Les Wexner.

Founder of Victoria's Secret.

Connect the dots.

Q

Billionaire and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has a mysterious past

Once he set up J Epstein and Co in 1982, Epstein's wealth and career get increasingly murky.

New York Magazine credits "those who know Epstein" and "lore" for the only existing and still vague details of the firm's business, which for tax purposes is run from the island of St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands.

The firm only accepted clients with US$1 billion (NZ$1.5 billion) or more of assets and has been shrouded in secrecy since its founding. Les Wexner, the founder of the clothing brand The Limited and a high-flyer in the fashion industry, has been the only identified client of the firm.

"My belief is that Jeff maintains some sort of money-management firm, though you won't get a straight answer from him," one well-known investor told New York Magazine of Epstein in 2002. "He once told me he had 300 people working for him, and I've also heard that he manages Rockefeller money. But one never knows. It's like looking at the Wizard of Oz – there may be less there than meets the eye."

Though many weren't exactly sure how Epstein made money, his wealth began to play out on an international scale as he snapped up properties across the world and set up a foundation that donated to Harvard.

By 1992, Epstein was the official owner of the largest private residence in Manhattan.

Epstein gained public recognition through the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation, which put his high-profile connections on display with a US$30 million donation to Harvard University to establish a mathematical biology and evolutionary dynamics programme.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/114084689/billionaire-and-convicted-sex-offender-jeffrey-epstein-has-a-long-history

>>6957504

By 1992, Epstein was the official owner of the largest private residence in Manhattan.

In 1961, the mansion became home to the Birch Wathen School, which it remained until Leslie H. Wexner, the founding chairman of the Limited Inc., bought it in 1989 for $13,200,000. Wexner hired architect Thierry Despont and interior designer John Stefanidis to help gut the 40-room home, showing it off in the December 1995 issue of Architectural Digest (sadly, the magazine's online archives don't go back that far). In 1996, the New York Times referred to the sumptuously decorated, expensively renovated pied-à-terre as the latest "puzzling" "status symbol of the ultra rich," when it reported that Wexner never spent more than a few months in the home.

In 1995, Wexner turned the home over to Epstein, who was his protege and financial advisor because, on the face of it, his new wife "expressed greater enthusiasm for bringing up their two young children in Columbus, Ohio." Some say that Epstein paid just a dollar for the mansion.

Epstein then undertook his own renovation, not wanting "to live in another person's house." He is said to have spent $10,000,000 redoing the place. In 2007, when model Maximilia Cordero filed suit against Epstein for statutory rape and sexual assault (the suit was later dismissed), her lawyer included a description of what has by now become a legendary piece of decor chez Epstein: "[The] defendant gave plaintiff a tour of his mansion, showing her a huge crystal staircase with a huge crystal ball by the railing, ceiling chandeliers, a lounge room with red chairs, a statute [sic] of a dog with a statute [sic] of dog feces next to it.”

https://www.curbed.com/2015/1/9/10004040/jeffrey-epstein-property-real-estate-holdings