While news reports of Mr. Epstein engaging in sexual activities with or assaults on underage girls first appeared in 2006 and continued through 2009 when he was released from prison and then briefly resurfaced in 2011 when Epstein was photographed with Prince Andrew and Jane Doe #102 (in an earlier lawsuit and #3 in a current and open lawsuit) publicly revealed that she had had encounters with Prince Andrew, this scandal seems not to have become high-profile until a few weeks ago. Or not on the radar of many like me until now. Curious considering that the story had sex, big money, and big names in politics, business, and society. (The only thing missing was drugs.)
The Guardian report by Paul Lewis and John Swain Jeffrey Epstein: inside the decade of scandal entangling Prince Andrew is by far the best in reviewing the “who, what, why, when and how” of this story. If there’s a material factual error in it, I couldn’t find it. (Although IMHO, the title was an unfortunate mistake. Prince Andrew may be relevant to the story, but seems to be at best a minor character in it.) What I particularly like about this report is that the writers included suggestions, hints, and questions that others have dismissed, downplayed, or not seen at all.
If the scandal still interests you (and even if you think you know the facts ), Lewis and Swain’s article is well worth reading in its entirety. To entice you, here’s the opening:
The desperate woman who telephoned Detective Michele Pagan of the Palm Beach police declined to give her name and would not leave a call-back number. But she had some information that she had to tell someone.
Her stepdaughter, a 14-year-old pupil at Royal Palm Beach high school, had told a friend that she’d had sex with a middle-aged man who gave her money.
The man was said to have a long face and bushy eyebrows and he lived in a big house at the end of a dead-end street. His name was Jeff. A teacher found $300 in the 14-year-old’s purse.
That call to police – made 10 years ago this March – soon led Florida detectives to 358 El Brillo Way, a mansion owned by Jeffrey Epstein, one of America’s wealthiest hedge fund tycoons. …
…SG told detectives that Epstein had made her remove her clothes and give him a massage while he masturbated, according to a police report.
Those details conform with the Palm Beach Police Department Probable Cause Affidavit that covers their evidence collection from March 15, 2005 through February 2006. The affidavit was filed to secure a search warrant of Epstein’s Palm Beach house which was issued in May 2006. (The redactions make it somewhat difficult reading.)
Lewis and Swain then add:
Within weeks the FBI was listening to Epstein’s calls, rifling through his trash and searching for other potential victims. They eventually identified around 40.
There is no mention in the police affidavit of FBI participation in the investigation, but that may be nothing more than SOP. Except there is something at least curious about the police investigation. The investigators seemed to hit the ground running from March 15th until April 5th. Then nothing other than continuing with trash pulls until October when they began interviewing young women that had been identified as having some involvement. While not specifically stated as such, it looks as it was an unrelated marijuana arrest in September 2005 of a young woman that put the case back on the front burner. This young woman was aware of the existence of an investigation in Epstein’s activities and claimed to be a victim and was willing to talk.
Regardless of the veracity of that young woman’s statement, what seems key to me is that a circle of potential victims and the culprits were onto the investigation well in advance of being asked to make statements. The stories many of them told later have a sameness that make them almost boring to read. Doesn’t mean they aren’t true, but does suggest some questions. Did they edit their stories down to close to whatever the 14 year old SG could have or been known to have reported? Did any of them have any assistance before making statements to the police? An investigator hired by Epstein or one or more of his associates (will refer to as EpCo) had contacted at least one of these girls. Two of the young women were provided with cars by EpCo subsequent to the initiation of the police investigation. Was that a payoff for keeping their mouths shut?
Unvarying key elements in the girls’ stories are:
- They were solicited to give an older man a massage for money (ranging from $200-$300) and would do so partially undressed.
- They were introduced to the man and his female assistant in the kitchen of his home.
- The man left the kitchen and separately his female assistant ushered the girl to an upstairs bedroom that was equipped with a massage table.
- The assistant told the girl to undress and she then left the room.
- The man entered the bedroom wearing a towel around his waist which at some point he removed when he was on the massage table.
- If the girl wasn’t sufficiently undressed, the man would ask that she undress further but didn’t push if she balked at taking off a thong and/or bra.
- As for the sexual activities, the girls were urged to go beyond their comfort zone but they weren’t compelled to go further if they resisted.
Some could rightly object to my speculation that any of the girls’ statements could have been prepared for them on the basis that many of them disclosed more sexual contact with Epstein than what SG reported. However, once SG had put Epstein in statutory rape territory, whatever other girls could and might say about the specific sexual activities they engaged in was of lesser importance than that they said they hadn’t been coerced and had been paid. Epstein then denied any knowledge that the girls were underage. And, presto the FL State Attorney Barry Krischer put on his kid gloves and in 2006 the grand jury returned a single charge of felony solicitation of prostitution from an underage girl. (The Palm Beach police chief was, to say the least, not pleased.) Epstein pleaded not guilty.
Lewis and Swain include information the US attorney Ann Marie Villafaña provided to Epstein’s attorneys in a 2007 letter and evidence that was collected when Epstein’s house was raided in 2006. The number of claimed victims mushroomed and more reported sexual intercourse, and the photos and sexual paraphernalia seized in the raid were extensive. To all objective appearances there had been no witness nor evidence tampering. What happened next is curious.
Using her personal Gmail account, for example, Villafaña proposed to one of Epstein’s lawyers that they could file associated legal papers in a different jurisdiction, a move she said “will hopefully cut the press coverage significantly.”
In 2015 The Daily Mail reported
According to official documents, Epstein’s attorney Jay Lefkowitz – a former deputy director of domestic policy at the White House under George W Bush – sent a one-line email to the US Attorney’s Office on September 24, 2007: `Please do whatever you can to keep this from becoming public’.
On November 29, 2007, Lefkowitz called for more secrecy in a letter to the Florida state attorney: `We don’t understand the basis for your Office’s belief that it is appropriate for any letter to be sent to these individuals at this stage – before Mr Epstein has either entered a plea or been sentenced.’
After wrangling for a year, the US attorney and Epstein signed a secret NPA (non-prosecution agreement). Several months later, Epstein agreed to plead guilty to the FL solicitation of prosecution charge. He received an eighteen month sentence and served thirteen months (released during the day to conduct his business operations and reportedly was allowed also to take a few out of state trips).
(A note about The Daily Mail reporting on this scandal – check out its September 2007 report. After two years of investigation, claim and counterclaim, Epstein is about to plead guilty to a charge of soliciting underage girls for sex and is likely to spend 15 months behind bars. That was when the feds were putting the final touches on the secret NPA, but Epstein didn’t plead guilty to the FL charge against him until June 30, 2008! Appears to me that DM has had a well connected inside source on this story.)
Making a story that the general public could understand, and a large portion of whom would be outraged that prosecutors at the state and federal levels didn’t throw the book at Epstein, quietly disappear is a neat trick. But why would so many in high places want this one to go away?
Does Epstein’s reported wealth and reported connections explain the actions of the prosecutors? The slowdown in the Palm Beach Police investigation from April to October? What about Epstein’s apparent willingness from early in the investigation to practically hand over evidence of having a fetish for under age girls and having engaged in sexual activities with them? Is “Epstein the perv with friends in high places and the best defense attorneys money can buy” the whole story? Perhaps.
I’m not buying it. Too much about this man doesn’t add up. Vicky Ward in her fine 2003 Vanity Fair piece The Talented Mr. Epstein couldn’t crack open the mystery of how he got so rich, so fast. Although she indicated some skepticism that he was really that rich. His business model – flat multi-million dollar ($25 to $100 million) annual fees to manage all assets of only undisclosed billionaire clients – makes no sense to any finance professional. He’s not a hedge fund manager – he does no stock portfolio trading. Employs no stock analysts nor traders. If he were engaged in a Madoff style Ponzi scheme, it would have crashed when he was busted for sexual assaults.
In the high finance arena, his deals with Steven Hoffenberg in the latter half of the 1980s were relatively small (and sleazy). He claims to have purchased the Palm Beach house in 1989 (public records list the sales date as 9/1/90 for $2.5 million, but any mortgage on it is unreported.) His two known main squeezes have been Les Wexner and Ghislaine Maxwell. (Publicly Wexner has parted ways with Epstein since his arrest.) He claims to have purchased Wexner’s impressive NYC townhouse sometime from the mid to late 1990s and the terms, etc. seems to be as hidden and secret as his billionaire client list.
What someone like Epstein needs to maintain his standard of living with the multiple residences, vehicles, airplanes, and a helicopter is substantial annual positive cash flow. His net worth could for all practical purposes be close to zero as long as the cash keeps rolling in. Not in $100 million dollar chunks but not chump change either. If his business income earnings are derived from management fees as he says they are, he may not spend (or need) much that isn’t deductible for income tax purposes. (That’s a tax return I’d like to have a peek at.
A more authoritative word on this aspect:
…media outlets on both sides of the pond have described him as a “billionaire”. Because we here at Forbes are in the billionaire business, I feel compelled to point out, as I did last summer, that Epstein may deserve all manner of colorful descriptors (“sex offender”, “scum bag”, etc) but “billionaire” isn’t one of them. Here, from my last report on the matter, is why he’s never made the Forbes 400:
The source of his wealth — a money management firm in the U.S. Virgin Islands — generates no public records, nor has his client list ever been released. …
…”It was a bone of contention with Esptein’s lawyers,” said Spencer Kuvin, an attorney who represented three of Epstein’s alleged victims on the case, of the “billionaire” designation. “In the litigation itself we were never able to get him to produce verified financial information. …
So, have we yet only seen the proverbial tip of the iceberg?
