, helping them with their overall portfolios. Leslie Wexner, founder of Limited Brands, reportedly made Epstein his financial adviser and was instrumental in building his fortune. Epstein was no footman; he loved luxury and, in his own words, saw himself as a financial architect, someone who could show the rich how to live with their money. "I want people to understand the power, the responsibility, and the burden of their money," he once wrote. At times, his powers seemed magical. "I think it's all done with mirrors," says Michael Stroll, a Chicago businessman who sued Epstein (and lost) when an oil deal didn't work out. Next: Epstein's Icarus momenta The New York not,' Redux) Stroll says he could never get a straight line from Epstein. "Everybody who's his friend thinks he's so darn brilliant because he's so dam wealthy. I never saw any brilliance, I never saw him work. Anybody I know that is that wealthy works 26 hours a day. This guy plays 26 hours a day." Those who believe in Epstein say that his intelligence works in a lofty and synthetic manner. "His mind goes through a cross section of descriptions," says Joe Pagano, a financier. "He can go from mathematics to psychology to biology. He takes the smallest amount of information and gets the correct answer in the shortest period of time. That's my definition of IQ." A Columbia University geneticist says Epstein has that insight in science, too. "He has the ability to make connections that other minds can't make," says Richard Axel, a Nobel Prize winner. "He is extremely smart and probing. He can very quickly acquire information to think about a problem and also to identify biological problems without having all the data that a scientist would have ... He also has an extremely short attention span. Why?—it's not that he's bored. He has enough information after fifteen httn.//wwwnrintthiR.clickahilitv.com/nt/cot1action=crit&tifirA+Sex-Crime+Investigatio... 12/10/2007 EFTA00188464
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A Sex-Crime Investigation Reveals Jeffrey Epstein's Dangerous Dream World -- New Yo... Page 4 of 9 minutes so that you can see his mind thrashing about, as if in a labyrinth. And even to doubt an expert's statements." Epstein has been a munificent supporter of cutting-edge research. Axel met Epstein during the early biotech days of the eighties. The writer Michael Wolff met him in the Internet bubble, in the late nineties, when Epstein invited him and a group of scientists and media types to fly to a conference on the West Coast in his beautiful 727. "It was all a little giddy," Wolff says. "There's a little food out, lovely hors d'oeuvre. And then after fifteen to twenty minutes, Jeffrey arrives. This guy comes onboard: He was my age, late forties, and he had a kind of Ralph Lauren look to him, a good-looking Jewish guy in casual attire. Jeans, no socks, loafers, a button-down shirt, shirttails out. And he was followed onto the plane by—how shall I say this?—by three teenage girls not his daughters. Not adolescent girls. These are young, 18, 19, 20, who knows? They were model-like. They towered over Jeffrey. And they immediately began serving things. You didn't know what to make of this ... Who is this man with this very large airplane and these very tall girls?" Soon after, Wolff was invited to tea at the house on East 71st Street. He understood that there was a purpose to the cultivation. Epstein was shifting his view to media, in his Ober-way. "What does the media mean, where does he fit into it?" Then Epstein began to show up in the press. In 2002, he flew Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey to Africa on his plane to discuss aids policy, and suddenly he was being written about. In 2003, he became a discreet confidant to Wolff during the period when Wolff was involved in a bid for New York Magazine. Sometime after that, Wolff saw the financial architect in his office at 457 Madison Avenue, the Villard House, where Random House once had its offices. "His literal office is where Bennett Ceres was. It's an incredibly strange place. It has no corporate affect at all. It's almost European. It's old—old-fashioned, unrehabbed in its way." Nearby, Wolff went on, "the trading floor is filled with guys in yarmulkes. Who they are, I have no idea. They're like a throwback, a bunch of guys from the fifties. So here is Jeffrey in this incredibly beautiful office, with pieces of art and a view of the courtyard, and he seems like the most relaxed guy in the world. You want to say 'What's going on here?' and he gives you that Cheshire smile." Epstein likes to say he's private, but you don't fly Bill Clinton to Africa without wanting attention. One friend says the Africa trip was Epstein's Icarus moment. There was tremendous risk that the natural forces of resentment would bring the too-smart, too-rich spirit back to earth. This is the friends' theory of the Palm Beach case: an overzealous police chief battened onto a rich man because he was not living in a box like everyone else. The dazzling arc of Epstein's comet came to an end—without his knowing it—in March 2005. That was when a distraught woman called the police in Palm Beach and, after at first refusing to give her name, said that she believed her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been molested by a wealthy man. The stepmother had learned about the matter in a roundabout way. The girl lived during the week at an "involuntary-admitted juvenile educational facility" because of behavior problems. She had shown up at the school with $300 in her purse, and it became the talk of her classmates. One friend called the girl a "whore," another friend put a fist through the wall in anger, the girl left school. The stepmother got a call from another student's mother. Soon, a policewoman was talking to the girl with a therapist present. The girl cried and dug her finger into her thigh and told the story, of going to a big house on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, and climbing a spiral staircase to the master bedroom, where a blonde woman of 25 who wasn't very friendly laid out sheets and lotions on a massage table and left, then Jeff came in, naked but for a towel, and sternly ordered the girl to take off her clothes. As she rubbed his chest, he touched himself, then applied a vibrator to her crotch. httn./Ainum rwirothic rlirknhilitv rnm/nt/nnt?action=enthtitle=A+Sex-Crime+Investiflatio... 12/10/2007 EFTA00188465
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A Sex-Crime Investigation Reveals Jeffrey Epstein's Dangerous Dream World -- New Yo... Page 5 of 9 • Next: The police lock onto Epstein's sybaritic lifestyle, OUR MIMI Await Linka Rednib.7” DUI Rain putaer.67 initial 1111th llon•snl ph/v.0,4st 101IIINAN lAklAt JEFFREY EPSTEIN Wsktrauryployky Splash News; Palm Beach Pasr; David Levenson Getty Images; Patrick McMullan; Donna Ward/Getty Images; AP) The lengthy police narrative in the case doesn't make clear how police connected gray-haired Jeff with Jeffrey Epstein, but when the girl identified his picture in an instant in a photo lineup, police threw themselves into an investigation of the modem and palatial house on El Brillo Way. Palm Beach Island is a 3.75-square-mile spit of land famous for towering ficus privacy hedges on Mediterranean-influenced architecture that begins at over $5 million for a single-family home. But the police did their work miles across the water, in the sprawling, drab subdivisions of West Palm Beach, where, according to police reports, high-school girls had • ifairstein's house. The 14- year-old was used to set up her 18-year-old go-between, had massaged him once and thereafter refused, but had agreed to procure girls, for $200 a head. "I'm like Heidi Fleiss," she said. The police net went wider, to malls and community colleges, and Olive Garden restaurants and trailer parks, and the story was always the same. Skinny, beautiful young girls were approached by other girls, who said they could make $200 by massaging a wealthy man, naked. said Epstein had told her the younger the better—which she said meant 18 to 20. The rules were simple. Tell him you're 18. There might be some touching; you could draw the line. "The more you do, the more you are paid." A couple of the girls said they went all the way into the experience—one olice she visited 50 times, another hundreds of times, both having sex with Epstein and , a then-19-year-old beauty who Epstein told one of them was his "sex slave"; he'd purchased her from her family back in Yugoslavia. Epstein's friends' belief that he was targeted for his big life reflects the fact that the police locked onto Epstein's sybaritic lifestyle. They made careful note of the girls' thong panties, the shape and color of hitn./Ainuus nrintthic nlir.4ahility e.nmintinnt?actinn=crit&titletA+Sex-Crime+Investieatio... 12/10/2007 EFTA00188466
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A Sex-Crime Investigation Reveals Jeffrey Epstein's Dangerous Dream World -- New Yo... Page 6 of 9 the sex toys Epstein favors, and the erotic art in his home, from photos to the mural of a woman to the statue of the man with a bow. Police repeatedly pulled his trash to dig out phone messages and kept an eye on his private planes. Once, they even reported on Wexner's plane, noting the procession of Cadillac Escalades that made its way across the tarmac. After word of the investigation got back to Epstein, through his girls, police served a search warrant at the house right under the noses of New York decorator Mark Zeff and architect Douglas Schoettle, who were there planning a renovation, and seized a dozen or so photographs of naked women the girls had described as well as the penis- and vagina- shaped soaps. Those soaps were even in guest bathrooms. No wonder; Epstein didn't see his sex life as tawdry, wasn't hiding it from his circle. Wolff believes that Epstein had created an idealized world from "a deep and basic cultural moment" once epitomized by Hugh Hefner. "Jeffrey is living a life that once might have been prized and admired and valued, but its moment has passed ... I think the culture has outgrown it. You can't describe it without being held to severe account. It's not allowed. It may be allowed if you're secretive and furtive, but Jeffrey is anything but secretive and furtive. I think it represents an achievement to Jeffrey." Some girls who "worked" for Epstein—the term favored by the unfriendly assistant, , who allegedly kept the Rolodex—seem to have embraced that fantasy, too. One girl said she was "so in love with Jeff Epstein and would do anything for him." Two college girls/aspiring models were matter-of- fact about what they'd done, and surveillance reports describe a fleet of girls jogging into the house. But generally the girls' feelings as portrayed by police interviews ranged from disgust to fear. Epstein was the hairy troll under the bridge they had to pass over to get quick money. One girl "stated she was very uncomfortable during the incident but knew it was almost over." Another kept looking at the clock, and Epstein said she was ruining his massage. Other girls said they were weirded out, grossed out. They didn't like his egg-shaped penis, definitely didn't want it inside them. Some couldn't say just what Epstein was doing because they kept their eyes averted. Two or three girls started crying when they talked to police, one hysterically. One wanted to tell the police but knew that he was "powerful" and was afraid he would come after her family. A 17-year-old model described an uncomfortable encounter in which Epstein offered to help her get jobs, then belittled her modeling portfolio before cajoling her to model the underwear he'd bought for her. A 16-year-old who needed money for Christmas said she was so upset by Epstein's removing her underwear as she massaged him that she broke off her friendship with the girl who brought her. Mother called Epstein "a pervert." Epstein clearly did not see it that way. The girls knew what they were getting into and came willingly and were well paid. He was a sexy guy who was working to give the girls pleasure. The master bedroom was a sensual place, with a mural of a naked woman and a hot-pink couch, and a wooden armoire with sex toys. The lights dimmed, music came on. Still, it is a stretch to say Epstein's love shack was like Hugh Hefner's. Playboy was state-of-the-art pornography for the sixties. Today, cutting-edge porn is men with bankrolls picking up young amateurs, say, high-school cheerleaders or college girls on break, and daring them to go further and further for more cash, all the way to sex toys and lesbian sex. At 52, Epstein was outside the demographic of the makeout artists of The Bang Bros, Girls Gone Wild, and Coeds Need Cash, but he surely saw himself in that erotic milieu, and seems to have been shocked that his activities would result in a police investigation. His claim that he'd given a total of $100,000 to Ballet Florida for massage was absolutely true. "The massage and therapy fund is excruciatingly important to us. It's part of a dancer's life to have daily massages," says the ballet's marketing director, Debbie Wemyss, who notes that Epstein's generosities preceded his public troubles. Police were not impressed. They interviewed a licensed deep-tissue masseuse whom Epstein frequently employed. She said she got $100 an hour, and there were no happy int,obaniny nrinithig riinirahilifv.e.nm/nt/cnt?action=cnt&titleA+Sex-Crime+Investiaatio... 12/10/2007 EFTA00188467
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A Sex-Crime Investigation Reveals Jeffrey Epstein's Dangerous Dream World -- New Yo... Page 7 of 9 endings. Next: Epstein mounts an ggressive counterinvestikation, The 14-year-old told Epstein she was 18 and in the twelfth grade. In Florida, this is not a defense. The law protects the young by placing the burden on the adult to learn the truth. And while Epstein's girls might have fooled a lot of people—they were tall and grown-up—it's difficult to believe Epstein wouldn't have suspected some were underage. (Though Epstein later passed a lie-detector test saying that he believed the girls were 18.) Girls needed to be driven home or given rental cars. Offered whatever they wanted from Epstein's chef, they often gobbled cereal and milk. One 16-year-old told police that Epstein told her repeatedly not to tell anyone about their encounter or bad things could happen. Alfredo Rodriguez, a houseman, told police that at his boss's direction, he brought a pail of roses to a girl to congratulate her on her performance in a high-school drama. "He has never been secretive about the girls," Wolff says. "At one point, when his troubles began, he was talking to me and said, 'What can I say, I like young girls.' I said, `Maybe you should say, 'I like young women.' " Epstein mounted an aggressive counterinvestigation. Epstein's friend Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor, provided the police and the state attorney's office with a dossier on a couple of the victims gleaned from their MySpace sites—showing alcohol and drug use and lewd comments. The police complained that private investigators were harassing the family of the 14-year-old girl before she was to appear before the grand jury in spring 2006. The police said that one girl had called another to say, "Those who help [Epstein] will be compensated and those who hurt him will be dealt with." By then, the case was politicized. The Palm Beach police had brought stacks of evidence across the waterway to the Palm Beach County state attorney's office, but the state attorney apparently saw the main witnesses as weak. One had run away from home, lied about her age, and bragged about her ass on MySpace. Mother had a drug arrest and had stolen from ' ' ret. o • nted numerous felony charges against Epstein as well as charges against and . Then they heard that the state attorney was preparing a deal with Epstein giving him five years on probation and sending him for psychiatric evaluation. The police chief, Michael Reiter, accused the state attorney of bending over backward for a rich man and then turned the matter over to the FBI. Finally, in July 2006, the Palm Beach County state attorney's office handed down one indictment of Epstein on a felony count of soliciting prostitution. There is no reference to minors in the indictment. Reiter was enraged. He released a letter he had sent out to five underage girls that read "I do not feel that justice has been sufficiently served." Epstein's lawyer said that Reiter was out of control, but the police chief was having an effect, The U.S. Attorney's office began an investigation, and the dream team added another member, Kenneth Starr, the former Clinton prosecutor. One of Epstein's friends told me, "He thinks there's an anti-Semitic conspiracy against him in Palm Beach. He's convinced of that. Maybe it's a defense mechanism." Palm Beach was historically a bastion of Gentile privilege. Vanderbilt and Glendinning and Dillman and Warburton are still engraved on the public fountains, and the Everglades Club with its espaliered trees and brass plates reading private seems stuck in the time of the Gentlemen's Agreement. Yet the anti-Semitic charge disturbed Jews whom I asked about it in Palm Beach. Michael Resnick, rabbi at the oldest synagogue on the island, Temple Emanu-El (circa the sixties), says he strongly doubts that Epstein is a modern Dreyfus. "There's no way, htteritunmuf rlinkahilitv rnm/nt/cnt?action=ent&tithrA+Sex-Ciime+Investi2atio... 12/10/2007 EFTA00188468
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NO
A Sex-Crime Investigation Reveals Jeffrey Epstein's Dangerous Dream World -- New Yo... Page 8 of 9 shape, or form that you can say that Palm Beach is a bastion with respect to religion. Individuals, yes. And there are some places that it is not an asset to be a Jew." Once Palm Beach tried to keep synagogues from opening. There are now four on the little island, including an Orthodox shul started by Slim-Fast founder Danny Abraham. Jose Lambiet, gossip columnist for the Palm Beach Post, says, "Half my sources on the island are Jewish socialites." Lambiet says the case has fed rage within the community over Palm Beach rules: The rich never have to do time. William Kennedy Smith in 1991, Rush Limbaugh, lately Ann Coulter for a voting infraction. Maybe it was inevitable that religion would come into the case. Peggy Siegal says Epstein's two big charitable causes are science and Israel. His Brooklyn homies Dershowitz and Rubenstein are also major Israel supporters. Dershowitz has written a book about lingering anti-Semitism in elite life. Now throw in the fact that the Palm Beach police asked at least three of the girls whether they had noticed whether Epstein was circumcised. "I asked ... if she knew what being circumcised meant," the officer stated in regard to the 14-year-old. Of course, that might be evidence. But other details in the police narrative seem to derive more from Edgar Allan Poe's psychological tragedies than from Philip Roth's sociological comedies. Epstein is licensed in Florida to carry a concealed weapon—he has a Glock—and a shower on the first floor was given over to a gun safe. One girl said his chest was so pumped up he appeared to be on steroids. He had a Harley next to the many black Mercedeses, but his Florida license was expired. Now he was licensed in the Virgin Islands and gave his "permanent residence" as the same address as Island Yachts. Notwithstanding the room on the first floor with floor-to-ceiling books, the general aura is cold and joyless and lonely, that of a • ivi ' self over com letely to the sensual life, with the help of Next: Epstein maintainthe's clone nothing wrong. The police narrative has overtones of a man avoiding all connection or intimacy. For years, Epstein had had a companion in a woman who could take him on if any woman could: Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of Robert Maxwell, the British newspaper baron, a Jew born in Czechoslovakia, who died mysteriously off his yacht in 1991. The British tabloids say that Epstein reminded Maxwell of her father and that she brought him into a Continental world. The Broadway and movie producer Jonathan Farkas says he and his wife used to double-date with the couple. Maxwell spent time at the Palm Beach house, and the police narrative says that she even hired an assistant-cum-masseuse for Epstein. But that was five years ago, and the girl was 23, at a local college. Maxwell never showed up in all the surveillance, only her stationery. Epstein's activities seem to have devolved in recent years. Juan Alessi, his longtime houseman, told police that toward the end of his employment, the girls were "younger and younger," and he often had to wash off vibrators and "a long rubber penis" left in the sink. The next houseman, Alfredo Rodriguez, said that he found the sex toys he had to wash "scattered on the floor." No need to worry about dirty laundry, if there's someone to do it. The U.S. attorney's investigation put Epstein in a bind. If the Feds brought a case and he lost, he would be imprisoned for a mandatory minimum ten-year sentence. Given the choice, it appears that Epstein will not gamble on a trial but make a deal with the state attorney on the prostitution charge. htto://www.printthis.clickabilitv.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&titleA+Sex-Crime+Investigatio... 12/10/2007 EFTA00188469
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A Sex-Crime Investigation Reveals Jeffrey Epstein's Dangerous Dream World -- New Yo... Page 9 of 9 Not that he is likely to admit that he did anything wrong. Throughout his ordeal, Epstein maintained the air that there was nothing sordid about his actions. His wealth seems to have endowed him with utter shamelessness, the emperor's new clothes with an erection. Even Alan Greenspan has lately raised the moral questions brought on by the gap between the rich and poor: The poor will begin to feel that the social contract was not made in good faith. Epstein's friends say that on this matter, he has a philosophical position. "Fundamentally," Wolff says, "it's about math. That on a macro level it inevitably happens that the rich get richer. And then at some level the rich get richer on a geometric basis. Jeffrey's point is that this whole issue is—it's just mathematics at this point. This is the nature of a successful economy. The more successful the economy is, and that would be the goal of everybody, a successful economy, the greater the discrepancy actually is." There is no better place to observe how Epstein's mathematics work than Palm Beach. The only signs of life are crews of Spanish-speaking laborers on teetering ladders clipping the high hedges, not far from Bulgari and Valentino and Tiffany. It is a few miles on the other side of the bridge to where the girls came from, the shabby sprawl of West Palm Beach, with trailer parks, boys crouched on motor scooters, and pickup trucks under sun tents. house is on an unpaved road by an irrigation ditch. An attractive blonde in her forties answers the door wearing pistachio Capri pants, and promptly slams it. "We have absolutely no comment about the Epstein case." Driving home with their $500, said to the 14-year-old that if they did this every Saturday they'd be rich, and it's understandable that a teenager in West Palm Beach might feel that way. The coldest stories in the police narrative are about money and service. Maria Alessi, the previous houseman's wife, said she had cleaned house and shopped for Epstein for eight years and never had a direct conversation with him. He made it clear that he did "not want to encounter the Alessis during his stay in Palm Beach." One girl said that when she had sex with Epstein she closed her eyes and thought about cash. "In my mind, I'm like, 'Oh my God, when this is over you're getting so much money." Jose Lambiet says the case went forward in Palm Beach despite the efforts of the dream team because of community rage arising from the class issues in the case—Epstein found the girls not from his own fancy neighborhood but from the struggling suburbs. He has never shown a glimmer of understanding that a high-school girl could be damaged by a powerful 50-year-old's demands, or that some of the girls were already emotionally damaged. For someone who could dream anything, it seems a little small. Find this article at: http://www.nymag.coinfnewsifeatures/41826 F Check the box to Include the list of links referenced in the article. Copyright New York Magazine Holdings LLC. All Rights Reserved. For the city that never Sitiel/S The magazine that never rests Just 44C an issue. 1•44.• I I/ninny. ...:n.14110 "1;tar01111itU nomInt/rint?antinn=r.ntgrittle=A+Sex-Crime+Investioatio.. 12/10/2007 EFTA00188470
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Page 1 of 8 VVestlaw. QUERY - (TRACKER "TRACKING DEVICE")( /P AIRPLANE) & "FOURTH AMENDMENT' 1. I DATABASES(S) - CTA U.S. McIver, 186 F.3d 1119, 1999 WL 587573, 99 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 6304, 99 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 6425, 1999 Daily Journal D.A.R. 8052, C.A.9 (Mont.), August 06, 1999(Nos. 98-30145, 98-30146.98-3014698-30145) ...held that: (1) placement of motion-activated cameras near marijuana plants in national forest without search warrant did not violate Fourth Amendment; (2) as matter of first impression, placement of magnetic electronic tracking device on undercarriage of vehicle did not violate Fourth Amendment; (3) officers had probable cause to search vehicle; (4) convictions were supported by sufficient evidence; (5) District Court did not ... ...to obtain photographs of defendants visiting and harvesting marijuana plants, did not violate defendant's reasonable expectation of privacy protected by Fourth Amendment; it was beyond dispute that Forest Service could have stationed officers to conduct surveillance of plants, visual observation of site ... ...to the public which may be viewed by any passing visitor or law enforcement officer are not protected by the Fourth Amendment because there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy and such circumstances. U.S.C.A. Const.Amend. 4 [6] 349 Searches and Seizures... 2. H U.S.I. Remsing, 874 F.2d 817, 1989 WL 41686, Unpublished Disposition, C.A.9 (Alaska), April 20, 1989(No. 88-3130.88-3130) ...with Remsing. On May 15, ground surveillance at the airstrip observed Remsing and three male companions depart in Remsing's two airplanes. The electronic tracking devices enabled officers to follow the aircraft to the Noatak National Preserve. A subsequent ground search yielded physical evidence of a ... ...evidence to coerce the coconspirators into testifying. The exclusionary rule bars the use of evidence obtained in violation of gic fourth amendment in a criminal trial against the victim of the illegal search and seizure. Weelcsl. United States, 232 U.S. 383... 3. C U.S... Alonso, 790 F.2d 1489„ C.A.10 (Utah), May 16, 1986(No. 84-1082.84-1082) ...Object 349 164 k. Particular Concrete Applications. Defendant lacked privacy interest in the plane and thus lacked standing to assert Fourth Amendment violation based on installation of transponder in airplane, and its failure to be removed after its order had expired. U.S.C.A ...In General 349 25 Persons, Places and Things Protected 349 26 k. Expectation of Privacy. Focus in determining whether one's Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure has been violated is whether that person has reasonable or justifiable ... ...Concerned; Consent. (Formerly 372k495 Government's tracking of airplane, in which transponder had been installed, did not violate any of defendant's Fourth Amendment rights, since defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the movement of the airplane in public airways. U.S.C.A. Const.Amend... O 2007 Thomson/West. No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works. /.. rnminrindruintstream.asnlisv=Fullecorft=liTMLE8cfn= ton&rs=... 12/27/2007 EFTA00188471