Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

For The Record  

FTR #318 Kidding Around: Child Molestation and Pedophilia in the GOP

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This pro­gram exam­ines alle­ga­tions pre­sent­ed in a book by a very con­ser­v­a­tive Nebras­ka state sen­a­tor con­cern­ing orga­nized pedophile rings with­in the ranks of the Repub­li­can par­ty. These alleged activ­i­ties over­lap not only the admin­is­tra­tion of the elder George Bush but some of the activ­i­ties involved in the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal as well.

1. The pro­gram begins with dis­cus­sion of the arrest of a GOP may­or for alleged­ly lur­ing a minor for sex. As we shall see, this sort of thing is not as unusu­al as one might sup­pose with­in the ranks of the GOP. The alle­ga­tions con­tained in The Franklin Cov­er-Up put the con­cept of “fam­i­ly values”—much bal­ly­hooed by the GOP, in a dra­mat­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent light.

“May­or Philip A. Gior­dano of Water­bury, who lost a long-shot bid last year to unseat Sen­a­tor Joseph I. Lieber­man and whose city has been tee­ter­ing on the edge of bank­rupt­cy, was arrest­ed in New Haven this morn­ing by fed­er­al agents in New Haven and accused of lur­ing a minor for sex. . . . At a news con­fer­ence at the office of the Unit­ed States attor­ney for Con­necti­cut in New Haven, offi­cials said Mr. Gior­dano had engaged in ‘inap­pro­pri­ate sex’ with ‘chil­dren,’ though they did not state the num­ber, age or sex of the vic­tims. The spe­cial agent in charge of the Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion in Con­necti­cut, Michael J. Wolf, said, ‘The pub­lic expects and deserves utmost hon­esty, integri­ty and strong moral fiber from those who serve on their behalf.’ He called Mr. Giordano’s con­duct ‘dis­grace­ful.’”

(“Con­necti­cut May­or Is Arrest­ed by U.S. Agents in Child Sex Case” by David M. Her­szen­horn; The New York Times; 7/27/2001; p. A19.)

2. Accord­ing to the con­ser­v­a­tive Nebras­ka state leg­is­la­tor John W. De Camp (a dec­o­rat­ed Viet­nam vet­er­an), the sort of activ­i­ties that Gior­dano was accused of engag­ing in are, to a cer­tain extent, rep­re­sen­ta­tive of how ele­ments of the GOP get their kicks. While prob­ing the col­lapse of a Nebras­ka finan­cial insti­tu­tion, inves­ti­ga­tors came upon some inter­est­ing oper­a­tions alleged­ly super­vised by a promi­nent Nebras­ka GOP big­wig, Lar­ry King (not to be con­fused with the syn­di­cat­ed talk show host.) Mr. Emory notes that the sec­ond edi­tion of the book con­tains some mate­r­i­al which is eas­i­ly discredited—due, appar­ent­ly, to De Camp’s hav­ing been over­ly trust­ing of some of the infor­ma­tion being dis­sem­i­nat­ed by the less respon­si­ble ele­ments of the mili­tia milieu.

(The Franklin Cov­er-Up; by John W. De Camp; Copy­right 1992 by AWT, Incor­po­rat­ed; ISBN 0–9632158‑0–9.)

3. De Camp describes Lar­ry King’s polit­i­cal and “extracur­ric­u­lar” activ­i­ties.

“When Lar­ry King trav­eled the polit­i­cal cir­cuit, he evi­dent­ly had two agen­das. To the pub­lic, he was the ris­ing GOP star with the res­o­nant bari­tone voice. Some­thing else went on behind closed doors.”

(Ibid.; p. 166.)

4. What were the alleged clan­des­tine activ­i­ties that De Camp was refer­ring to?

“At the Dal­las [GOP] con­ven­tion in 1984, King threw his splashy par­ty at South­fork Ranch, remem­bered by me and many oth­er del­e­gates as an unpar­al­leled extrav­a­gan­za. Accord­ing to sev­er­al vic­tim-wit­ness­es, he also arranged some pri­vate events dur­ing the con­ven­tion. They recall being flown to Dal­las, to be sex­u­al­ly used by con­ven­tion-goers. Gary Caradori mapped the rec­ol­lec­tions of the Webb fos­ter chil­dren in his notes of Feb­ru­ary 1990: ‘Dur­ing this vis­it [the children’s aunt] Mar­cy informed [social work­er] Joanie that [the youngest Pat­ter­son Webb sis­ter] Kendra had told her she had been trans­port­ed around the coun­try sev­er­al times, she thought to Texas and Louisiana. Mar­cy remem­bered Texas in par­tic­u­lar, and a Repub­li­can Con­ven­tion because one of the chil­dren, pos­si­bly Kendra, had a book of match­es from Texas and that is how the chil­dren had known where they were at. Joanie stat­ed she remem­bered that the chil­dren had been exploit­ed sex­u­al­ly in Texas, and she indi­cat­ed that it was [the] feel­ing this activ­i­ty had been occur­ring for sev­er­al years.’”

(Ibid.; p. 167.)

5. De Camp con­tin­ues with his alle­ga­tions con­cern­ing King.

“I was lat­er to learn from Paul Bonac­ci, that he was also at the famed South­fork par­ty. He described it for me in exact detail, some sev­en years after the par­ty took place. He had been here for the pur­pose of pro­vid­ing sex­u­al favors for peo­ple Lar­ry King want­ed to accom­mo­date, sat­is­fy, or com­pro­mise. Paul said he was one of a troop of teenaged boys and girls, whom King had shipped to Dal­las for his pur­pos­es.”

(Ibid.; p. 167.)

6.

“I have talked to Paul repeat­ed­ly about this par­ty. I have lis­tened to his descrip­tion. Only by hav­ing been there, could some­one describe the set­ting the way Paul did to me. Because I was there myself for the par­ty, I am cer­tain that Paul Bonac­ci was there and did not invent his sto­ry or his descrip­tion of the par­ty. This was, it hap­pens, just one of Paul’s leads into mat­ters sur­round­ing Lar­ry King and Franklin that I could per­son­al­ly check out and know the boy was telling the truth. Not because some­body told me he was telling the truth. Not because some­body said he passed a lie detec­tor test on the sub­ject. But because I was there and saw a part of it, and saw the exact same things this boy did.”

(Idem.)

7. More about King’s social activ­i­ties and a Repub­li­can con­ven­tion, this one in New Orleans in 1988.

“Again in 1988, atten­dance at Lar­ry King’s par­ty was vir­tu­al­ly manda­to­ry for any true Nebras­ka Repub­li­can attend­ing the Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion, held this time in New Orleans. Most of the Nebras­ka del­e­ga­tion was trans­port­ed to the par­ty by bus. The theme of the fes­tiv­i­ties was Mar­di Gras.”

(Idem.)

8. De Camp alleges that the “fun and games” that King was arrang­ing at the New Orleans con­ven­tion were sim­i­lar to the activ­i­ties at the 1984 Dal­las con­ven­tion.

“King’s par­ties were designed to bring in every­body, from the inno­cent to the top-rank­ing busi­ness­men and politi­cians. I per­son­al­ly attend­ed the two largest par­ties he ever threw, as did many Repub­li­can offi­cials. As a guest at the par­ty, you would not know from the out­er glit­ter, what sor­did activ­i­ty was going on behind the scenes. I am sure that was the char­ac­ter of many of Lar­ry King’s par­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly the polit­i­cal events. Out­ward­ly, they had the appear­ance of legit­i­ma­cy, with promi­nent peo­ple in atten­dance, from may­ors to pres­i­dents, from busi­ness­men to con­gress­men. So, when peo­ple say to me, Well, I was at one of Lar­ry King’s par­ties and I did not see any of this sex or drug or pedophil­ia stuff,’ I under­stand that they may be speak­ing with hon­esty and accu­ra­cy. As to what real­ly went on, I believe they are wrong.”

(Ibid.; p. 168.)

9. De Camp dis­cuss­es some oth­er inter­est­ing man­i­fes­ta­tions of King/GOP “fam­i­ly val­ues.”

“King acquired con­tacts in Washington’s homo­sex­u­al pros­ti­tu­tion scene, one of whom was the late Craig Spence. A lob­by­ist and polit­i­cal oper­a­tive, Spence main­tained a call boy ring that catered to the polit­i­cal elite and, unlike most D.C. call boy rings, offered chil­dren to its clients.”

(Ibid.; p. 169.)

10. More about the afore­men­tioned Craig Spence.

“Spence’s activ­i­ties made ban­ner head­lines in the Wash­ing­ton Times on June 29, 1989: ‘Homo­sex­u­al pros­ti­tu­tion inquiry ensnares VIP’s with Rea­gan, Bush.’ Spence’s access was so good, that he could arrange night­time tours of the White House for his clients. The Times added on August 9, 1989, that Spence ‘hint­ed the tours were arranged by ‘top lev­el’ per­sons, includ­ing Don­ald Gregg, nation­al secu­ri­ty advi­sor to Vice Pres­i­dent Bush. . . .” Spence, accord­ing to friends, was also car­ry­ing out homo­sex­u­al black­mail oper­a­tions for the CIA.”

(Idem.)

11. De Camp alleges that Lar­ry King’s activ­i­ties were dis­cov­ered through an inves­ti­ga­tion into Spence’s oper­a­tions.

“Accord­ing to a Wash­ing­ton, D.C. inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist who researched the Spence ring, ‘The way we dis­cov­ered Lar­ry King and this Nebras­ka-based call boy ring, was by look­ing through the cred­it card chits of Spence’s ring, where we found King’s name.’ Anoth­er inves­ti­ga­tor, with per­son­al knowl­edge of the call-boy rings oper­at­ing in Wash­ing­ton, put it this way: ‘Lar­ry King and Craig Spence were busi­ness part­ners. Look at two com­pa­nies, ‘Dream Boys’ and ‘Man to Man’, both of which oper­at­ed under anoth­er ser­vice, ‘Bod­ies by God.’”

(Idem.)

12. Appar­ent­ly, the inves­ti­ga­tion of Spence’s activ­i­ties was fol­lowed by a seri­ous down­turn in Spence’s health. De Camp alleges that both Spence and King were involved with the Iran-Con­tra imbroglio.

“When Craig Spence turned up dead—a sui­cide, police were quick to say—in a Boston hotel room, in Novem­ber 1989, it was the lat­est in the long string of deaths of per­sons linked to Iran-Con­tra covert oper­a­tions and fund­ing. There is evi­dence that Lar­ry King had Wash­ing­ton busi­ness in that area as well. ‘In the 6 ½ months since fed­er­al author­i­ties closed Franklin, rumors have per­sist­ed that mon­ey from the cred­it union some­how found its way to the Nicaraguan con­tra rebels,’ said a World-Her­ald arti­cle on May 21, 1989.”

(Idem.)

13.

“The first World-Her­ald reporter on the Franklin case, James Allen Flan­ery, appar­ent­ly found more than rumors about the mon­ey-laun­der­ing. In late 1988, Flan­ery called Car­ol Stitt to dis­cuss what he had learned. Their con­ver­sa­tion is relat­ed in a Feb­ru­ary 21, 1989 report by Jer­ry Lowe: ‘Carol’s notes also have a ref­er­ence to Lar­ry King run­ning guns and mon­ey into Nicaragua . . . . Carol’s notes on Dec. 21, 1988 reflect that she talked with Flan­ery and in addi­tion to the Nicaraguan info, he was also now talk­ing about CIA involve­ment and pro­vid­ed info that yes­ter­day (Dec. 20) the FBI quit coop­er­at­ing with him . . . . Carol’s notes next jump to Feb.6, 1989, where she talked on the phone with Flan­ery and Flan­ery told her that the appro­pri­ate peo­ple didn’t want to believe any of this and who was ever going to pros­e­cute it. Appar­ent­ly Flan­ery told Car­ol he was close to resign­ing and the rea­sons he didn’t think any­one want­ed to do any­thing was because of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a White House con­nec­tion, the con­nec­tions to a num­ber of big peo­ple, and he fact that the inves­ti­ga­tors want­ed bad­ly to con­fine this all to the mon­ey. Also many white peo­ple made Lar­ry King [who was African-Amer­i­can], he did not hap­pen on his own.’”

(Ibid.; p. 170.)

“Appar­ent­ly Flan­ery told Car­ol he was uncom­fort­able on the phone, his edi­tor was dis­tressed and things he had writ­ten were con­tin­u­al­ly edit­ed, he want­ed to his byline off the arti­cle print­ed the 9th among oth­er things . . . Flan­ery also expressed con­cern to Car­ol that if he didn’t get off this sto­ry he wor­ried about being com­pro­mised.” Soon Flan­ery was off the Franklin case, which con­tin­ued for months to be the major news lead in Nebras­ka, and went to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kansas on Sab­bat­i­cal. When he returned a year lat­er, Flan­ery no longer wrote. about Franklin.”

(Idem.)

14. The sub­ject of the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal will be revis­it­ed lat­er in the dis­cus­sion. One should note that the views expressed in what fol­lows are those of the speak­ers and are not to be mis­con­strued as homo­pho­bia. Rather, the self-right­eous chest-beat­ing on the part of the GOP, their embrace of the Chris­t­ian Right and their exco­ri­a­tion of gays and cyn­i­cal manip­u­la­tion of homo­pho­bia in order to advance the Repub­li­can elec­toral agen­da are quite note­wor­thy in this con­text. (Writer David Brock not­ed the gay skele­tons in the Repub­li­can Par­ty when he was attacked for his own gay­ness fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of his book The Seduc­tion of Hillary Clin­ton.) De Camp notes the reac­tion of an offi­cial of the Franklin Nation­al Cred­it Union to his inves­ti­ga­tion. Again, the views expressed here are De Camp’s.

“Squelch­ing inter­est in an Iran-Con­tra con­nec­tion to Fanklin was also a top­ic of the hour, in that phone call I received from Nation­al Cred­it Union admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial Fen­ner, back in the ear­ly months of the leg­isla­tive Franklin probe. ‘Why would the head of the NCUA be want­i­ng to talk to me?’ I won­dered out loud, when my sec­re­tary said that Fen­ner was on the line. The man on the oth­er end of the phone said he knew I was a close friend of for­mer CIA head Bill Col­by, and that I also was Sen­a­tor Loran Schmit’s per­son­al attor­ney. He quick­ly came to his point.”

(Ibid.; pp. 170–171.)

15. De Camp dis­cuss­es his rela­tion­ship with for­mer CIA chief William Col­by and dis­cus­sion of the loot­ing of Franklin in order to finance the Con­tras.

“‘I know there are a lot rumors, that Franklin was being used as a front for laun­der­ing mon­ey for the Con­tras and that a lot of the mon­ey that is miss­ing from Franklin actu­al­ly went to finance the Con­tras.’ I acknowl­edged that I had heard such talk, and told, him, ‘I myself am one of those who won­der, if that is not a real pos­si­bil­i­ty, in light of the way things have been shak­ing out on the Con­tra scan­dal.’ Fen­ner then gave me a flood of details on the secret Franklin accounts, and where the miss­ing mon­ey sup­pos­ed­ly went. No des­ti­na­tions linked with Iran-Con­tra were men­tioned.”

(Idem.)

16. Note that the views that fol­low are those of the speak­ers.

“‘So tell me,’ I said, ‘just what is at the bot­tom of it? If it is not laun­dered mon­ey involved in the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal, what the blazes is it? And how could Lar­ry King get away with this, with­out you or some­body else know­ing what was going on? Looks to me as if he had to have one heck of a lot pow­er­ful polit­i­cal pro­tec­tion at the high­est lev­els.’ ‘Homo­sex­u­als,’ Fen­ner said, ‘Franklin financed the biggest group of homo­sex­u­als any state has ever seen. A lot of awful­ly pow­er­ful and promi­nent per­son­al­i­ties involved. But prob­a­bly not any­thing you can do any­thing about.’”

(Idem.)

17. Oth­er sources have not­ed the role of sex­u­al black­mail oper­a­tions in the con­text of pow­er pol­i­tics and the world of covert oper­a­tions. One of the most pow­er­ful alleged play­ers on this stage is Robert Kei­th Gray.

“The career of anoth­er Nebraskan, Robert Kei­th Gray, illu­mi­nates this milieu and why it would be so con­ge­nial to a per­son like Lar­ry King. Gray is the chair­man and CEO of Hill and Knowl­ton, one of the two biggest pub­lic rela­tions firms in the world, with such blue-chip clients as AT&T, IBM, Xerox, and DuPont. CBS-TV’s 60 Min­utes has called Hill and Knowl­ton ‘by far, the biggest, most influ­en­tial PR firm in Wash­ing­ton,’ adding that ‘crit­ics accuse them of being an unelect­ed shad­ow gov­ern­ment.’ Gray first came to Wash­ing­ton D.C. dur­ing the Eisen­how­er Admin­is­tra­tion, as Ike’s appoint­ments sec­re­tary and then sec­re­tary of the cab­i­net. He went to Hill and Knowl­ton in 1961. Gray played a role in Ronald Reagan’s 1976 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign and, in 1980, he was deputy direc­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Report­ing direct­ly to Bill Casey.”

(Ibid.; p. 178.)

18.

“On the strength of his con­nec­tions in the new admin­is­tra­tion, he left Hill and Knowl­ton to set up his own PR firm. With­in a year, Gray and Com­pa­ny secured over $9 mil­lion in billings from a clien­tele includ­ing Warn­er Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, NBC, GTE, Mutu­al of Oma­ha, the Amer­i­can Truck­ing Asso­ci­a­tion, the Amer­i­can Iron and Steel Insti­tute, and the gov­ern­ments of Cana­da and Turkey. In 1986, Hill and Knowl­ton bought out Gray and Co.; Gray became chair­man and CEO of Hill and Knowl­ton. Said to be Harold Andersen’s ‘clos­est friend in Wash­ing­ton,’ Gray is also report­ed­ly a spe­cial­ist in homo­sex­u­al black­mail oper­a­tions for the CIA.”

(Idem.)

19. The rela­tion­ship between Gray and the Wil­son, Ter­pil oper­a­tions detailed in RFA#4.

“Dur­ing the Water­gate era, Robert Kei­th Gray served on the board of Con­sul­tants Inter­na­tion­al, found­ed by CIA agent Edwin Wil­son. When Wil­son and fel­low agent Frank Ter­pil got caught run­ning guns abroad, Gray tried to deny his con­nec­tion with Wil­son. ‘Yet ten years before,’ accord­ing to Peter Maas’ book Man­hunt, ‘in a top secret Navy review of Wilson’s intel­li­gence career, Gray described Wil­son as a per­son of ‘unqual­i­fied trust,’ with whom he’d been in con­tact ‘pro­fes­sion­al­ly two or three times a month’ since 1963.’”

(Ibid.; p. 179.)

20. De Camp relates Jim Hougan’s account of anoth­er aspect of Gray’s alleged activ­i­ties. (Note that Tong­sun Park—a key fig­ure in the Kore­a­gate scandal—was close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the Moon orga­ni­za­tion, which also has strong con­nec­tions to the Bush admin­is­tra­tion.

“Author Jim Hougan in Secret Agen­da, report­ed anoth­er aspect of Wilson’s work for the CIA: ‘Accord­ing to fugi­tive ex-CIA offi­cer Frank Ter­pil, CIA-direct­ed sex­u­al black­mail­ing oper­a­tions were inten­sive in Wash­ing­ton at about the time of the Water­gate scan­dal. One of those oper­a­tions, Ter­pil claims, was run by his for­mer part­ner, Ed Wil­son. Wilson’s base of oper­a­tions for arrang­ing trysts for the polit­i­cal­ly pow­er­ful was, Ter­pil says, Kore­an agent Ton Sun Park’s George Town Club. In a let­ter to the author, Ter­pil explained that ‘His­tor­i­cal­ly, one of Wilson’s Agency jobs was to sub­vert mem­bers of both hous­es [of Con­gress] by any means nec­es­sary. . . .Cer­tain peo­ple could be eas­i­ly coerced by liv­ing out their sex­u­al fan­tasies in the flesh. . . .A remem­brance of these occa­sions [was] per­ma­nent­ly record­ed via select­ed cam­eras. . . . The tech­ni­cians in charge of film­ing. . .[were] TSD [Tech­ni­cal Ser­vices Divi­sion of the CIA] The unwit­ting porno stars advanced in their polit­i­cal careers, some of [whom] may still be in office.’”

(Idem.)

21. De Camp alleges that the oper­a­tions in which Wil­son, Ter­pil and Gray alleged­ly engaged in were an exten­sion of the activ­i­ties of for­mer Joseph McCarthy aide Roy Cohn.

“Gray’s asso­ciate Wil­son was appar­ent­ly con­tin­u­ing the work of a report­ed col­lab­o­ra­tor of Gray from the 1950’s—McCarthy com­mit­tee coun­sel Roy Cohn, now dead of AIDS. Accord­ing to the for­mer head of the vice squad for one of America’s biggest cities, ‘Cohn’s job was to run the lit­tle boys. Say you had an admi­ral, a gen­er­al, a con­gress­man, who did not want to go along with the pro­gram. Cohn’s job was to set them up, then they would go along. Cohn told me that him­self.’ The first pres­i­dent of Tong Sun Park’s George Town Club, where Wilson’s sex­u­al black­mail oper­a­tions were report­ed­ly run, was Robert Kei­th Gray.”

(Ibid.; pp. 179–180.)

22. Gray’s activ­i­ties over­lap those activ­i­ties of the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal and also the milieu of the Bush fam­i­ly. The Catholic youth home Covenant House was impli­cat­ed in orga­nized child molesta­tion and also had ties to the Bush­es.

“Gray employ­ee Rob Owen set up a pri­vate group to solic­it funds for the Con­tras. Owen was called before Con­gress, to tes­ti­fy on how he deliv­ered bags of cash to the Con­tras. In Feb­ru­ary of 1989, Hill and Knowlton’s Charles Perkins rushed to New York for a frac­tion of the firm’s usu­al fee, to help with pub­lic rela­tions for Covenant House. The youth organization’s direc­tor, Father Bruce Rit­ter, was alleged to have molest­ed youth who took refuge with him.”

(Ibid.; p. 180.)

23.

“Laud­ed by the Rea­gan and Bush Admin­is­tra­tions as a show­case for the pri­va­ti­za­tion of social ser­vice, Covenant House had expand­ed into Guatemala as a gate­way to South Amer­i­ca. Accord­ing to intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty sources, the pur­pose was pro­cure­ment of chil­dren from South Amer­i­ca for exploita­tion in a pedophile ring. The flag­ship Guatemalan mis­sion of Covenant House was launched by a for­mer busi­ness part­ner of Nicaraguan dic­ta­tor Anas­ta­sio Somoza–Roberto Ale­jos Arzu–who had ties to the CIA, accord­ing to the Vil­lage Voice of Feb. 20, 1990. The Voice quot­ed Jean-Marie Simon, author of Guatemala: Eter­nal Spring, Eter­nal Tyran­ny: ‘It’s like hav­ing Idi Amin on the board of Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al.’”

(Idem.)

24.

“A top source of mon­ey for Covenant House has been Robert Macauley, founder of Ameri­cares, a ser­vice orga­ni­za­tion impli­cat­ed in chan­nel­ing funds to the Con­tras. A close friend of the Bush fam­i­ly since Con­necti­cut, Andover and Yale days, Macauley has George Bush’s broth­er Prescott on the Ameri­cares’ board. Father Rit­ter was a vice pres­i­dent of Ameri­cares, at least until he had to resign from Covenant House in Feb­ru­ary 1989, and spent week­ends at Macauley’s estate in Con­necti­cut, accord­ing to a for­mer Covenant House employ­ee. As in New York, also in Nebras­ka an insti­tu­tion that shel­tered child abuse could count on pro­tec­tion from Wash­ing­ton. The atti­tude of fed­er­al agen­cies towards Lar­ry King’s Franklin Cred­it Union fits the mold.”

(Ibid.; pp. 180–181.)

25. More of De Camp’s alle­ga­tions con­cern­ing Lar­ry King imply con­nec­tions between King, the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty and George Bush (the Elder.)

“If King was involved with CIA mon­ey laun­der­ing, that jibes with a report from a mem­ber of Con­cerned Par­ents: ‘I heard from two dif­fer­ent black peo­ple in North Oma­ha that King used to send lim­ou­sines down to Offutt Air Base [home of the Strate­gic Air Com­mand] to pick up CIA per­son­nel for par­ties.’ The some­times expan­sive Lar­ry King used to talk fond­ly about his friends. In a Sept. 7, 1988 inter­view with the Met­ro­pol­i­tan, King said, ‘I know some of the peo­ple I admire aren’t very pop­u­lar. Ed Meese. The late Bill Casey of the CIA. And I love for­mer Chief Jus­tice Burg­er. Those are the peo­ple I real­ly like to talk to. Bill Casey. . . . I just thought so very high­ly of him.’”

(Ibid.; p. 175.)

26.

“Lar­ry King adored Bill Casey, but what about one of Casey’s pre­de­ces­sors at Cen­tral Intelligence—George Bush? Ever since July 23, 1989, when the lead edi­to­r­i­al in the World-Her­ald said that ‘one child . . . is said to believe that she saw George Bush at one of King’s Par­ties,’ King’s con­nec­tion with Bush has been a fre­quent­ly asked ques­tion about the Franklin case. Anx­i­ety on this account has run espe­cial­ly high in Omaha’s black com­mu­ni­ty, where in Decem­ber 1990, one young lady stood up at a pub­lic meet­ing and pro­claimed, ‘I think George Bush is involved in this child abuse case, and that is why all these peo­ple have been dying.’”

(Idem.)

27. Accord­ing to De Camp, Bush’s name sur­faced in the begin­ning of the inves­ti­ga­tion into the Franklin/pedophilia con­nec­tion.

“Inside inves­ti­ga­tors of Franklin, and the Webb case before it, know that Bush’s name came up at the very begin­ning, and it came up more than once. The July 1989 World-Her­ald col­umn, in an attempt to dis­cred­it this and oth­er vic­tim-wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny, attrib­uted the men­tion of Bush to a per­son ‘under psy­chi­atric care,’ mean­ing Loret­ta Smith. In real­i­ty, the report was from Nel­ly Pat­ter­son Webb.”

(Idem.)

28.

“Nel­ly first brought up Bush in 1986, when she told Julie Wal­ters about the sex par­ties she was flown to in Wash­ing­ton and Chica­go. She saw Bush at two of these par­ties, she said, one in each city. Nel­ly also told Wal­ters that one fre­quent par­ty-goer with King was a boy named ‘Brent,” the one who was ‘flown to anoth­er city some­where’ after a falling out with King. Wal­ters did not have the resources to cross-check this infor­ma­tion with the life of Brandt Thomas, the Boys Town res­i­dent who had moved in with Lar­ry King. Franklin cred­it union files con­tained a let­ter signed by King, in his capac­i­ty as Youth Affairs Com­mit­tee advi­sor for the Nation­al Black Repub­li­can Coun­cil, list­ing Thomas as one of two nation­al con­tact peo­ple for NBRC cam­pus chap­ters.”

(Ibid.; p. 176.)

29.

“Three years lat­er, with an inves­ti­ga­tion of abuse by King and the Webbs final­ly under way, Nel­ly was inter­viewed again. Speak­ing to Franklin com­mit­tee Jer­ry Lowe, she repeat­ed her account of the Chica­go par­ty, and said that Bush and two men he arrived with appeared to have left the affair with a young black man she called ‘Brandt.’ Of course, as I have made clear, mere atten­dance by a politi­cian, be he the Pres­i­dent or any oth­er office-hold­er, at a Lar­ry King par­ty does not mean that per­son knew of or was involved in Lar­ry King’s sor­did activ­i­ties. Almost every top Nebras­ka Repub­li­can, includ­ing myself, attend­ed the two largest par­ties King ever host­ed, the ones at the Repub­li­can nation­al con­ven­tions in 1984 and 1988.”

(Idem.)

30. De Camp relates anoth­er alleged con­nec­tion between Bush and the Lar­ry King/pedophilia con­nec­tions.

“Bush’s name sur­faced again in Lowe’s May 1989 review of reports by Thomas Vla­houlis from the state attor­ney general’s office: ‘Soren­son told Vla­houlis that both Kim­ber­ly and Nel­ly brought up the name of George Bush and indi­cat­ed that they had both met him. . . .’ On June 10, 1989, Lowe received a let­ter from a cit­i­zen: ‘There is a psy­chol­o­gist in Oma­ha who used to work for the CIA. In response to a direct ques­tion by an Oma­ha psy­chi­a­trist regard­ing George Bush’s pri­vate life, this psy­chol­o­gist report­ed hear­ing rumors when Bush was head of the CIA, that cor­re­spond direct­ly with one of the infer­ences made by Nel­ly Webb, and com­ment­ed to the psy­chi­a­trist, ‘But how do you inves­ti­gate your boss?’”

(Ibid.; pp. 176–177.)

31. De Camp notes the elder Bush’s pro­cliv­i­ties for appoint­ing Nebras­ka Repub­li­cans.

“In August 1990, Bush appoint­ed Ronald Roskens of Nebras­ka, to head the Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment (AID). Roskens had been fired the pre­vi­ous year as chan­cel­lor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Nebras­ka, where Lar­ry King was a mem­ber of his ‘chancellor’s advi­so­ry com­mit­tee.’ Gary Caradori’s dai­ly notes for Feb. 19, 1989 record: ‘I was informed that Roskins [sic] was ter­mi­nat­ed by the state because of sex­u­al activ­i­ties report­ed to the Regents and ver­i­fied by them. Mr. Roskins was report­ed to have had young men at his res­i­dence for sex­u­al encoun­ters. As part of the sep­a­ra­tion from the state, he had to move out of the state-owned house because of the lia­bil­i­ty to the state if some of this sex­u­al behav­ior was ‘ille­gal.’ Upon Roskins vacat­ing the house, he was pro­vid­ed a house by Joe Seacrist [sic] of the Lin­coln Jour­nal-Star.’ The lead­er­ship of AID is the kind of sen­si­tive job—AID assign­ments have been used as a ‘cov­er’ by CIA agents, for instance—for which appointees under­go a back­ground check that would have to turn up what Caradori also heard. Nev­er­the­less, George Bush appoint­ed Roskens.”

(Idem.)

32. Inves­ti­ga­tor Gary Caradori was among the many casu­al­ties of the Franklin inves­ti­ga­tion. De Camp has an appen­dix of a list of “sus­pi­cious deaths tied to the Franklin case.”

“(1.) BILL BAKER. He was a restau­rant own­er in Oma­ha, and a part­ner of Lar­ry King in homo­sex­u­al pornog­ra­phy oper­a­tions. He was found shot in the back of the head.

(2.) SHAWN BONER. Broth­er of vic­tim-wit­ness Troy Bon­er, he died of a gun­shot wound from ‘Russ­ian Roulette.’

(3.) GARY CARADORI. Chief inves­ti­ga­tor for he leg­isla­tive Franklin Com­mit­tee, Caradori told asso­ciates days before his death that he had infor­ma­tion that would ‘blow this case wide open.’ He died when his plane crashed on July 11, 1990.

(4.) ANDREW ‘A.J.’ CARADORI. Died at the age of 8, in the plane crash with his father.

(5.) NEWT COPPLE. A con­fi­den­tial infor­mant for Caradori and his inves­tiga­tive firm, Cop­ple was a key behind-the-scenes activist fight­ing the cov­er-up of the Franklin case. Son of Com­mon­wealth Sav­ings own­er S.E. Cop­ple, busi­ness­man in his own right, an ex-cham­pi­on wrestler with no pri­or health prob­lems and par­ents who lived into their late eight­ies and nineties, Cop­ple sud­den­ly ‘died in his sleep’ in March 1991, at the age of 70.”

(Ibid.; p. 250.)

33. More of De Camp’s Franklin death list fol­lows.

“(6.) CLARE HOWARD. The for­mer sec­re­tary of Alan Baer, who arranged Baer’s pedophile trysts, Howard ‘died in her sleep’ in 1991.

(7.) MIKE LEWIS. A for­mer care­giv­er for vic­tim-wit­ness Loret­ta Smith. He died of a ‘severe dia­bet­ic reac­tion’ at the age of 32.

(8.) JOE MALEK, asso­ciate of Lar­ry King and own­er of Peony Park, where homo­sex­u­al galas were held. His death from gun­shot was ruled a sui­cide.

(9.) AARON OWEN, the broth­er of vic­tim-wit­ness Alisha Owen. He was found hanged in his cell in Lin­coln, Nebras­ka, hours before one of his sister’s court appear­ances.

(10.) CHARLIE ROGERS. A reput­ed homo­sex­u­al part­ner of Lar­ry King, Rogers said that he feared for his life, in the days before his death. His head was blown off with a shot­gun, in what was ruled a sui­cide.

(11.) DAN RYAN, an asso­ciate of Lar­ry King. He was found stran­gled or suf­fo­cat­ed in a car.

(12.) BILL SKOLESKI. An offi­cer in the Oma­ha Police Depart­ment who was believed to be keep­ing a file on Lar­ry King, he died of a heart attack.

(13.) KATHLEEN SORENSON. The fos­ter par­ent for Nel­ly and Kim­ber­ly Webb after they fled the home of Lar­ry King’s rel­a­tives, Jar­rett and Bar­bara Webb, she was an out­spo­ken activist against Satanism. Her death in a sus­pi­cious car crash is relat­ed in Chap­ter 15.

(14.) CURTIS TUCKER. An asso­ciate of Lar­ry King, he fell or jumped out of the win­dow of the Hol­i­day Inn in Oma­ha.

(15.) HARMON TUCKER. A school super­in­ten­dent in Nebras­ka and Iowa, a reput­ed homo­sex­u­al, his death had signs of satan­ic rit­u­al mur­der. He was found dead in Geor­gia, near the plan­ta­tion which Harold Ander­sen and Nebras­ka-Iowa FBI chief Nicholas O’Hara used for hunt­ing.”

(Ibid.; pp. 250–251.)

34. Among the casu­al­ties that De Camp believes to be con­nect­ed to the Franklin inves­ti­ga­tion was the late William Col­by, for­mer direc­tor of the CIA. De Camp worked with Col­by dur­ing the Viet­nam War. Col­by had worked with De Camp on the book, and served as an inves­tiga­tive source.

“It is a lit­tle over four years since I, John De Camp, wrote the words you have just read. My clos­es friend and men­tor, Bill Col­by, like so many oth­ers in the Franklin case, is dead; he was fished out of a riv­er in front of his home, under the most ques­tion­able of cir­cum­stances, in April of 1996. Was he killed because of his involve­ment in Franklin? I don’t know. What I do know, is that Bill Col­by was the heart and soul of the Franklin inves­ti­ga­tion. Although at a cer­tain point he warned me against inves­ti­gat­ing the case fur­ther, it was he who relent­less­ly pushed to pub­licly expose what had already been dis­cov­ered, when every­one else, includ­ing, at times, myself, want­ed to call it quits. With­out him, this book would nev­er have been writ­ten.”

(Ibid.; p. 1.)

35. It is inter­est­ing that the late Col­by had been a sup­port­er of Pres­i­dent Clin­ton and that his wife worked for Clin­ton.

“Not only was Bill’s wife, Sal­ly Shel­ton Col­by, in a senior posi­tion in the Clin­ton Admin­is­tra­tion, but Col­by him­self had empha­sized to me, repeat­ed­ly, that Clin­ton was a great Pres­i­dent, and that it was urgent that he be re-elect­ed.”

(Ibid.; p. 388.)

36. De Camp describes the death of his friend and col­league.

“A week after out get-togeth­er, in which Bill spoke so enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly about his work and his trav­els, he was dead—under the most unusu­al cir­cum­stances, his death offi­cial­ly labeled an ‘acci­dent.’ I did not believe it then, and I do not believe it now. But I do believe what Bill said: ‘If it’s done right, you will nev­er know how it was done, or who did it.’”

(Ibid.; p. 389.)

37. De Camp expounds on his skep­ti­cism con­cern­ing Colby’s death, based on exten­sive knowl­edge of the late director’s behav­ior.

“Col­by had a sail­boat and his lit­tle get-away cot­tage, where he went as often as he could. I vis­it­ed him there on sev­er­al occa­sions, as Bill invit­ed me sail­ing when­ev­er I was in town. Inevitably, how­ev­er, the weath­er fore­cast would warn of a pos­si­bil­i­ty of rain, or a drop of rain would fall, or he’d notice that the moon was not in the right posi­tion, or the sun too hot, or what­ev­er. And Bill would decide not to take the risk and go out sail­ing.”

(Ibid.; pp. 384–385.)

38.

“My point is sim­ple. Bill Col­by was the sin­gle most metic­u­lous­ly care­ful, pro­grammed, orga­nized indi­vid­ual I have ever encoun­tered, espe­cial­ly when it came to mat­ters of safe­ty, secu­ri­ty, and per­son­al activ­i­ties. There­fore, the descrip­tion giv­en in the media, sur­round­ing his death, does not cohere with Bill Colby’s per­son­al­i­ty, his char­ac­ter, his modus operan­di, and my per­son­al expe­ri­ences with him over many years. Bill Col­by was not the kind of per­son who would take off on an evening boat­ing expe­di­tion, leav­ing his com­put­er still turned on at his desk, his half-fin­ished din­ner still sit­ting on the table, and most of the lights on in the cot­tage. That was not Bill.”

(Ibid.; p. 385.)

39. Recount­ing an inci­dent that escaped most people’s notice (includ­ing Mr. Emory’s), De Camp relates an inci­dent that fore­shad­owed Colby’s death.

“Fur­ther­more, Bill had been the vic­tim of a ‘rob­bery’ in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., not too long before his death, in which he had been bad­ly beat­en, and eas­i­ly could have died. This ‘rob­bery’ and his actu­al death were both mys­te­ri­ous inci­dents, in a rel­a­tive­ly short span of time. I have a hard time believ­ing in coin­ci­dences, when it comes to peo­ple like Bill Col­by. His mys­te­ri­ous death has also brought, to my mind, his own expla­na­tions of how peo­ple end up dead, in the course of our dis­cussing the death of Franklin case inves­ti­ga­tor Gary Caradori—a death Col­by him­self had inves­ti­gat­ed. His exact state­ment on this was: ‘If it’s done right, you’ll nev­er know how it was done, or who did it for sure. That’s what pro­fes­sion­al­ism is all about.’”

(Idem.)

Discussion

29 comments for “FTR #318 Kidding Around: Child Molestation and Pedophilia in the GOP”

  1. http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011–11-10/sports/30381212_1_child-molester-madden-claims-jerry-sandusky

    SHOCKING PENN STATE RUMOR: Jer­ry San­dusky ‘Pimped Out Young Boys To Rich Donors’
    Tony Manfred|November 10, 2011

    (AP) Sports­writer Mark Mad­den went on WEEI in Boston and report­ed a rumor that alleged child moles­ter Jer­ry San­dusky would pimp out boys to rich donors.

    “I hear a rumor that there will be a shock­ing devel­op­ment from the Sec­ond Miles Foun­da­tion ... That Jer­ry San­dusky and Sec­ond Mile were pimp­ing out young boys to rich donors.”

    Mad­den claims it’s being inves­ti­gat­ed by “two promi­nent colum­nists.”

    We’d say this is ridicu­lous, and that you should take it with a grain of salt. But Mad­den actu­al­ly wrote about San­dusky for the Beaver Coun­ty Times six months ago — long before the scan­dal blind­sided every­one else this week.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/jerry-sandusky-column-2011–11

    A News­pa­per Ran A Col­umn About The Hor­ri­fy­ing Penn State Scan­dal Six Months Ago
    Tony Man­fred | Nov. 9, 2011, 3:12 PM

    Penn State’s bun­gled response to the Jer­ry San­dusky scan­dal is even more shock­ing when you con­sid­er this: there was a report about San­dusky’s alleged abus­es six months ago.

    On April 3, the Beaver Coun­try Times ran a col­umn by Mark Mad­den head­lined, “San­dusky A State Secret.”

    The col­umn calls out the uni­ver­si­ty for fail­ing to stop San­dusky a decade ago, and warns that a impend­ing grand jury report could cause a mas­sive scan­dal.

    It also asks many of the same ques­tions we are ask­ing this week.

    “What did Pater­no know, and when did he know it? What did Penn State’s admin­is­tra­tion know, and when did they know it?” he asks.

    It’s hard to under­stand how any­one at Penn State — from Pater­no to the pres­i­dent to the PR depart­ment — could have been unpre­pared for the scan­dal to explode con­sid­er­ing it was already rel­a­tive­ly pub­lic.

    The col­umn does­n’t make the alleged con­duct of PSU offi­cials any bet­ter or worse, it just makes the messy PR moves by the school over the last few days look even more ter­ri­ble.

    There was also a news sto­ry in the Patri­ot-News about the grand jury inves­ti­ga­tion in late March.

    . . . . .

    Orig­i­nal arti­cle from Mark Mad­den, who now accus­es a pedophile ring involv­ing “rich donors & boost­ers” in the Penn State/Sandusky case:

    http://www.timesonline.com/columnists/sports/mark_madden/madden-sandusky-a-state-secret/article_863d3c82-5e6f-11e0-9ae5-001a4bcf6878.html#user-comment-area

    San­dusky A State Secret

    Post­ed: Sun­day, April 3, 2011 11:55 pm | Updat­ed: 4:34 pm, Mon Apr 4, 2011.
    by Mark Mad­den

    The Jer­ry San­dusky sit­u­a­tion seems a mat­ter of fail­ure to con­nect cer­tain dots, or per­haps unwill­ing­ness in that regard. Lots of peo­ple besides the for­mer Penn State defen­sive coor­di­na­tor have some explain­ing to do.

    Alle­ga­tions of improp­er con­duct with an under­age male first sur­faced in 1998, while San­dusky was still employed by Penn State. That inci­dent alleged­ly occurred in a show­er at Penn State’s on-cam­pus foot­ball facil­i­ty. No charges were filed.

    San­dusky retired the next year, in 1999. He was 55, prime age for a coach. Odd, to say the least — espe­cial­ly with Joe Pater­no thought even then to be ready to quit and San­dusky a like­ly, open­ly-dis­cussed suc­ces­sor.

    It seems log­i­cal to ask: What did Pater­no know, and when did he know it? What did Penn State’s admin­is­tra­tion know, and when did they know it?

    Best-case sce­nario: Charges are nev­er brought, and San­dusky walks away with his rep­u­ta­tion per­ma­nent­ly scarred. The rumors, the jokes, the side­ways glances — they won’t ever stop. Pater­no and Penn State do the great escape.

    Worst-case sce­nario: San­dusky is charged. Then it seems rea­son­able to won­der: Did Penn State not make an issue of San­dusky’s alleged behav­ior in 1998 in exchange for him walk­ing away from the pro­gram at an age pre­ma­ture for most coach­es? Did Penn State’s con­sid­er­able influ­ence help get San­dusky off the hook?

    Don’t kid your­self. That could hap­pen. Don’t under­es­ti­mate the pow­er of Pater­no and Penn State in cen­tral Penn­syl­va­nia when it comes to politi­cians, the police and the media.

    In 1999, Penn State was rid of San­dusky. His rep was unblem­ished, which allowed him to con­tin­ue run­ning a char­i­ta­ble foun­da­tion that gave him access to under­age males. To be a vol­un­teer assis­tant with a high school foot­ball team, thus gain­ing access to under­age males.

    If Pater­no and Penn State knew, but did­n’t act, instead facil­i­tat­ing San­dusky’s untrou­bled retire­ment — are Pater­no and Penn State respon­si­ble for unto­ward acts since com­mit­ted by San­dusky?

    This is far from an out­ra­geous hypoth­e­sis, espe­cial­ly giv­en the con­ve­nient time­line.

    Ini­tial­ly accused in 1998. Retires in 1999. Nev­er coach­es col­lege foot­ball again. San­dusky was very suc­cess­ful at what he did. The archi­tect of Line­backer U. Helped win nation­al cham­pi­onships in 1982 and 1986. Rec­og­nized as col­lege foot­bal­l’s top assis­tant in 1986 and 1999.

    Nev­er any sto­ries about San­dusky being pur­sued for a high-pro­file job. Nev­er any rumors about him com­ing out of retire­ment.

    But there’s no short­age of sto­ries and rumors about Penn State foot­ball sweep­ing prob­lems under the rug, is there?

    Why did col­lege foot­ball let an accom­plished coach like San­dusky walk away at 55? Why did he dis­ap­pear into rel­a­tive anonymi­ty?

    A grand jury, spurred by a com­plaint made by a 15-year-old boy in 2009, has been inves­ti­gat­ing San­dusky for 18 months. Wit­ness­es include Pater­no and Penn State ath­let­ic direc­tor Tim Cur­ley.

    Inter­view­ing Pater­no about a sub­ject like this had to have been one of the sin­gle most uncom­fort­able acts in the his­to­ry of jurispru­dence.

    Plen­ty of ques­tions remain yet unan­swered.

    Poten­tial­ly among them: What’s more impor­tant, Penn State foot­ball or the wel­fare of a few kids?

    You might not want to hear the answer.

    Posted by R. Wilson | November 24, 2011, 10:44 pm
  2. I’m sure there’s a per­fect­ly rea­son­able expla­na­tion for all of this (and that). Let’s be char­i­ta­ble.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | June 4, 2012, 1:10 pm
  3. Pter­rafractyl: Your first link is bro­ken (on the word ‘that’).

    I seem to be hav­ing prob­lems as well post­ing here at Spit­fire. If this com­ment takes, it will be the first in a cou­ple weeks of try­ing

    Posted by R. Wilson | June 4, 2012, 7:55 pm
  4. @R. Wil­son: Yeah, me too, unfor­tu­nate­ly. I still believe there may be a glitch in the for­mat. =(

    Posted by Steve L. | June 4, 2012, 11:46 pm
  5. @R. Wil­son: Whoops! Looks like I left off the “http://” part from the URL and it got inter­pret­ed as a local link. This should work. And yeah, not sure what’s going on with the com­ments...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | June 5, 2012, 9:15 am
  6. Let’s not for­get that GW’s col­lege nick­name was Lips. In elite cir­cles there is an ele­ment who prac­tice homo­sex­u­al­i­ty and pedophil­ia as an expres­sion of deprav­i­ty, con­tempt for main­stream morays and for inner cir­cle ini­ti­a­tion. Homo­sex­u­al pref­er­ences can be more or less healthy but not so here. The sex­u­al mor­al­iz­ing by the far right is an ongo­ing huge joke on the unwashed. Wit­ness Roy Cohn’s adamant, vocal pub­lic oppo­si­tion to all things homo­sex­u­al while in the con­stant com­pa­ny of a parade of young male com­pan­ions.

    Posted by Dwight | June 6, 2012, 10:41 am
  7. Con­tin­u­ing dif­fi­cul­ties for a week try­ing to post any com­ment to this page.

    I’ll try to write out the URL and see if that works:

    www (dot) ibtimes (dot) co (dot) uk (slash) arti­cles (slash) 397824 (slash) 20121024 (slash) tom-wat­son-child-sex-ring-sire-peter (dot)htm

    Was Mar­garet Thatch­er’s Top Aide Peter Mor­ri­son in Pae­dophile Ring?

    By DOMINIC GOVER
    Octo­ber 24, 2012 6:50 PM GMT

    The politi­cian impli­cat­ed in an alleged child sex ring at 10 Down­ing Street was Sir Peter Mor­ri­son, one of Mar­garet Thatch­er’s clos­est advis­ers, IBTimes UK can reveal.

    Mor­ri­son was the mys­tery “senior aide” MP Tom Wat­son allud­ed to at Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions (PMQs). Wat­son’s alle­ga­tion of a pae­dophile ring close to Down­ing Street stunned the House of Com­mons.

    Mor­ri­son was a Con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cian who act­ed as Thatch­er’s par­lia­men­tary pri­vate sec­re­tary while she was prime min­is­ter. He also mas­ter­mind­ed her failed bid to hold on to the lead­er­ship in 1990.

    Mor­ri­son left office in 1992 and died in 1995.

    The sex­u­al tastes of the prime min­is­ter’s trust­ed advis­er were an open secret in some quar­ters but were con­cealed by a police cov­er-up and threats of libel by Mor­ri­son him­self, accord­ing to a for­mer edi­tor of the Sun­day Mir­ror, Peter Con­new.

    Simon Hef­fer wrote in the Dai­ly Tele­graph in 2009: “At least one mem­ber of Mrs Thatch­er’s first cab­i­net was homo­sex­u­al. Her last par­lia­men­tary pri­vate sec­re­tary, Sir Peter Mor­ri­son, was a con­stant tri­al to the whips, who were afraid that his late-night cruis­es around and skir­mish­es in Sus­sex Gar­dens would come to the atten­tion of the press.”

    Con­new told IBTimes UK that he saw first-hand how efforts to name and shame Mor­ri­son were ham­pered.

    Mor­ri­son, the MP for Chester, was arrest­ed more than once for pes­ter­ing young boys in pub­lic toi­lets for sex, said Con­new. When police offi­cers tried to charge him, the cov­er-up began.

    “Such was the hush-up that nobody could get hold of the log of the arrest,” Con­new told IBTimes UK.

    “As soon as he was brought in for impor­tun­ing young boys in pub­lic toi­lets, the seniors would come down. That was the rea­son the offi­cers leaked the details: they were out­raged that the seniors had ticked them off for arrest­ing him.

    “If they had nicked a lor­ry dri­ver, he would have been up before the judge in no time.”

    Print and I’ll sue you

    When reporters act­ing on tip-offs doorstepped Mor­ri­son, he came out fight­ing, added Con­new.

    “When they doorstepped him, he said ‘print and I’ll sue you.’ This is some­thing that Lord Leve­son might want to con­sid­er.”

    Alle­ga­tions against Mor­ri­son first sur­faced in the press in 1998. Inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Nick Davies report­ed how Chris House, crime edi­tor at the Mir­ror, had been tipped off by police about Mor­rison’s activ­i­ties — but was gagged by legal fears.

    Not being able to expose the politi­cian close to No 10 irked House, said Con­new. “He cat­e­gorised it as the most frus­trat­ing scoop he could nev­er write. He was more involved in it than me.

    “I had no idea Tom Wat­son was going to set off that hand grenade in par­lia­ment,” he added.

    Mor­rison’s activ­i­ties were thrown under the spot­light by Labour MP Wat­son at PMQs. The West Bromwich East MP allud­ed to a polit­i­cal fig­ure who was cit­ed in evi­dence at the 1992 tri­al of pae­dophile Peter Righton, real name Paul Pel­ham.

    Wat­son said in par­lia­ment: “The evi­dence file used to con­vict pae­dophile Peter Righton, if it still exists, con­tains clear intel­li­gence of a pae­dophile ring.

    “One of its mem­bers boasts of his links to a senior aide of a for­mer prime min­is­ter who could smug­gle inde­cent images of chil­dren from abroad.

    “The leads were not fol­lowed up but if the file still exists I want to ensure that the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police secure the evi­dence, re-exam­ine it and inves­ti­gate clear links of a pow­er­ful pae­dophile net­work linked to par­lia­ment and No 10.”

    Righton was a high-pro­file pub­lic expert on the UK child­care sys­tem. He was con­vict­ed of import­ing and pos­sess­ing child pornog­ra­phy in 1992.

    UPDATE (25 OCTOBER 2012) Wat­son has gone on record to deny that the mys­tery aide referred to in his state­ment at PMQs was Peter Mor­ri­son, for­mer aide to Mar­garet Thatch­er when she was in pow­er. Mor­ri­son was recent­ly named by for­mer Tory MP Edwina Cur­rie as hav­ing had sex with teenage boys.

    Posted by R. Wilson | November 5, 2012, 7:09 pm
  8. While it’s nev­er a good time to be an elite pedophile, it looks like it’s going to be an espe­cial­ly bad time for any UK elite pedophiles. Let’s hope we don’t see a repeat of any­thing like this. Or this.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | January 18, 2013, 8:04 am
  9. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/tory-mp-warned-of-powerful-paedophile-ring-30-years-ago-8507780.html

    New evi­dence sup­ports late MP’s claim of elite pae­do ring

    Tory MP warned of pow­er­ful pae­dophile ring 30 years ago

    New evi­dence sup­ports claim for­mer backbencher’s life was threat­ened

    FRIDAY 22 FEBRUARY 2013

    A burly vet­er­an of scores of ama­teur box­ing bouts, the Tory MP Geof­frey Dick­ens was best known dur­ing his bustling 16-year career in Par­lia­ment as a pugna­cious right-winger who sup­plied “hang ‘em and flog ‘em” quotes to the tabloids.

    Eigh­teen years after his death, how­ev­er, the backbencher’s rep­u­ta­tion as a polit­i­cal light­weight is being revised in the wake of a Scot­land Yard inves­ti­ga­tion which is exhum­ing a scan­dal long buried in the West­min­ster of Mar­garet Thatcher’s pre­mier­ship.

    New evi­dence sug­gests that Dick­ens stum­bled upon an Estab­lish­ment pae­dophile ring in the ear­ly 1980s – and that his efforts to expose a cov­er-up left him in fear of his life. Dick­ens told fel­low MPs that after warn­ing of the exis­tence of the net­work, he had received threat­en­ing phone calls and been bur­gled twice. He also claimed he had been placed on a “hit-list”, he told the House of Com­mons in a lit­tle-noticed speech.

    For four years between 1981 and 1985, Dick­ens railed in Par­lia­ment against a pae­dophile ring which he claimed was con­nect­ed to a trade in child pornog­ra­phy, then con­trolled by gang­sters.

    In 1981 Dick­ens had used Par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege to name a diplo­mat and MI6 oper­a­tive, Sir Peter Hay­man as a ped­erast and demand­ed the Attor­ney Gen­er­al explain why he had escaped pros­e­cu­tion over the dis­cov­ery of vio­lent pornog­ra­phy on a Lon­don bus two years pre­vi­ous­ly.

    ...

    Last month Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police began Oper­a­tion Fern­bridge into alle­ga­tions that res­i­dents of a chil­drens home in Rich­mond, west Lon­don, were tak­en to the near­by Elm Guest House in Barnes, where they were abused. Pornog­ra­phy involv­ing adults hav­ing sex with chil­dren was alleged­ly shot at the prop­er­ty and then cir­cu­lat­ed com­mer­cial­ly.

    Sir Peter was among the vis­i­tors to the prop­er­ty. Oth­ers, accord­ing to a list seized by Scot­land Yard last month, were the late Lib­er­al MP Cyril Smith, the for­mer Russ­ian spy Sir Antho­ny Blunt, a Sinn Fein politi­cian, a Labour MP, and sev­er­al Con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cians.

    After neigh­bours com­plained about the arrival of chil­dren, the police raid­ed the guest­house in 1982 but the oper­a­tion was mys­te­ri­ous­ly cut short. A 2003 inves­ti­ga­tion also failed.

    ...

    “Hon­ourable Mem­bers will under­stand that where big mon­ey is involved and as impor­tant names came into my pos­ses­sion so the threats began.

    “First, I received threat­en­ing tele­phone calls fol­lowed by two bur­glar­ies at my Lon­don home. Then, more seri­ous­ly, my name appeared on a multi-killer’s hit list.”

    ...

    How­ev­er twen­ty-eight years after he made [the com­ments], Scot­land Yard offi­cers kept their new inves­ti­ga­tion secret for weeks, fear­ful that it would be closed down like ear­li­er inquiries.

    In a blog on his web­site, the Labour MP Tom Wat­son – whose claims of a pow­er­ful pae­dophile net­work prompt­ed the new inquiry – said that he had been advised by child­care experts who have tried to expose the scan­dal to be care­ful about his per­son­al secu­ri­ty. He has asked the Home Office for the dossier pre­sent­ed by Dick­ens to Sir Leon, but it has not yet been found.

    Posted by R. Wilson | February 22, 2013, 10:18 pm
  10. Well, it looks like the Pope’s call for prayers have been answered: The night before the Pope’s res­ig­na­tion we saw a new pedophile scan­dal emerge involv­ing pow­er­ful people...and it does­n’t involve the Vat­i­can. Tom Flana­gan, Steven Harper’s for­mer polit­i­cal advis­er and a man char­ac­ter­ized as the God­fa­ther of Canada’s mod­ern con­ser­v­a­tive, just told an audi­ence that he’s been on the NAMBLA mail­ing list for years while defend­ing child porn. It was­n’t well received:

    Toron­to Star
    For­mer polit­i­cal advis­er Tom Flana­gan says view­ing child porn shouldn’t be a crime
    Peo­ple should not be jailed for their taste in pic­tures, says for­mer advis­er to Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er.

    By: Jeff Green News reporter, Pub­lished on Thu Feb 28 2013

    Tom Flana­gan, the man behind Stephen Harper’s rise to pow­er, the god­fa­ther of the rebirth of right-wing Cana­di­an pol­i­tics, trans­formed him­self into a pari­ah yes­ter­day.

    Flana­gan set off a firestorm Thurs­day, con­don­ing the view­ing of child pornog­ra­phy by say­ing it shouldn’t be a crime.

    “I cer­tain­ly have no sym­pa­thy for child moles­ters, but I do have some grave doubts about putting peo­ple in jail because of their taste in pic­tures,” Flana­gan said Wednes­day night dur­ing a small talk at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leth­bridge, lat­er post­ed to YouTube. “I don’t look at these pic­tures.”

    By mid-after­noon, the for­mer Harp­er advis­er and pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary met an onslaught of crit­i­cism with an apol­o­gy. Flana­gan said his words “were bad­ly cho­sen.”

    But the dam­age was done. The Prime Minister’s Office called his com­ments “repug­nant and appalling.” The CBC’s Pow­er and Pol­i­tics dumped him, say­ing his com­ments crossed the line, impact­ing his cred­i­bil­i­ty. Wil­drose Par­ty Leader Diane Smith said there was no lan­guage strong enough to con­demn his com­ments and that the par­ty would have no role with Flana­gan. He was her cam­paign man­ag­er in 2012. Smith was his star stu­dent.

    “I absolute­ly con­demn the sex­u­al abuse of chil­dren, includ­ing the use of chil­dren to pro­duce pornog­ra­phy,” Flana­gan said Thurs­day in a state­ment.

    The night before, Flana­gan was at a talk to dis­cuss Indi­an Act reform when he was asked about com­ments in 2009 at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­i­to­ba in which Flana­gan said, “What’s wrong with child pornog­ra­phy — in the sense that it’s just pic­tures?”

    His response was met with jeers from the crowed. Flana­gan stum­bled, and revealed his clos­est brush with child pornog­ra­phy was that he was on the mail­ing list for the North Amer­i­can Man/Boy Love Asso­ci­a­tion (NAMBLA) for sev­er­al years.

    “So it is a real issue of per­son­al lib­er­ty, to what extent we put peo­ple in jail for doing some­thing in which they do not harm anoth­er per­son,” Flana­gan said.

    ...

    Flanagan’s rela­tion­ship with Harp­er has been on the outs since 2007, after Flana­gan pub­lished Harper’s Team, an in-depth look at Harper’s rise to pow­er.

    As a pair of Reform Par­ty mem­bers, they co-authored a 1997 arti­cle called Our Benign Dic­ta­tor­ship, con­demn­ing extend­ed lib­er­al rule as a stunt to democ­ra­cy.

    The back­room brain trust for the Reform and Con­ser­v­a­tive par­ties cen­tered at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary was dubbed the “Cal­gary School.”

    In 2000, Flana­gan pub­lished First Nations? Sec­ond Thoughts, his argu­ment against “abo­rig­i­nal ortho­doxy” dis­missed Firsts Nations as “first immi­grants.”

    Flana­gan was once the right-hand man to Pre­ston Man­ning, and was Harper’s chief advis­er until 2004. He was brought back to serve in Harper’s suc­cess­ful 2005-06 elec­tion cam­paign as Harper’s senior com­mu­ni­ca­tions advis­er.

    In the lead-up to the 2004 elec­tion, a pro­file of Flana­gan in The Wal­rus asked Ezra Lev­ant, a for­mer stu­dent of Flana­gan, about a report that referred to Flana­gan as the “orig­i­nal god­fa­ther of the city’s con­ser­v­a­tive mafia.”

    Levant’s response: “I call him Don Toma­so . . . . He is the mas­ter strate­gist, the god­fa­ther — even of Harp­er.”
    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | February 28, 2013, 9:43 pm
  11. This isn’t exact­ly the kind of issue a par­ty wants to deal with weeks before an elec­tion:

    Der Spiegel
    Too Much Tol­er­ance: Pedophil­ia Debate Hits Ger­many’s FDP
    Sep­tem­ber 05, 2013 – 06:33 PM

    By Flo­ri­an Gath­mann, Ann-Katrin Müller and Chris­t­ian Teevs

    Ger­many’s Free Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty has con­sis­tent­ly denied ever hav­ing sup­port­ed pedophil­ia. But archival mate­ri­als show just how tol­er­ant the par­ty once was of activists advo­cat­ing for sex with chil­dren.

    In Novem­ber of 1982, Ger­many’s busi­ness-friend­ly Free Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (FDP), today the junior coali­tion par­ty of Chan­cel­lor Angela Merkel’s rul­ing con­ser­v­a­tives, threw a par­ty at the close of its fed­er­al con­ven­tion. The invi­ta­tions promis­ing “dis­co and dis­cus­sion” went out not only to par­ty mem­bers who had par­tic­i­pat­ed in the con­ven­tion in Berlin, but also to a selec­tion of gays, les­bians — and pedophiles. The invi­ta­tion bore the FDP logo, embla­zoned at the bot­tom right, and explic­it­ly wel­comed “Les­bians and Lib­er­als, Gos­sips and Sis­ters, Celebri­ties and Ped­erasts.”

    The gath­er­ing was orga­nized by the work­ing group on homo­sex­u­al­i­ty of the par­ty’s region­al asso­ci­a­tion in Berlin. Jür­gen Kun­ze, region­al par­ty chair, signed off on it. The invi­ta­tion also went to at least 26 par­ty func­tionar­ies. No one raised any oppo­si­tion.

    Pedophiles and the FDP? Deputy par­ty chair Sabine Leutheuss­er-Schnar­ren­berg­er, who serves as Ger­many’s Jus­tice Min­is­ter, is sure there must be some mis­take. “Pedophil­ia was not and is not an issue in the FDP. Not in the par­ty’s his­to­ry and cer­tain­ly not today,” she told dai­ly news­pa­per Die Welt three­weeks ago.

    But that isn’t true. Doc­u­ments from archives linked to the FDP show that the clas­si­cal­ly lib­er­al par­ty decid­ed­ly did demon­strate tol­er­ance and sup­port for pedophiles’ views in the ear­ly 1980s.

    Work­ing for Decrim­i­nal­iza­tion

    For one thing, the Young Democ­rats, the FDP’s youth orga­ni­za­tion at the time, resolved at its gen­er­al assem­bly in March 1980 to sup­port the removal of Para­graphs 174 and 176, which for­bid sex­u­al abuse of chil­dren and teenagers, from the Ger­man Crim­i­nal Code.

    This tol­er­ance of pedophiles’ views, though, went far beyond just the FDP-fund­ed Young Democ­rats. From today’s per­spec­tive it seems incom­pre­hen­si­ble that the FDP ever dis­cussed decrim­i­nal­iz­ing sex between adults and chil­dren. But in the wake of the mas­sive soci­etal changes brought about by the “1968 gen­er­a­tion,” many in the FDP, much like their coun­ter­parts in the Green Par­ty dur­ing the same peri­od, were no longer cer­tain where the bound­aries of tol­er­ance should lie. And many in the par­ty felt an oblig­a­tion to aid the project of eman­ci­pa­tion.

    “This was the spir­it of all those who saw them­selves as work­ing for civ­il rights and want­ed to lib­er­ate soci­ety com­plete­ly from the ‘fug’ of Ade­nauer’s repub­lic and from the ‘anti-sex big­otry’ of Catholi­cism,” writes Franz Wal­ter, a pro­fes­sor in Göt­tin­gen who is inves­ti­gat­ing the Green Par­ty’s past entan­gle­ment with pedophiles.

    That lib­er­al spir­it brought about the long over­due decrim­i­nal­iza­tion of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, but also led to calls to do away with Para­graphs 174 and 176. Accord­ing to Wal­ter, the FDP was “unques­tion­ably the first place to turn” for civ­il rights activists and sex­u­al reform­ers. In its strug­gle to achieve the high­est pos­si­ble degree of lib­er­al­i­ty, the par­ty lost per­spec­tive.

    ‘Work­ing Group on Pedophil­ia’

    A cam­paign ad for the FDP ahead of Berlin’s 1981 state par­lia­ment elec­tion pro­vides a prime exam­ple. “The taboo is bro­ken!” reads the head­ing, fol­lowed by text prais­ing five of the par­ty’s ini­tia­tives. In addi­tion to worth­while projects such as a coun­sel­ing cen­ter for gays and les­bians in Berlin’s Kreuzberg dis­trict, the FDP also obtained gov­ern­ment fund­ing for the Gen­er­al Homo­sex­u­al Work­ing Group (AHA). At the time, AHA did­n’t just advo­cate the urgent­ly need­ed decrim­i­nal­iza­tion of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty — it was also a lob­by­ing group for pedophiles.

    This meant tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey went to an orga­ni­za­tion whose “Work­ing Group on Pedophil­ia” called for a reform of Ger­many’s sex crime leg­is­la­tion, offered sup­port to pedophiles fac­ing tri­al and pub­lished cor­re­spond­ing views on these sub­jects in the coun­try’s news­pa­pers. Olaf Stüben, one of the most famous and out­spo­ken pedophiles of the peri­od, was coor­di­na­tor of AHA at the time the ad was pub­lished.

    FDP mem­bers of the Bun­destag, Ger­many’s par­lia­ment, also took up the sub­ject of sex crime leg­is­la­tion. On May 5, 1981, the FDP’s par­lia­men­tary group invit­ed experts to a hear­ing on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of repeal­ing the noto­ri­ous Para­graph 175, which made homo­sex­u­al­i­ty a crime.

    The 11 experts who accept­ed the invi­ta­tion includ­ed lawyers spe­cial­iz­ing in crim­i­nal law, sex researchers, a social work­er and two gay activists. And among them were two pro­fes­sors, Rüdi­ger Laut­mann and Hel­mut Kentler, both known at the time for their pro-pedophil­ia stance. Laut­mann, a soci­ol­o­gist, told the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans that cur­rent beliefs con­cern­ing “age dif­fer­ences, the behav­ior of the younger par­ty and the nature of the sex­u­al con­tact” were entire­ly incor­rect.

    A Pre­sen­ta­tion on Pedophile Ther­a­py

    Kentler, a sex researcher who taught social edu­ca­tion at Hanover Uni­ver­si­ty, even sat on the board of the Ger­man Study and Work­ing Group on Pedophil­ia (DSAP) in 1980. At his appear­ance before the FDP par­lia­men­tary group, he pre­sent­ed a report on a project in Berlin being fund­ed by the city’s sen­ate.

    As a psy­chol­o­gist, Kentler explained, he worked with chil­dren in the fos­ter care sys­tem who suf­fered from “sec­ondary men­tal retar­da­tion.” Start­ing in 1970, he explained, he placed these boys, ages 13 to 15, in the homes of pedophiles. He felt he had a good rea­son for doing so. “These peo­ple were able to put up with these retard­ed boys only because they were in love with them, infat­u­at­ed with them, crazy about them,” Kentler said. He added that these “rela­tion­ships” were close­ly super­vised.

    It was an out­ra­geous act, a pro­fes­sor of psy­chol­o­gy plac­ing vul­ner­a­ble young peo­ple at the mer­cy of self-con­fessed pedophiles. Yet this did­n’t seem to dis­turb the FDP par­lia­men­tar­i­ans. Accord­ing to a tran­script of the hear­ing, there were no inter­jec­tions or ques­tions.

    Dubi­ous Con­nec­tions

    The FDP had con­nec­tions even to those high­est up in the pedophil­ia move­ment. In 1980, the high­ly active DSAP shared a post office box with the Human­is­tic Union (HU) in Düs­sel­dorf. That orga­ni­za­tion’s fed­er­al chair was Ulrich Klug, an FDP politi­cian, since deceased, who served as state sec­re­tary in the jus­tice min­istry of the fed­er­al state of North Rhine-West­phalia from 1971 to 1974 and as jus­tice sen­a­tor in Ham­burg from 1974 to 1977.

    The HU, which describes itself as an “inde­pen­dent civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tion,” also had a long­stand­ing prob­lem­at­ic posi­tion on the issue of pedophil­ia, main­tain­ing close con­tact with the Work­ing Group on Human Sex­u­al­i­ty (AHS), which advo­cat­ed the legal­iza­tion of sex between adults and chil­dren. Not until 2004 did the HU dis­tance itself from the AHS and its pro-pedophil­ia stance.

    Laut­mann, the soci­ol­o­gist, still serves on the HU’s advi­so­ry board, along with Green Par­ty politi­cians Renate Künast and Clau­dia Roth. His 1994 book “Die Lust am Kind” (“Attrac­tion to Chil­dren”) con­tin­ues to be tout­ed by pedophiles, although Laut­mann has since dis­tanced him­self from the book in response to pub­lic crit­i­cism.

    Jus­tice Min­is­ter Leutheuss­er-Schnar­ren­berg­er of the FDP also serves on the HU’s advi­so­ry board. She was there nine years ago, when the civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tion grap­pled with — and ulti­mate­ly dis­tanced itself from — its past con­nec­tions to pedophil­ia.

    This makes it all the more strange that Leutheuss­er-Schnar­ren­berg­er now says the FDP does­n’t need to exam­ine its own past. There seems ulti­mate­ly to be ample evi­dence that the par­ty once lacked crit­i­cal dis­tance from pro­po­nents of pedophil­ia.

    Since the FDP is an ally of Merkel’s CDU it will be inter­est­ing to see how this impacts the elec­toral out­come, if at all. It might but maybe not too much.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | September 9, 2013, 11:41 am
  12. Cue the QAnon dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign: The issue of high-lev­el pedophile net­works is back in the news fol­low­ing the sur­prise arrest of bil­lion­aire alleged child traf­fick­er Jef­frey Epstein over the week­end.

    This is one of those sto­ries that inter­sects with the Trump admin­is­tra­tion in a num­ber of way. First, there’s the direct Trump con­nec­tions. As the fol­low­ing arti­cle describes, Trump him­self was an asso­ciate of Epstein in the 90’s and ear­ly 2000’s. Epstein fre­quent­ed Mar-a-Lago. Trump even gave a 2002 inter­view where he said, ““I’ve known Jeff for fif­teen years. Ter­rif­ic guy...He’s 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.” So Trump was hint­ing at Epstein’s child traf­fick­ing in that 2002 inter­view.

    Anoth­er con­nec­tion is that one of Epstein’s vic­tims, Vir­ginia Roberts, was work­ing at Mar-a-Lago when she was recruit­ed into Epstein’s net­work.

    Trump him­self was sued for rape in 2016 by an anony­mous woman claim­ing to have been one of Epstein’s vic­tims. But that accu­sa­tion was even­tu­al­ly with­drawn and the jour­nal­ists who pur­sued that sto­ry remain skep­ti­cal of the accuser. That’s the only instance of Trump him­self being direct­ly accused of hav­ing been involved with Epstein’s sex­u­al traf­fick­ing.

    So, at a min­i­mum, Trump is a tan­gen­tial char­ac­ter to this sto­ry. Bill Clin­ton is also a tan­gen­tial char­ac­ter to this sto­ry, hav­ing flow­ing on Epstein’s planes mul­ti­ple times. And those are just two of the shock­ing num­ber of oth­er pow­er­ful fig­ures who could poten­tial­ly be swept up in this inves­ti­ga­tion. In oth­er words, we might be on the cusp of see­ing a pow­er­ful under­age sex traf­fick­ing net­work involv­ing some of the most pow­er­ful peo­ple on the plan­et get­ting exposed, which means a lot of pow­er­ful peo­ple are going to be pay­ing very close atten­tion to this sto­ry and work­ing to shape the pub­lic’s per­cep­tion. If this new inves­ti­ga­tion does start to expose pow­er­ful peo­ple we should expect the deflection/disinformation to kick into over­drive. The fact that elite pedophile rings are cen­tral fix­a­tion of many right-wing con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries also more or less guar­an­tees that this is going to be dis­in­for­ma­tion mag­net. So get ready for a poten­tial mael­strom of dis­in­for­ma­tion and deflec­tion, because Trump and Clin­ton and just two of Jef­frey Epstein’s many pow­er­ful friends:

    Vox.com

    Jef­frey Epstein’s con­nec­tions to Don­ald Trump and Bill Clin­ton, explained
    Here’s what we know.

    By Andrew Prokop
    Jul 9, 2019, 11:40am EDT

    Jef­frey Epstein’s new indict­ment on sex traf­fick­ing charges is notable for many rea­sons: the scope of his alleged crimes, his wealth and influ­ence, and the con­tro­ver­sial non-pros­e­cu­tion agree­ment the Jus­tice Depart­ment struck with him a decade ear­li­er.

    But it’s also got­ten a good deal of atten­tion because of Epstein’s past ties to two par­tic­u­lar­ly promi­nent peo­ple: for­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton and cur­rent Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

    In the years before Epstein’s 2007 guilty plea to solic­i­ta­tion of pros­ti­tu­tion with a minor, he was known for “col­lect­ing” friend­ships with many note­wor­thy or influ­en­tial peo­ple — includ­ing Clin­ton and Trump, who were social acquain­tances. Clin­ton took inter­na­tion­al trips on Epstein’s plane in the ear­ly years of his post-pres­i­den­cy, includ­ing a trip to sev­er­al African coun­tries with Kevin Spacey and Chris Tuck­er.

    Trump, mean­while, report­ed­ly attend­ed Epstein-host­ed events in New York and Flori­da, as Epstein patron­ized the Mar-a-Lago Club. In 2002, Trump even gave a remark­able on-the-record com­ment about Epstein to a New York mag­a­zine jour­nal­ist, call­ing him “ter­rif­ic” and adding that he “likes beau­ti­ful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

    So, at the very least, Trump and Clin­ton were friend­ly with some­one who turned out to be a very bad guy.

    Yet the nature of some of the alle­ga­tions against Epstein has led to spec­u­la­tion that there could be even more to the sto­ry. In par­tic­u­lar, one Epstein accuser has claimed in court fil­ings that in addi­tion to sex­u­al­ly exploit­ing her him­self, Epstein traf­ficked her to oth­er wealthy and pow­er­ful men, with the appar­ent goal of obtain­ing black­mail mate­r­i­al on those men. (Pros­e­cu­tors have not at this point made this alle­ga­tion them­selves.)

    Clin­ton has not been accused of any spe­cif­ic sex­u­al mis­con­duct con­nect­ed to Epstein. As for Trump: Dur­ing the 2016 cam­paign, Trump was sued by an anony­mous woman who claimed he raped her at an Epstein par­ty when she was 13 years old. How­ev­er, sev­er­al jour­nal­ists who dug into this alle­ga­tion back then came away voic­ing cau­tion or down­right skep­ti­cism, and the accuser with­drew her law­suit short­ly before the elec­tion.

    So there hasn’t yet been cor­rob­o­ra­tion of Epstein-relat­ed wrong­do­ing on Trump’s part by media out­lets, or any accu­sa­tion against Clin­ton at all. But the ques­tion of whether oth­er influ­en­tial fig­ures will be impli­cat­ed in Epstein’s crimes remains an open one. Julie Brown, a Mia­mi Her­ald inves­tiga­tive reporter who has cov­ered Epstein’s case inten­sive­ly, said on MSNBC Sun­day that “there are prob­a­bly quite a few impor­tant peo­ple, pow­er­ful peo­ple, who are sweat­ing it out right now.”

    Epstein’s con­nec­tions to Trump

    By Trump’s own descrip­tion, his social rela­tion­ship with Epstein start­ed sev­er­al decades ago, in the late 1980s. Describ­ing Epstein to Lan­don Thomas Jr. of New York mag­a­zine for a 2002 pro­file, Trump made a com­ment that, in ret­ro­spect, was fright­en­ing­ly on-the-nose:

    “I’ve known Jeff for fif­teen years. Ter­rif­ic guy,” Trump booms from a speak­er­phone. “He’s 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.”

    That is: Trump praised Epstein, dat­ed their social rela­tion­ship as begin­ning around 1987, said they shared a taste for “beau­ti­ful” women, and specif­i­cal­ly not­ed that Epstein liked women “on the younger side.”

    Since Epstein’s legal trou­bles became known, Trump’s attor­neys have tried to down­play his asso­ci­a­tion with Epstein. (“He had no rela­tion­ship with Mr. Epstein and had no knowl­edge what­so­ev­er of his con­duct,” Trump lawyer Alan Garten told Politi­co in 2017.)

    But even beyond Trump’s own words fur­ther up, there’s a good deal of evi­dence that the two were friend­ly social acquain­tances at least through the ear­ly 2000s:

    * Media reports from the late 1990s and ear­ly 2000s fre­quent­ly men­tion Trump attend­ing Epstein-host­ed social events.
    * Trump called Epstein twice in Novem­ber 2004, accord­ing to mes­sage pads seized from Epstein’s Flori­da man­sion by the gov­ern­ment.
    * Sev­er­al phone num­bers for Trump, includ­ing an emer­gency con­tact and a num­ber for Trump’s secu­ri­ty, were among many notable people’s num­bers list­ed in Epstein’s “black book” (which was lat­er obtained by the gov­ern­ment).
    * Epstein’s broth­er Mark tes­ti­fied that Epstein once took Trump on one of his planes to go from Flori­da to New York, say­ing he thought it hap­pened in the late 1990s. Trump is not known to have tak­en any oth­er flights on Epstein planes.
    * Epstein was a fre­quent vis­i­tor to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Flori­da. (How­ev­er, after Epstein’s plea deal with the gov­ern­ment, the New York Post quot­ed an anony­mous Mar-a-Lago source claim­ing Epstein had been banned from the resort for mak­ing sex­u­al advances to a masseuse.)

    “I knew him like every­body in Palm Beach knew him,” Pres­i­dent Trump said Tues­day. “I had a falling out with him a long time ago, I don’t think I’ve spo­ken to him for 15 years, I wasn’t a fan.”

    Trump’s name has also come up in legal wran­gling around Epstein — albeit for very dif­fer­ent rea­sons.

    The 2009 sub­poe­na: In 2009, Brad Edwards, an attor­ney who has rep­re­sent­ed var­i­ous Epstein vic­tims, had Trump served with a sub­poe­na for tes­ti­mo­ny in a case against Epstein.

    But Edwards is not alleg­ing any wrong­do­ing from Trump; rather, the oppo­site. He said in a recent inter­view that he had served sub­poe­nas on many con­nect­ed peo­ple in 2009, and that Trump was “the only per­son who picked up the phone and said, ‘Let’s just talk. I’ll give you as much time as you want.’”

    Edwards added that Trump “was very help­ful, in the infor­ma­tion that he gave,” call­ing it “good infor­ma­tion that checked out and that helped us.” And, he said, Trump “gave no indi­ca­tion what­so­ev­er that he was involved in any­thing unto­ward what­so­ev­er.”

    Vir­ginia Roberts’s law­suit: In 1999, 16-year-old Vir­ginia Roberts worked as a spa atten­dant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. It was there, she says, that Epstein’s girl­friend Ghis­laine Maxwell recruit­ed her to give mas­sages to Epstein at his house. But Roberts (who now goes by Vir­ginia Giuf­fre) hasn’t accused Trump of any wrong­do­ing, and her pre­vi­ous sta­tus as a Mar-a-Lago employ­ee is the only con­nec­tion to Trump.

    The Katie John­son law­suit: This is the only accu­sa­tion against Trump for Epstein-relat­ed wrong­do­ing. An anony­mous woman sued Trump in 2016, claim­ing that in 1994, he vio­lent­ly raped her at an orgy host­ed by Epstein. She said she was 13 years old at the time, and accused Epstein of rap­ing her as well. She first filed suit in Cal­i­for­nia under the name “Katie John­son,” and when it was thrown out there for tech­ni­cal rea­sons, she filed it in New York under “Jane Doe.”

    But many jour­nal­ists were wary about this claim. There was no cor­rob­o­rat­ing evi­dence offered (except for affi­davits from two anony­mous peo­ple claim­ing to have been told of or wit­nessed it), and the suit appeared “to have been orches­trat­ed by an eccen­tric anti-Trump cam­paign­er with a record of mak­ing out­landish claims about celebri­ties,” the Guardian’s Jon Swaine wrote. Jezebel’s Anna Mer­lan tried for some time to get to the bot­tom of what was going on and con­clud­ed in June 2016, “The facts speak less to a scan­dal and more, per­haps, to an attempt at a smear.”

    Trump him­self said, “The alle­ga­tions are not only cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly false, but dis­gust­ing at the high­est lev­el and clear­ly framed to solic­it media atten­tion or, per­haps, are sim­ply polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed.”

    All that was before the Access Hol­ly­wood tape and before many women had spo­ken out pub­licly to accuse Trump of sex­u­al assault. But even after that, the anonymi­ty of “Katie John­son” and the sketch­i­ness of her asso­ciates kept main­stream US jour­nal­ists wary about this accu­sa­tion. She end­ed up with­draw­ing her law­suit days before the 2016 elec­tion; her attor­ney Lisa Bloom said it was because she was get­ting death threats.

    Epstein’s con­nec­tions to Clin­ton

    Soon after Bill Clin­ton con­clud­ed his pres­i­den­cy in 2001, he entered a new stage of his career, in which he’d trav­el the world, launch phil­an­thropic ini­tia­tives, hang out with rich peo­ple and celebri­ties, and make mon­ey.

    “What attract­ed Clin­ton to Epstein was quite sim­ple: He had a plane,” Lan­don Thomas Jr. wrote in that 2002 New York mag­a­zine pro­file. Clinton’s aide Doug Band made the intro­duc­tion, and that Sep­tem­ber, Epstein and Clin­ton were off on a tour of five African coun­tries, along­side actors Kevin Spacey and Chris Tuck­er. Per Clinton’s team, the trip was about “democ­ra­ti­za­tion, empow­er­ing the poor, cit­i­zen ser­vice, and com­bat­ing HIV/AIDS.” (It was that trip that first ele­vat­ed Epstein to some media noto­ri­ety, as jour­nal­ists began to dig into Clinton’s new friend.)

    That wasn’t the only trip. Accord­ing to Clin­ton spokesper­son Angel Ure­ña, in a new state­ment this week, there was one more to Africa, one to Europe, and one to Asia — but, he says, Clin­ton and Epstein haven’t spo­ken in “well over a decade.”

    Vir­ginia Giuf­fre has said in an affi­davit that Clin­ton was also present on Lit­tle St. James Island, Epstein’s pri­vate island in the US Vir­gin Islands. But so far, there has been no cor­rob­o­ra­tion for this claim, and Ure­ña says Clin­ton has has nev­er been there.

    Clin­ton has been accused of sex­u­al mis­con­duct in the past, includ­ing by Juani­ta Broad­drick, who says he raped her in 1978 (Clin­ton has denied this). But there have been no accu­sa­tions of sex­u­al mis­con­duct against Clin­ton relat­ed to Epstein. Even Giuf­fre, who said she recalled Clin­ton vis­it­ing Epstein’s island, said she had not had sex­u­al rela­tions with Clin­ton or seen him have sex­u­al rela­tions with any­one.

    Are pros­e­cu­tors going beyond Epstein?

    The under­cur­rent of all this is the wide­spread spec­u­la­tion, and the occa­sion­al spe­cif­ic claim, that in addi­tion to sex­u­al­ly abus­ing these girls, Epstein also traf­ficked them to the wealthy and pow­er­ful friends he was fre­quent­ly hang­ing out with at the time.

    Giuf­fre said in her 2015 affi­davit that this is exact­ly what hap­pened to her. “Epstein also traf­ficked me for sex­u­al pur­pos­es to many oth­er pow­er­ful men, includ­ing politi­cians and pow­er­ful busi­ness exec­u­tives,” she said. “Epstein required me to describe the sex­u­al events that I had with these men pre­sum­ably so he could poten­tial­ly black­mail them.”

    She named two names: Prince Andrew of the British roy­al fam­i­ly (there is a pho­to­graph of her with him) and law pro­fes­sor Alan Der­showitz. Buck­ing­ham Palace has denied her accu­sa­tion about the prince, and Der­showitz has called her a liar who “is going to end up in prison.” (Der­showitz has also been Epstein’s defense attor­ney.)

    “Epstein specif­i­cal­ly told me that the rea­son for him doing this was so that they would ‘owe him,’ they would ‘be in his pock­et,’ and he would ‘have some­thing on them,’” Giuf­fre said in the affi­davit.

    ...

    Pros­e­cu­tors have not made any such accu­sa­tion either, focus­ing instead on Epstein’s own sex­u­al con­duct. The inves­ti­ga­tion is like­ly still in flux — more vic­tims may come for­ward, and evi­dence has been seized from Epstein’s Man­hat­tan man­sion. For now, though, this case is one against Epstein him­self.

    ———-

    “Jef­frey Epstein’s con­nec­tions to Don­ald Trump and Bill Clin­ton, explained” by Andrew Prokop; Vox.com; 07/09/2019

    Yet the nature of some of the alle­ga­tions against Epstein has led to spec­u­la­tion that there could be even more to the sto­ry. In par­tic­u­lar, one Epstein accuser has claimed in court fil­ings that in addi­tion to sex­u­al­ly exploit­ing her him­self, Epstein traf­ficked her to oth­er wealthy and pow­er­ful men, with the appar­ent goal of obtain­ing black­mail mate­r­i­al on those men. (Pros­e­cu­tors have not at this point made this alle­ga­tion them­selves.)”

    Where there oth­er pow­er­ful men involved in Jef­frey Epstein’s teenage orgies? That the ques­tion that’s undoubt­ed going to make this a sto­ry watched by pow­er­ful peo­ple around the world. Because all it takes is a quick look through Epstein’s “black book” to get a sense of how wide­ly con­nect­ed he was. But in Trump’s case, those ques­tions are com­pound­ed by the fact that Trump specif­i­cal­ly referred to Epstein’s pref­er­ence for women “on the younger side” in that now noto­ri­ous 2002 inter­view, along with the fact that Epstein fre­quent­ed Mar-a-Lago and Vir­ginia Roberts was work­ing there when Epstein recruit­ed her:

    ...
    Epstein’s con­nec­tions to Trump

    By Trump’s own descrip­tion, his social rela­tion­ship with Epstein start­ed sev­er­al decades ago, in the late 1980s. Describ­ing Epstein to Lan­don Thomas Jr. of New York mag­a­zine for a 2002 pro­file, Trump made a com­ment that, in ret­ro­spect, was fright­en­ing­ly on-the-nose:

    “I’ve known Jeff for fif­teen years. Ter­rif­ic guy,” Trump booms from a speak­er­phone. “He’s 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.”

    That is: Trump praised Epstein, dat­ed their social rela­tion­ship as begin­ning around 1987, said they shared a taste for “beau­ti­ful” women, and specif­i­cal­ly not­ed that Epstein liked women “on the younger side.”

    Since Epstein’s legal trou­bles became known, Trump’s attor­neys have tried to down­play his asso­ci­a­tion with Epstein. (“He had no rela­tion­ship with Mr. Epstein and had no knowl­edge what­so­ev­er of his con­duct,” Trump lawyer Alan Garten told Politi­co in 2017.)

    But even beyond Trump’s own words fur­ther up, there’s a good deal of evi­dence that the two were friend­ly social acquain­tances at least through the ear­ly 2000s:

    ...

    Vir­ginia Roberts’s law­suit: In 1999, 16-year-old Vir­ginia Roberts worked as a spa atten­dant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. It was there, she says, that Epstein’s girl­friend Ghis­laine Maxwell recruit­ed her to give mas­sages to Epstein at his house. But Roberts (who now goes by Vir­ginia Giuf­fre) hasn’t accused Trump of any wrong­do­ing, and her pre­vi­ous sta­tus as a Mar-a-Lago employ­ee is the only con­nec­tion to Trump.
    ...

    And then there’s the accu­sa­tions by “Katie John­son”, who claims Trump vio­lent­ly raped her when she was 13. The jour­nal­ists who looked into this sto­ry were wary of it at the time it emerged, but as the arti­cle notes, that was also before the Access Hol­ly­wood tape and the parade of women accus­ing Trump of sex­u­al harass­ment. So a review of the plau­si­bil­i­ty of “Katie John­son’s” sto­ry might end with a dif­fer­ent con­clu­sion today:

    ...
    The Katie John­son law­suit: This is the only accu­sa­tion against Trump for Epstein-relat­ed wrong­do­ing. An anony­mous woman sued Trump in 2016, claim­ing that in 1994, he vio­lent­ly raped her at an orgy host­ed by Epstein. She said she was 13 years old at the time, and accused Epstein of rap­ing her as well. She first filed suit in Cal­i­for­nia under the name “Katie John­son,” and when it was thrown out there for tech­ni­cal rea­sons, she filed it in New York under “Jane Doe.”

    But many jour­nal­ists were wary about this claim. There was no cor­rob­o­rat­ing evi­dence offered (except for affi­davits from two anony­mous peo­ple claim­ing to have been told of or wit­nessed it), and the suit appeared “to have been orches­trat­ed by an eccen­tric anti-Trump cam­paign­er with a record of mak­ing out­landish claims about celebri­ties,” the Guardian’s Jon Swaine wrote. Jezebel’s Anna Mer­lan tried for some time to get to the bot­tom of what was going on and con­clud­ed in June 2016, “The facts speak less to a scan­dal and more, per­haps, to an attempt at a smear.”

    Trump him­self said, “The alle­ga­tions are not only cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly false, but dis­gust­ing at the high­est lev­el and clear­ly framed to solic­it media atten­tion or, per­haps, are sim­ply polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed.”

    All that was before the Access Hol­ly­wood tape and before many women had spo­ken out pub­licly to accuse Trump of sex­u­al assault. But even after that, the anonymi­ty of “Katie John­son” and the sketch­i­ness of her asso­ciates kept main­stream US jour­nal­ists wary about this accu­sa­tion. She end­ed up with­draw­ing her law­suit days before the 2016 elec­tion; her attor­ney Lisa Bloom said it was because she was get­ting death threats.
    ...

    So those are some of the direct Trump con­nec­tions to this sto­ry. There’s the oth­er mas­sive indi­rect con­nec­tion through the fact that Trump’s Labor Sec­re­tary, Alex Acos­ta, was the fed­er­al attor­ney would nego­ti­at­ed Epstein’s 2008 sweet­heart deal that allowed him to avoid fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tion. A deal that the Depart­ment of Jus­tice launched a probe of back in Feb­ru­ary. Trump him­self just today announce that he will be look­ing “very close­ly” at Acosta’s han­dling of the case.

    But there’s anoth­er per­son who is going to be look­ing even more close­ly at this case and this per­son also has a bizarre con­nec­tion to the Epstein case: Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bill Barr. As for­mer FBI Assis­tant Direc­tor Frank Figli­uzzi point­ed out on Twit­ter over the week­end, Bill Bar­r’s father actu­al­ly hired Epstein to teach at the elite pri­vate Dal­ton school. What makes this hir­ing curi­ous is that Epstein had no col­lege degree. So Bar­r’s father hired a man with no col­lege degree to teach at an elite pri­vate school:

    Raw Sto­ry

    Bill Barr could inter­fere with Trump pal Jef­frey Epstein’s pros­e­cu­tion: ex-FBI offi­cial

    By Tom Bog­gion
    on July 7, 2019

    In a series of tweets on Sat­ur­day night and Sun­day morn­ing, for­mer FBI Assis­tant Direc­tor Frank Figli­uzzi admit­ted that Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Barr could run inter­fer­ence for the pres­i­dent with the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York’s pros­e­cu­tion of alleged child traf­fick­er Jef­frey Epstein.

    After link­ing to a report on Epstein’s arrest, com­menters not­ed the millionaire’s rela­tion­ship to Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and the ex-FBI man said Barr — as the head of the Jus­tice Depart­ment — could insert him­self into the case but it would be high­ly obvi­ous if he tried to inter­fere.

    First writ­ing, “Watch for the cur­rent Sec­re­tary of Labor; Watch for why this is being han­dled by the Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion sec­tion at SDNY, ” Figli­uzzi, added, “Yes, AG Barr over­sees the US Attorney’s Office in NY, so it’s pos­si­ble he could attempt to inter­fere, though it would be obvi­ous. Also, many years ago, Barr’s father hired Epstein to teach at the pri­vate Dal­ton school, with no col­lege degree. So there’s that…”

    ...

    ———-

    “Bill Barr could inter­fere with Trump pal Jef­frey Epstein’s pros­e­cu­tion: ex-FBI offi­cial” by Tom Bog­gion; Raw Sto­ry; 07/07/2019

    “First writ­ing, “Watch for the cur­rent Sec­re­tary of Labor; Watch for why this is being han­dled by the Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion sec­tion at SDNY, ” Figli­uzzi, added, “Yes, AG Barr over­sees the US Attorney’s Office in NY, so it’s pos­si­ble he could attempt to inter­fere, though it would be obvi­ous. Also, many years ago, Barr’s father hired Epstein to teach at the pri­vate Dal­ton school, with no col­lege degree. So there’s that…””

    It’s an odd con­nec­tion, but giv­en the cir­cum­stances of the charges against Epstein it’s poten­tial­ly more than just odd. And as Fib­li­uzzi points out, Barr is going to be in a cir­cum­stance to run inter­fer­ence on this case if he choos­es to do so.

    But there’s anoth­er Barr con­nec­tion to this case that has actu­al­ly led to Barr recus­ing him­self from one aspect of this case: Barr used to work for the law firm, Kirk­land & Ellis, that rep­re­sent­ed Epstein in the ear­li­er pros­e­cu­tion of him (the pros­e­cu­tion that Alex Acos­ta end­ed with a sweet­heart deal). And as the fol­low­ing arti­cle notes, this has indeed result­ed in Barr recus­ing him­self. But he’s only recus­ing him­self from any reviews of that ear­li­er sweet­heart deal Acos­ta nego­ti­at­ed. Barr is NOT recus­ing him­self from the new inves­ti­ga­tion that was just opened. As Wal­ter Shaub Jr., the for­mer the head of the fed­er­al Office of Gov­ern­ment Ethics and a vir­u­lent Trump crit­ic, point­ed out, tech­ni­cal­ly Barr does­n’t have to recuse him­self from the new inves­ti­ga­tion because Epstein is cur­rent­ly be rep­re­sent­ed by a dif­fer­ent law firm. Shaub notes that it would still be pru­dent for Barr to recuse him­self, but he does­n’t actu­al­ly have to do it:

    Raw Sto­ry

    ‘Huh?’ Legal experts stunned after Bill Barr decides not to recuse him­self from cur­rent Jef­frey Epstein case

    By Eric W. Dolan
    on July 9, 2019

    U.S. Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bill Barr does not plan to recuse him­self from the cur­rent inves­ti­ga­tion into mul­ti-mil­lion­aire and con­vict­ed sex offend­er Jef­frey Epstein, accord­ing to sources who spoke to CNN and Fox News.

    A Depart­ment of Jus­tice offi­cial told CNN on Tues­day that “Bill Barr has con­sult­ed with career ethics offi­cials at DOJ and he will not recuse from cur­rent Epstein case.”

    Barr, how­ev­er, has recused him­self “from any review of the ear­li­er case in Flori­da,” in which Epstein received a con­tro­ver­sial plea deal.

    A DOJ offi­cial says Bill Barr has con­sult­ed with career ethics offi­cials at DOJ and he will not recuse from cur­rent Epstein case in NY, per @evanperez But he will remain recused from any review of the ear­li­er case in Flori­da bc of his ties with firm Kirk­land and Ellis— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 9, 2019

    NEW: DOJ offi­cial says that AG Barr will remain recused from any review of the 2008 #Epstein case due to past legal work, but after con­sult­ing with ethics offi­cials, he will NOT recuse from the cur­rent #Epstein case led at #SDNY— Brooke Singman (@brookefoxnews) July 9, 2019

    On Mon­day, Barr was quot­ed as say­ing: “I’m recused from that mat­ter because one of the law firms that rep­re­sent­ed Epstein long ago was a firm I sub­se­quent­ly joined for a peri­od of time.”

    CNN legal ana­lyst Elie Honig said Barr’s deci­sion not to recuse him­self from the cur­rent case was “trou­ble.”

    “I have zero con­fi­dence Barr will let this case play out in its nat­ur­al course if it should start to impli­cate or do col­lat­er­al dam­age to pow­er­ful, polit­i­cal­ly-con­nect­ed peo­ple,” he tweet­ed.

    This is trou­ble. I have zero con­fi­dence Barr will let this case play out in its nat­ur­al course if it should start to impli­cate or do col­lat­er­al dam­age to pow­er­ful, polit­i­cal­ly-con­nect­ed peo­ple. https://t.co/6ZuFfwKNTo— Elie Honig (@eliehonig) July 9, 2019

    ...

    But Wal­ter Shaub Jr., the for­mer the head of the fed­er­al Office of Gov­ern­ment Ethics, said that it was not nec­es­sary for Barr to recuse him­self from the cur­rent case.

    Barr’s for­mer firm, Kirk­land & Ellis, is a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of a par­ty in the ear­li­er case under review. That neces­si­tates recusal. But Epstein’s rep­re­sent­ed by Marc Fer­nich & Mar­tin Wein­berg in the cur­rent case, and they’re not with K&E. So recusal is not required in the new one.

    — Wal­ter Shaub (@waltshaub) July 9, 2019

    I’m only shar­ing what the ratio­nale of the DOJ ethics offi­cials would have been. I don’t trust Barr fur­ther than I can throw his house and would like to see him recused from any­thing even remote­ly in Trump’s per­son­al orbit. But such a recuse would be pru­den­tial and not manda­to­ry.

    — Wal­ter Shaub (@waltshaub) July 9, 2019

    ———-

    “‘Huh?’ Legal experts stunned after Bill Barr decides not to recuse him­self from cur­rent Jef­frey Epstein case” by Eric W. Dolan; Raw Sto­ry; 07/09/2019

    “I’m only shar­ing what the ratio­nale of the DOJ ethics offi­cials would have been. I don’t trust Barr fur­ther than I can throw his house and would like to see him recused from any­thing even remote­ly in Trump’s per­son­al orbit. But such a recuse would be pru­den­tial and not manda­to­ry.”

    That was Wal­ter Shaub’s take: he does­n’t trust Barr at all and a recusal would have been pru­dent, but it was­n’t manda­to­ry. The Trump admin­is­tra­tion does­n’t do pru­dent.

    So that’s all part of what makes this sto­ry so poten­tial­ly explo­sive. Just giv­en all the pub­licly avail­able facts it seems very plau­si­ble that a new and more vig­or­ous Epstein inves­ti­ga­tion could uncov­er all sorts of new evi­dence that leads back to Trump. At the same time, the pub­licly avail­able facts include the fact that the Attor­ney Gen­er­al is refus­ing to recuse him­self and poten­tial­ly has his own per­son­al stake in the inves­ti­ga­tion, sug­gest­ing that any new facts uncov­ered in this new inves­ti­ga­tion prob­a­bly aren’t going to become pub­lic facts. At least not if they involve Trump. Any new damn­ing Clin­ton-relat­ed facts will pre­sum­ably be wide­ly tout­ed.

    And in relat­ed news, the recent rape accu­sa­tions against Trump by E. Jean Car­roll are still large­ly being ignored by the media.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | July 9, 2019, 3:35 pm
  13. The reopen­ing of the inves­ti­ga­tion of Jef­frey Epstein rais­es a num­ber of poten­tial­ly explo­sive ques­tions, most notably the ques­tion of who among Epstein’s pow­er­ful friends was involved with Epstein’s under­age sex traf­fick­ing net­work. But as Josh Mar­shall notes in the fol­low­ing arti­cle, there’s anoth­er large mys­tery loom­ing over this case: How did Epstein become a bil­lion­aire? Because it turns out that no one has any idea where his bil­lions actu­al­ly came come:

    Talk­ing Points Memo
    Edi­tor’s Blog

    The Oth­er Epstein Issue

    By Josh Mar­shall
    July 10, 2019 12:29 pm

    We know the out­lines of charges that Jef­frey Epstein for years had pro­cur­ers recruit­ing under­aged girls for sex. We know the sus­pi­cions that var­i­ous wealthy and pow­er­ful men in his vast social cir­cle may have been part of this orga­nized sys­tem of statu­to­ry rape. But there’s anoth­er part of this emerg­ing sto­ry I want to focus your atten­tion on – one which is dis­tinct but may not at all be sep­a­rate.

    No one seems to have a clear idea of where Jef­frey Epstein’s mon­ey comes from.

    The pub­lic sto­ry, such as it is, is that Epstein is some kind of hedge fund man­ag­er or he man­ages cap­i­tal for peo­ple whose wealth is mea­sured in the bil­lions. But it’s not clear that that is real­ly true. Hedge funds are noto­ri­ous­ly opaque. When you oper­ate at that scale there are next to no dis­clo­sure require­ments, only qual­i­fied investors can par­tic­i­pate, and if you’re real­ly doing busi­ness with bil­lion­aires only that is a tiny, tiny com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple. He’s sup­pos­ed­ly one of those col­lege dropout math genius­es who sees the trad­ing and met­rics pat­terns no one else can and uses that skill to make mil­lions and bil­lions for his investors and lat­er him­self. (Epstein’s first job after drop­ping out of col­lege was being hired to teach math at New York’s elite Dal­ton School – bizarrely, hired by Bill Barr’s dad, the then-head­mas­ter.) But while there may not be much SEC dis­clo­sure, if you oper­ate with that amount of cap­i­tal it’s hard not to leave some foot­print, which will like­ly be vis­i­ble to oth­ers who play in those spaces. To be more con­crete, if you’re mak­ing an invest­ment move with hun­dreds of mil­lions or even bil­lions of dol­lars that’s going to leave a foot­print that peo­ple will see even if there’s no offi­cial or pub­lic dis­clo­sure.

    The sim­ple fact is that none of the hedge fund types and pri­vate wealth man­agers who cater to that scale of wealth have any clear idea where Epstein’s wealth comes from and they don’t seem to think he’s real­ly in the busi­ness they’re in. This is the gist of numer­ous arti­cles on the man. But this part of the sto­ry has always or until recent­ly been treat­ed as part of his air of mys­tery rather than a key ques­tion to be answered in a broad­er sto­ry of crim­i­nal activ­i­ty.

    Recent­ly Vicky Ward has revis­it­ed report­ing she did on Epstein in Van­i­ty Fair back in 2003. The focus of the fol­low up report­ing has been how she found out about the abuse and assault of under­aged girls and how and why Van­i­ty Fair cut that part of the sto­ry. But the orig­i­nal focus of the report­ing was on Epstein as a finan­cial wiz­ard. That part of the sto­ry is a sec­ondary but still impor­tant part of these fol­low up arti­cles. I’d rec­om­mend read­ing Ward’s piece in full. But the gist is that the more she poked into his sto­ry the finan­cial part of it just didn’t add up. She didn’t real­ly fig­ure out what he did or where he got his mon­ey. But the pub­lic sto­ry seemed to be lay­er upon lay­er of obfus­ca­tion and fronts.

    From one per­spec­tive, who cares? The point is his abuse of per­haps dozens or more girls and young women. Pre­cise­ly how he made his mon­ey doesn’t mat­ter. But the scale of the mon­ey is appar­ent­ly so vast, its ori­gins so intense­ly hid­den and the per­va­sive­ness of his polit­i­cal con­nec­tions so grand that I don’t think we can be sure they’re not relat­ed in some way. The amount of wealth and the obscu­ri­ty of its ori­gin are just too great to be the prod­uct of mere dis­cre­tion.

    ...

    Some have spec­u­lat­ed that far from being a hedge fun­der he ran some sort of pro­cure­ment ring for bil­lion­aires. But that doesn’t real­ly explain the full scale of the wealth. You could make a lot of mon­ey doing this but not bil­lions or even hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars. Nor is there a short­age of ways for extreme­ly wealthy peo­ple to pur­chase sex or sat­is­fy any vari­ety of bou­tique kinks or per­ver­sions. It just doesn’t add up as an expla­na­tion.

    Maybe the wealth is a sham? Maybe he’s a Trump-like fig­ure liv­ing a con­spic­u­ous­ly lux­u­ri­ous life but it’s all strung togeth­er with bail­ing wire and debt and sharp deal­ing? Maybe. The prob­lem with that the­o­ry is that Epstein appears to have been respon­si­ble for quite a lot of phil­an­thropy – donat­ing big mon­ey to elite uni­ver­si­ties, fund­ing sci­ence projects, all sorts of stuff. Per­haps this part of the equa­tion is also over­stat­ed and is less than it appears. But at least on its face Epstein seems to have account­ed for an amount of giv­ing that even on its own required vast wealth or access to vast wealth.

    Maybe it’s a Mad­off type sit­u­a­tion? A Ponzi scheme? Pos­si­bly and maybe no one would won’t to come for­ward now as one of his finan­cial vic­tims giv­en his noto­ri­ety. But as we saw with Mad­off scams on that mag­ni­tude leave a swathe of col­lat­er­al dam­age that’s hard to hide.

    I don’t want to get too far spec­u­lat­ing because it’s just that: spec­u­la­tion. I haven’t read up enough on this part of the sto­ry to know all the details. But even my incom­plete read­ing sug­gests that once you’ve read all of it it all adds up to no one real­ly knows where his mon­ey comes from. But I think it’s high­ly like­ly that the answer to this mys­tery of where his mon­ey came from will play a cen­tral part of the sto­ry itself, relat­ed in some deep way to the alleged sex­u­al crim­i­nal­i­ty now com­ing to light.
    95

    ———-

    “The Oth­er Epstein Issue” by Josh Mar­shall, Talk­ing Points Memo, 07/10/2019

    “The sim­ple fact is that none of the hedge fund types and pri­vate wealth man­agers who cater to that scale of wealth have any clear idea where Epstein’s wealth comes from and they don’t seem to think he’s real­ly in the busi­ness they’re in. This is the gist of numer­ous arti­cles on the man. But this part of the sto­ry has always or until recent­ly been treat­ed as part of his air of mys­tery rather than a key ques­tion to be answered in a broad­er sto­ry of crim­i­nal activ­i­ty.”

    So no one actu­al­ly knows how he became a bil­lion­aire. But there are hints. And one of those hints came from Alex Acos­ta, Trump’s Labor Sec­re­tary who was the fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor who cut the extreme­ly lenient 2008 deal with Epstein. Accord­ing to reporter Vicky Ward, who has report­ed on Epstein for year, she was told that the issue of the Epstein case came up when Acos­ta was being vet­ted by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion for the Labor Sec­re­tary posi­tion. Acos­ta alleged­ly told the Trump admin­is­tra­tion that he’d had just one meet­ing about the Epstein case and he was told to “back off” Epstein because Epstein “belonged to intel­li­gence”:

    Talk­ing Points Memo
    Edi­tor’s Blog

    “I Was Told Epstein ‘Belonged to Intel­li­gence’ And to Leave It Alone.”

    By Josh Mar­shall
    July 10, 2019 1:25 pm

    In my ear­li­er post I men­tioned the report­ing of Vicky Ward who did a lengthy piece on Epstein for Van­i­ty Fair in 2003 and is now revis­it­ing the sto­ry in The Dai­ly Beast. (Ward had a detailed ver­sion of the under­aged girls part of the sto­ry but Van­i­ty Fair cut that from the 2003 sto­ry.) I want­ed to flag your atten­tion to a pas­sage in her lat­est piece at The Dai­ly Beast which reports that Acos­ta told Trump tran­si­tion offi­cials that he’d been told to back off the Epstein case at the time and that that was why he gave Epstein such a gen­er­ous deal.

    Here’s the pas­sage …

    Epstein’s name, I was told, had been raised by the Trump tran­si­tion team when Alexan­der Acos­ta, the for­mer U.S. attor­ney in Mia­mi who’d infa­mous­ly cut Epstein a non-pros­e­cu­tion plea deal back in 2007, was being inter­viewed for the job of labor sec­re­tary. The plea deal put a hard stop to a sep­a­rate fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion of alleged sex crimes with minors and traf­fick­ing.

    “Is the Epstein case going to cause a prob­lem [for con­fir­ma­tion hear­ings]?” Acos­ta had been asked. Acos­ta had explained, breezi­ly, appar­ent­ly, that back in the day he’d had just one meet­ing on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-pros­e­cu­tion deal with one of Epstein’s attor­neys because he had “been told” to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intel­li­gence’ and to leave it alone,” he told his inter­view­ers in the Trump tran­si­tion, who evi­dent­ly thought that was a suf­fi­cient answer and went ahead and hired Acos­ta. (The Labor Depart­ment had no com­ment when asked about this.)

    It’s quite hard to know what to make of this claim. As one of my col­leagues just point­ed out to me the dia­log itself seems more out of Hol­ly­wood that some­thing you’d hear from a for­mer US Attor­ney. On it’s face this sounds like sec­ond or third hand infor­ma­tion, which puts some ques­tion over its reli­a­bil­i­ty and may explain the movie script dia­log. More impor­tant­ly, Acos­ta is hard­ly a reli­able fact wit­ness in this case. He has every rea­son to deflect respon­si­bil­i­ty for the deal he made with Epstein. Final­ly, it seems high­ly improb­a­ble that Epstein “belonged to intel­li­gence”.

    What does seem plau­si­ble though is that Epstein had many very high pro­file defend­ers and that this some­how trans­lat­ed into mes­sage to back off or to make the sit­u­a­tion go away with as lit­tle pub­lic­i­ty and pres­sure on Epstein as pos­si­ble. We can blame Acos­ta for the deal he cut. But that doesn’t explain why he did. Get­ting told to back off or hear­ing direct­ly from a bunch of Epstein’s high roller friends sounds like a log­i­cal sup­po­si­tion.

    ...

    ———-

    ““I Was Told Epstein ‘Belonged to Intel­li­gence’ And to Leave It Alone.”” by Josh Mar­shall, Talk­ing Points Memo, 07/10/2019

    ““Is the Epstein case going to cause a prob­lem [for con­fir­ma­tion hear­ings]?” Acos­ta had been asked. Acos­ta had explained, breezi­ly, appar­ent­ly, that back in the day he’d had just one meet­ing on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-pros­e­cu­tion deal with one of Epstein’s attor­neys because he had “been told” to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intel­li­gence’ and to leave it alone,” he told his inter­view­ers in the Trump tran­si­tion, who evi­dent­ly thought that was a suf­fi­cient answer and went ahead and hired Acos­ta. (The Labor Depart­ment had no com­ment when asked about this.)”

    “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intel­li­gence’ and to leave it alone.” That was what Acos­ta alleged­ly told the Trump tran­si­tion team and they found that to be an ade­quate answer. But is it a plau­si­ble answer? As Mar­shall points out, this recount­ing of Acosta’s vet­ting sounds like sec­ond or third hand infor­ma­tion, so we don’t actu­al­ly know that this is what hap­pened. And even if Acos­ta did make this claim to the tran­si­tion offi­cials we should­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly take that at face val­ue. What we do know is that Epstein had an abun­dance of pow­er­ful friends who no doubt want­ed to see the case qui­et­ly go away:

    ...
    It’s quite hard to know what to make of this claim. As one of my col­leagues just point­ed out to me the dia­log itself seems more out of Hol­ly­wood that some­thing you’d hear from a for­mer US Attor­ney. On it’s face this sounds like sec­ond or third hand infor­ma­tion, which puts some ques­tion over its reli­a­bil­i­ty and may explain the movie script dia­log. More impor­tant­ly, Acos­ta is hard­ly a reli­able fact wit­ness in this case. He has every rea­son to deflect respon­si­bil­i­ty for the deal he made with Epstein. Final­ly, it seems high­ly improb­a­ble that Epstein “belonged to intel­li­gence”.

    What does seem plau­si­ble though is that Epstein had many very high pro­file defend­ers and that this some­how trans­lat­ed into mes­sage to back off or to make the sit­u­a­tion go away with as lit­tle pub­lic­i­ty and pres­sure on Epstein as pos­si­ble. We can blame Acos­ta for the deal he cut. But that doesn’t explain why he did. Get­ting told to back off or hear­ing direct­ly from a bunch of Epstein’s high roller friends sounds like a log­i­cal sup­po­si­tion.
    ...

    Also note that Acos­ta just held a press con­fer­ence about his work on the Epstein case and he was direct­ly ques­tioned about his alleged claims that he was told to “back off” Epstein because he “belonged to intel­li­gence”. Acosta’s answer was sim­ply “I can’t address it direct­ly because of out guide­lines”. So he clear­ly dodged that ques­tion but it’s not obvi­ous why exact­ly he dodged the ques­tion.

    Next, here a piece that cov­ers some of the var­i­ous sce­nar­ios for how Epstein got his wealth. One sce­nario is a Ponzi scheme. Back in 2009, Busi­ness Insid­er not­ed mul­ti­ple red flags point­ing towards a Bernie Mad­off-style scheme. One of his ear­ly employ­ers in finance, Steve Hof­fen­berg, was con­vict­ed of run­ning one of the largest Ponzi schemes in U.S. his­to­ry. Adding to this spec­u­la­tion is the fact that Epstein was in jail dur­ing the 2008 finan­cial cri­sis and yet this some­how did­n’t destroy his finan­cial empire dur­ing this hyper-volatile time.

    As one of the lawyers for Epstein’s vic­tims dur­ing the 2008 tri­al notes, they were nev­er able to ever got sol­id doc­u­men­ta­tion of how much Epstein was actu­al­ly worth. The only known client for his finan­cial man­age­ment busi­ness was Lex Wexn­er, the founder of Vic­to­ri­a’s Secret. Vicky Ward sug­gest­ed that Wexn­er may be the real source of Epstein’s wealth. Adding to that spec­u­la­tion is the fact that Epstein pur­chase, or received, his Man­hat­tan town­house from Wexn­er in 1998, but there were no prop­er­ty records on the trans­fer until 2011 when the com­pa­ny Wexn­er used to the buy the place trans­ferred it to an Epstein-owned com­pa­ny for $0. Epstein signed the doc­u­ment for both sides.

    Anoth­er pos­si­ble source of Epstein’s wealth is black­mail. Specif­i­cal­ly, using the under­age girls to black­mail wealth asso­ciates and force them to invest their mon­ey through Epstein. This the­o­ry was backed by a 2015 court fil­ing by one of Epstein’s alleged vic­tims where she states that “Based on my knowl­edge of Epstein and his orga­ni­za­tion, as well as dis­cus­sions with the FBI, it is my belief that fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors like­ly pos­sess video­tapes and pho­to­graph­ic images of me as an under­age girl hav­ing sex with Epstein and some of his pow­er­ful friends.” She also claimed that Epstein “debriefed her” after she was forced into sex­u­al encoun­ters so that he could pos­sess “inti­mate and poten­tial­ly embar­rass­ing infor­ma­tion” to black­mail friends into park­ing their mon­ey with him. Relat­ed to this is the pos­si­bil­i­ty is he was involved with an off­shore mon­ey-laun­der­ing/­tax dodg­ing scheme. And, final­ly, there’s the intel­li­gence angle.

    So the avail­able evi­dence points towards a num­ber of dif­fer­ent, poten­tial­ly over­lap­ping, expla­na­tions for how Epstein got his immense wealth. All awful expla­na­tions:

    New York Mag­a­zine

    How Jef­frey Epstein Made His Mon­ey: Four Wild The­o­ries

    By Matt Stieb
    07/09/2019 7:23 P.M.

    Bil­lion­aire is a word that’s often thrown around when dis­cussing Jef­frey Epstein, but unlike some of his oth­er com­mon mod­i­fiers — con­vict­ed sex offend­er, pedophile — there’s scant proof as to his finan­cial bona fides. The bulk of Epstein’s wealth is believed to come from his mon­ey-man­age­ment firm for ten-fig­ure investors, although his only known client is Victoria’s Secret founder Les Wexn­er, who report­ed­ly ditched Epstein over a decade ago.

    After sex-traf­fick­ing charges were hand­ed down on Mon­day, exec­u­tive-suite financiers dis­cussed how absent Epstein was from the field: “He’s sup­posed to run an enor­mous FX [for­eign-exchange] trad­ing firm,” said Enrique Diaz-Alvarez, chief risk offi­cer at Ebury. “But I nev­er once heard of him or his firm or any­one who worked or trad­ed with him.” And as Forbes wrote in a 2010 blog post with a very direct title — “Sex Offend­er Jef­frey Epstein Is Not a Bil­lion­aire” — his mon­ey-man­age­ment firm based in the U.S. Vir­gin Islands “gen­er­ates no pub­lic records, nor has his client list ever been released.”

    As we wait for more infor­ma­tion to emerge in the investigation’s com­ing months, spec­u­la­tion is pour­ing out on how Epstein made his wealth. To make up for the lack of pub­lic infor­ma­tion on his rev­enue stream, peo­ple are turn­ing to unver­i­fied the­o­ries on how Epstein main­tained such a ster­ling finan­cial rep­u­ta­tion in addi­tion to his mil­lions. But first we’ll start with the knowns.

    Epstein’s mys­te­ri­ous career

    Accord­ing to a 2002 pro­file in New York — the one with the Trump quoteEpstein dropped out of Coop­er Union and NYU’s Courant Insti­tute of Math­e­mat­i­cal Sci­ences before find­ing a job teach­ing cal­cu­lus and physics at the Dal­ton School in the mid-1970s. Epstein was hired at the pres­ti­gious Man­hat­tan col­lege-prep insti­tu­tion by the father of Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Barr, and his stu­dents includ­ed the son of Bear Stearns chair­man Alan Green­berg. In 1976, Epstein joined Bear as a floor trader’s assis­tant, mak­ing part­ner in a mere four years. By 1981, he was out, set­ting up the J. Epstein & Co. mon­ey-man­age­ment busi­ness the next year. New York described his busi­ness strat­e­gy in 2002:

    He would take total con­trol of the bil­lion dol­lars, charge a flat fee, and assume pow­er of attor­ney to do what­ev­er he thought was nec­es­sary to advance his client’s finan­cial cause. And he remained true to the $1 bil­lion entry fee. Accord­ing to peo­ple who know him, if you were worth $700 mil­lion and felt the need for the ser­vices of Epstein and Co., you would receive a not-so-polite no-thank-you from Epstein.

    In Vicky Ward’s recent process piece on her report­ing of an Epstein pro­file for Van­i­ty Fair in 2003, she lays out some of her thoughts on the mat­ter of a pos­si­ble bene­fac­tor. In addi­tion to a claim from a Ponzi schemer that Epstein was kicked out of Bear Stearns in 1981 for “get­ting into trou­ble,” Ward sug­gests that Wexn­er may have helped bankroll the financier. Ward writes: “While Epstein’s friends spec­u­lat­ed that retail­er Les Wexn­er was the real source of Epstein’s wealth, Wexn­er (who called him ‘my friend Jef­frey’) nev­er com­ment­ed on this, though he did send me an email prais­ing Epstein’s ‘abil­i­ty to see pat­terns in pol­i­tics and finan­cial mar­kets.’”

    No one knows how much he’s worth

    Accord­ing to his lawyers, around the time of his noto­ri­ous plea deal in Flori­da in 2008, Epstein’s net worth was over nine fig­ures. The fig­ure was “a bone of con­tention with Epstein’s lawyers,” Spencer Kuvin, an attor­ney rep­re­sent­ing three of Epstein’s alleged vic­tims, told the Palm Beach Post in 2008. “In the lit­i­ga­tion itself we were nev­er able to get him to pro­duce ver­i­fied finan­cial infor­ma­tion. The ‘nine fig­ures’ came by nego­ti­a­tion. It kept going up and up and up. They start­ed at zero — they wouldn’t tell us at all.”

    As Bloomberg states, “Today, so lit­tle is known about Epstein’s cur­rent busi­ness or clients that the only things that can be val­ued with any cer­tain­ty are his prop­er­ties.” Accord­ing to a doc­u­ment sub­mit­ted in advance of Epstein’s bail hear­ing, his Man­hat­tan town­house is esti­mat­ed to be worth around $77 mil­lion. Then there are the prop­er­ties in New Mex­i­co, Paris, the U.S. Vir­gin Islands, his pri­vate jet, a fleet of 15 cars, and a Palm Beach com­pound esti­mat­ed at $12 mil­lion.

    But even the real-estate hold­ings have an air of mys­tery to them. Epstein pur­chased, or received, the Man­hat­tan town­house from Wexn­er around 1998. But there were no prop­er­ty records on the mansion’s trans­fer until 2011, when the com­pa­ny Wexn­er used to buy the place trans­ferred it to an Epstein-owned com­pa­ny for $0. Epstein signed the doc­u­ment for both sides.

    Finan­cial Con­spir­a­cy The­o­ry #1: Ponzi scheme

    A Ponzi scheme has been float­ed as a pos­si­ble source of Epstein’s wealth since as ear­ly as 2009, when Busi­ness Insid­er not­ed that mul­ti­ple red flags point­ed to a pos­si­ble Mad­off-like fraud. The secre­cy of his client list; the “admin­is­tra­tive” nature of all 150 of his employ­ees in 2002; the absolute con­trol over investors’ mon­ey, and the $1 bil­lion base­ment invest­ment required — all signs could point to Ponzi, although there’s no con­crete evi­dence. In the sto­ry, finance writer John Car­ney raised a vital ques­tion, con­sid­er­ing Epstein’s (lim­it­ed) time in jail dur­ing the 2008 finan­cial cri­sis: “How could Epstein’s one-man show not fall apart while he was in jail dur­ing one of the most volatile years in his­to­ry?”

    In addi­tion, one of his ear­ly employ­ers in finance, Steve Hof­fen­berg, was con­vict­ed of run­ning one of the largest pre-Mad­off Ponzi schemes in U.S. his­to­ry. Accord­ing to jour­nal­ist Vicky Ward, Hof­fen­berg brought on Epstein in 1981 after he left Bear Stearns. “He has a way of get­ting under your skin,” he told Ward. Hof­fen­berg paid Epstein $25,000 per month for his work as a con­sul­tant for Tow­ers Finan­cial, though Epstein had left well before Hof­fen­berg plead­ed guilty in 1994 to defraud­ing investors to the tune of $450 mil­lion. For years, it appeared Epstein had no expo­sure in the Tow­ers Finan­cial case, until 2018, when share­hold­ers filed a puta­tive class action suit against him for his alleged role in the Ponzi scheme. In a sep­a­rate New York state case in 2018, Hof­fen­berg report­ed­ly detailed Epstein’s alleged involve­ment in the scam.

    The­o­ry #2: Black­mail

    As the Inter­cept D.C. bureau chief Ryan Grim not­ed, a piece of evi­dence detailed in the SDNY’s deten­tion memo could hold a great deal of black­mail poten­tial:

    CD’s in Epstein’s safe labeled: “Young [Name] + [Name]“That looks an awful lot like they found the black­mail tapes https://t.co/4tR9Mya7lL— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) July 8, 2019

    And in a 2015 court fil­ing, alleged Epstein vic­tim Vir­ginia Roberts Giuf­fre claims that U.S. author­i­ties were in pos­ses­sion of footage of her hav­ing sex with mem­bers of Epstein’s elite friend group. “Based on my knowl­edge of Epstein and his orga­ni­za­tion, as well as dis­cus­sions with the FBI, it is my belief that fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors like­ly pos­sess video­tapes and pho­to­graph­ic images of me as an under­age girl hav­ing sex with Epstein and some of his pow­er­ful friends,” she said. Giuf­fre claimed that Epstein “debriefed her” after she was forced into sex­u­al encoun­ters so that he could pos­sess “inti­mate and poten­tial­ly embar­rass­ing infor­ma­tion” to black­mail friends into park­ing their mon­ey with him.

    The­o­ry #3: Epstein “Belonged to Intel­li­gence”

    One of the more mys­te­ri­ous quotes of this whole con­spir­a­cy-adja­cent mess comes from Alexan­der Acos­ta, the cur­rent Labor sec­re­tary, who arranged for Epstein to get off with just a wrist-slap in 2007, when he was a U.S. attor­ney. Accord­ing to Vicky Ward, when Acos­ta was being inter­viewed for the Labor sec­re­tary job, he was asked if his involve­ment in the Epstein case would be a prob­lem dur­ing his con­fir­ma­tion hear­ings.

    Acos­ta had explained, breezi­ly, appar­ent­ly, that back in the day he’d had just one meet­ing on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-pros­e­cu­tion deal with one of Epstein’s attor­neys because he had “been told” to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intel­li­gence’ and to leave it alone,” he told his inter­view­ers …

    Whether that’s the Amer­i­can intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty, the greater point-one-per­cent brain trust, or just a garbage excuse, the answer was good enough for the Trump admin­is­tra­tion to go for­ward with Acosta’s nom­i­na­tion.

    The­o­ry #4: Off­shore Tax Schemes / Mon­ey Laun­der­ing

    Because Epstein’s wealth is held off­shore and is shroud­ed in mys­tery, some spec­u­late that he may have made his mon­ey in tax schemes or mon­ey laun­der­ing. Accord­ing to a well-devel­oped, if fac­tu­al­ly void, pan-con­spir­acist take from finance Twitter’s Quant­ian, Epstein could have black­mailed his social cir­cle into invest­ing with him, then dumped the cash in an off­shore account to avoid tax­es. Or, sim­i­lar to the Ponzi scheme con­spir­a­cy — and, again, with­out basis in fact — there is so lit­tle paper­work on the funds that the whole thing could just be a rig for mon­ey laun­der­ing.

    ...

    ———-

    “How Jef­frey Epstein Made His Mon­ey: Four Wild The­o­ries” by Matt Stieb, New York Mag­a­zine, 07/09/2019

    “After sex-traf­fick­ing charges were hand­ed down on Mon­day, exec­u­tive-suite financiers dis­cussed how absent Epstein was from the field: “He’s sup­posed to run an enor­mous FX [for­eign-exchange] trad­ing firm,” said Enrique Diaz-Alvarez, chief risk offi­cer at Ebury. “But I nev­er once heard of him or his firm or any­one who worked or trad­ed with him.” And as Forbes wrote in a 2010 blog post with a very direct title — “Sex Offend­er Jef­frey Epstein Is Not a Bil­lion­aire” — his mon­ey-man­age­ment firm based in the U.S. Vir­gin Islands “gen­er­ates no pub­lic records, nor has his client list ever been released.”

    Epstein’s firm gen­er­at­ed no pub­lic records and nev­er released a client list. It’s mys­te­ri­ous. Black­mail? A Ponzi Scheme? Off­shore tax eva­sion and mon­ey-laun­der­ing? An intel­li­gence front? All of these above?

    Or was his only known client, Lex Wexn­er, the real source of his wealth? They def­i­nite­ly had some sort of unusu­al busi­ness rela­tion­ship:

    ...
    In Vicky Ward’s recent process piece on her report­ing of an Epstein pro­file for Van­i­ty Fair in 2003, she lays out some of her thoughts on the mat­ter of a pos­si­ble bene­fac­tor. In addi­tion to a claim from a Ponzi schemer that Epstein was kicked out of Bear Stearns in 1981 for “get­ting into trou­ble,” Ward sug­gests that Wexn­er may have helped bankroll the financier. Ward writes: “While Epstein’s friends spec­u­lat­ed that retail­er Les Wexn­er was the real source of Epstein’s wealth, Wexn­er (who called him ‘my friend Jef­frey’) nev­er com­ment­ed on this, though he did send me an email prais­ing Epstein’s ‘abil­i­ty to see pat­terns in pol­i­tics and finan­cial mar­kets.’”

    ...

    But even the real-estate hold­ings have an air of mys­tery to them. Epstein pur­chased, or received, the Man­hat­tan town­house from Wexn­er around 1998. But there were no prop­er­ty records on the mansion’s trans­fer until 2011, when the com­pa­ny Wexn­er used to buy the place trans­ferred it to an Epstein-owned com­pa­ny for $0. Epstein signed the doc­u­ment for both sides.
    ...

    Also note that Wexn­er has long been a GOP mega-donor. He and his wife donat­ed almost $2 mil­lion to the GOP between 2013 and 2018, includ­ing $500k to Jeb Bush in 2016. But Wexn­er became a ‘Nev­er-Trump’ mega-donor and offi­cial­ly left the Repub­li­can Par­ty last Sep­tem­ber. And that’s one of the poten­tial­ly inter­est­ing twists in all this: The Trump admin­is­tra­tion prob­a­bly real­ly hates Wexn­er at this point. Wexn­er lit­er­al­ly stopped being a GOP mega-donor specif­i­cal­ly because he hat­ed Trump so much. So while it remains to be seen how much we’re real­ly going to learn about Epstein’s back­ground, don’t be super sur­prised if very very lit­tle is released about how Epstein became a bil­lion­aire except for infor­ma­tion tying Epstein to Wexn­er.

    And regard­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Epstein could have been run­ning a child sex traf­fick­ing ring as part of an intel­li­gence front, this is also prob­a­bly a good time to recall the strange case of George Nad­er, the Mid­dle East­’s man of mys­tery who fig­ures so promi­nent­ly in the var­i­ous #TrumpRus­sia threads. Recall how Nad­er clear­ly worked with the US gov­ern­ment on sen­si­tive mat­ters going back to the 80s and was repeat­ed­ly caught with child pornog­ra­phy and yet kept get­ting lenient sen­tences (includ­ing a light sen­tence by the Czech gov­ern­ment). But back in June, Nad­er sud­den­ly faced new child porn charges over a dis­cov­ery inves­ti­ga­tors made last year. So as with Epstein, Nad­er was some­one with a track record for get­ting lenient treat­ment for child sex crimes but is now fac­ing new inves­ti­ga­tions. Now, there’s nev­er been any­thing to indi­cate that Nad­er was some­how incor­po­rat­ing child porn into his sen­si­tive gov­ern­ment work, as would be the case for Epstein if he was run­ning some sort of black­mail ring for intel­li­gence pur­pos­es. But at a min­i­mum, Nader’s sto­ry demon­strates the capac­i­ty for an offi­cial tol­er­ance of such activ­i­ties by peo­ple deemed to be doing impor­tant sen­si­tive work. So George Nad­er rep­re­sents anoth­er par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­turb­ing data point sug­gest­ing that Epstein may indeed have been involved in intel­li­gence work. The par­al­lels are hard to ignore.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | July 10, 2019, 2:51 pm
  14. Here’s an inter­est­ing new twist on the mys­tery of Jef­frey Epstein and the ques­tions of why he was giv­en a sweet­heart plea deal back in 2008. First, recall that Alex Acos­ta report­ed­ly told the Trump admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials who were vet­ting him for the Labor Sec­re­tary posi­tion that he gave Epstein that plea deal because he was told that Epstein “belonged to intel­li­gence.” Keep in mind that even if Epstein ‘belonged to intel­li­gence’ and that was the basis for his lenient treat­ment, that does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean he belonged to US intel­li­gence. He could have been work­ing with an allied intel­li­gence agency, with Israel or the UK being obvi­ous pos­si­bil­i­ties giv­en Epstein’s asso­ci­a­tions. And now we just learned a new detail about Epstein’s back­ground: When author­i­ties recent­ly raid­ed Epstein’s man­sion they found a safe con­tain­ing cash, dia­monds, and an expired fake for­eign-issued pass­port from the 80’s. The pass­port had Epstein’s pic­ture but a fake name. And it lists Sau­di Ara­bia as Epstein’s place of res­i­dence:

    Law & Crime

    Pros­e­cu­tors Reveal Jef­frey Epstein Had Fake Pass­port That List­ed Res­i­dence as Sau­di Ara­bia

    by Matt Naham | 11:43 am, July 15th, 2019

    Fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors con­tin­ue to reveal more and more infor­ma­tion about what was locked away in a safe at accused child sex-traf­fick­er Jef­frey Epstein’s Upper East Side man­sion. Pros­e­cu­tors said they were “made aware” on Mon­day that Epstein’s safe con­tained cash, dia­monds and an expired pass­port.

    The gov­ern­ment men­tioned this while mak­ing its case that Epstein should not be let out of jail ahead of tri­al, argu­ing that he is about as big of a flight risk as there is.

    Although the pass­port was issued in the ’80s and is cur­rent­ly expired, oth­er details about it raised some eye­brows. For one, the pass­port has a pho­to that appears to be of Epstein, but it has a dif­fer­ent name on it. Sec­ond­ly, it was a for­eign-issued pass­port and list­ed his res­i­dence as Sau­di Ara­bia.

    SDNY says they learned today that Epstein had in a locked safe a for­eign pass­port issued in the 1980s, expired, with a pho­to that appears to be Epstein and a name that is not his. It also gives his place of res­i­dence as Sau­di Ara­bia.

    — eri­ca orden (@eorden) July 15, 2019

    Epstein was also said to have “piles of cash” in that safe.

    NEW: As part of the raid at Epstein’s NYC man­sion author­i­ties found in a locked safe “piles of cash, dozens of dia­monds” and a for­eign pass­port, issued in the 1980s. It is expired, lists his res­i­dence Sau­di Ara­bia, and has a pho­to that appears to be him. https://t.co/InC6iiaqS3

    — Per­vaiz Shall­wani (@Pervaizistan) July 15, 2019

    It’s not clear if this was the same safe (or if there are oth­er safes) that author­i­ties said con­tained thou­sands of lewd images of young girls. The images were found dur­ing a raid that occurred as Epstein was arrest­ed at Teter­boro Air­port on July 6. Author­i­ties said they found “at least hundreds–and per­haps thousands–of sex­u­al­ly sug­ges­tive pho­tographs of ful­ly-or par­tial­ly nude females.” Pros­e­cu­tors said some of the images appeared to be of under­age girls. “[A]t least one girl, who accord­ing to her coun­sel, was under­age at the time the rel­e­vant pho­tographs were tak­en,” they said.

    Pros­e­cu­tors have admit­ted that they have no idea how Epstein made his for­tune, but said Fri­day that an unnamed finan­cial institution’s records showed Epstein is worth more than $500 mil­lion. They argued that if Epstein is let out ahead of tri­al he would be in the wind posthaste.

    “[T]here would be lit­tle to stop the defen­dant from flee­ing, trans­fer­ring his unknown assets abroad, and then con­tin­u­ing to do what­ev­er it is he does to earn his vast wealth from a com­put­er ter­mi­nal beyond the reach of extra­di­tion,” pros­e­cu­tors said.

    ...

    ———-

    “Pros­e­cu­tors Reveal Jef­frey Epstein Had Fake Pass­port That List­ed Res­i­dence as Sau­di Ara­bia” by Matt Naham; Law & Crime; 07/15/2019

    “Although the pass­port was issued in the ’80s and is cur­rent­ly expired, oth­er details about it raised some eye­brows. For one, the pass­port has a pho­to that appears to be of Epstein, but it has a dif­fer­ent name on it. Sec­ond­ly, it was a for­eign-issued pass­port and list­ed his res­i­dence as Sau­di Ara­bia.

    So was there a Sau­di con­nec­tion to Epstein’s child sex traf­fick­ing ring? Recall the evi­dence sug­gest­ing that the dis­ap­pear­ance of Pol­ly Klaas was part of an elite Sau­di child-sex traf­fick­ing ring that spe­cial­ized in pro­vid­ing under­age white West­ern girls for Sau­di elites. Was Epstein’s oper­a­tion involved with some­thing like that? To put it anoth­er way, would a fake pass­port that gives a fake name and lists Sau­di Ara­bia as his place of res­i­dence be help­ful for get­ting out of a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion if the Sau­di gov­ern­ment was­n’t in on the scam to back it up if need be?

    Keep in mind that, thus far, the reports about Epstein’s asso­ciates ser­viced by his under­age vic­tims haven’t includ­ed ref­er­ences to a large num­ber of Saud­is or trips to Sau­di Ara­bia. But giv­en the nature of that ini­tial sweet­heart plea deal and Acosta’s ref­er­ence to Epstein “belong­ing to intel­li­gence”, it’s pos­si­ble that such evi­dence would have been kept from the pub­lic so far.

    And note that, while the ques­tion of how Epstein made his for­tune remains large­ly a mys­tery, at least one unnamed finan­cial insti­tu­tion has con­firmed that Epstein is cur­rent­ly worth more than $500 mil­lion. So he’s man­aged to main­tain quite a for­tune in the decade fol­low­ing his ini­tial 2008 plea deal:

    ...
    Pros­e­cu­tors have admit­ted that they have no idea how Epstein made his for­tune, but said Fri­day that an unnamed finan­cial institution’s records showed Epstein is worth more than $500 mil­lion. They argued that if Epstein is let out ahead of tri­al he would be in the wind posthaste.

    “[T]here would be lit­tle to stop the defen­dant from flee­ing, trans­fer­ring his unknown assets abroad, and then con­tin­u­ing to do what­ev­er it is he does to earn his vast wealth from a com­put­er ter­mi­nal beyond the reach of extra­di­tion,” pros­e­cu­tors said.
    ...

    Also note that while the iden­ti­ty of this unnamed finan­cial insti­tu­tion that con­firmed Epstein’s wealth remains a mys­tery, we have learned about one insti­tu­tion in par­tic­u­lar that would be well placed to know such things: It turns out Deutsche Bank recent­ly sev­ered its rela­tion­ship with Epstein:

    Bloomberg

    Deutsche Bank End­ed Its Rela­tion­ship With Jef­frey Epstein This Year

    By Tom Met­calf and Matt Robin­son
    July 10, 2019, 4:27 PM CDT
    Updat­ed on July 11, 2019, 6:28 AM CDT

    Deutsche Bank AG sev­ered busi­ness ties with Jef­frey Epstein ear­li­er this year, just as fed­er­al author­i­ties were prepar­ing to charge the dis­graced financier with oper­at­ing a sex-traf­fick­ing ring of under­age girls out of his opu­lent homes in Man­hat­tan and Palm Beach.

    The Ger­man bank, itself a sub­ject of unre­lat­ed gov­ern­ment inves­ti­ga­tions, closed Epstein’s accounts over sev­er­al months, accord­ing to a per­son famil­iar with the sit­u­a­tion, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied dis­cussing pri­vate mat­ters.

    It’s unclear how much mon­ey was involved or how long Epstein was a cus­tomer of Deutsche Bank, which main­tained the accounts long after he was con­vict­ed of sex crimes more than a decade ago. A com­pa­ny spokesman in New York declined to com­ment.

    ...

    The rev­e­la­tion of the closed accounts adds to the mys­tery sur­round­ing Epstein’s sup­posed for­tune. Despite his lav­ish lifestyle and rich acquain­tances, the extent of his wealth — and how he acquired it — remains unclear. He left Bear Stearns in 1981 to set up his own firm after a swift rise at the invest­ment bank. While he report­ed­ly man­aged mon­ey for bil­lion­aires for decades, his trades, if any, have attract­ed lit­tle atten­tion from most mar­ket play­ers despite an out­size lifestyle fea­tur­ing pri­vate jets and lux­u­ry homes. He was arrest­ed on the week­end after return­ing from Paris on his Gulf­stream G550.

    Still, some details about his busi­ness deal­ings have emerged.

    Epstein served as a direc­tor to Leon Black’s fam­i­ly foun­da­tion from 2001. He resigned in July 2007 at the family’s request and has not been affil­i­at­ed with or per­formed any duties for the Foun­da­tion since that date,” a spokes­woman for the pri­vate equi­ty executive’s foun­da­tion said in an emailed state­ment. His name mis­tak­en­ly appeared on dis­clo­sure forms filed with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment from 2008 to 2012, she said.

    His Finan­cial Trust Co. had a $121 mil­lion invest­ment in hedge fund firm DB Zwirn & Co., which shut down in 2008. Finan­cial Trust also was also a major investor in Bear Stearns’s High-Grade Struc­tured Cred­it Strate­gies Enhanced Lever­age Fund, whose col­lapse helped ignite the glob­al finan­cial cri­sis.

    So lit­tle is known about Epstein’s cur­rent busi­ness or clients that the only things that can be val­ued with any cer­tain­ty are his prop­er­ties. The Man­hat­tan man­sion is esti­mat­ed to be worth at least $77 mil­lion, accord­ing to a fed­er­al doc­u­ment sub­mit­ted in advance of his bail hear­ing.

    ...

    ———-

    “Deutsche Bank End­ed Its Rela­tion­ship With Jef­frey Epstein This Year by Tom Met­calf and Matt Robin­son; Bloomberg; 07/10/2019

    “The Ger­man bank, itself a sub­ject of unre­lat­ed gov­ern­ment inves­ti­ga­tions, closed Epstein’s accounts over sev­er­al months, accord­ing to a per­son famil­iar with the sit­u­a­tion, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied dis­cussing pri­vate mat­ters.”

    Yep, just a few months ago, Deutsche Bank decides to end its rela­tion­ship with Epstein. Keep in mind that the renewed scruti­ny over Alex Acosta’s sweet­heart plea deal with Epstein start­ed back in Novem­ber, so the bank was pre­sum­ably react­ing to those reports and the expec­ta­tion that more bad press was com­ing for Epstein.

    And note that this was Deutsche Bank’s noto­ri­ous­ly cor­rupt pri­vate-bank­ing unit that was work­ing with Epstein. Recall that Deutsche Bank’s pri­vate bank­ing unit was report­ed­ly so scan­dalous lax in its enforce­ment of laws regard­ing mon­ey-laun­der­ing that a num­ber of employ­ees have becom­ing whis­tle-blow­ers. So learn­ing that the most cor­rupt unit in Deutsche Bank was work­ing with Epstein until only recent­ly does add some clar­i­ty to the sit­u­a­tion in the sense that it makes it more clear that there was some­thing very shady like­ly going on with his finances in recent years too. There was already the mys­tery of how he made his for­tune and now there’s a mys­tery of what he did with the mon­ey after he made it. Two mys­ter­ies that could be very inter­twined if he was essen­tial­ly offer­ing mon­ey-laun­der­ing/­tax eva­sion ser­vices for his clients as has been spec­u­lat­ed.

    So as we can see, this is one of those sto­ries where, the more we learn, the more we learn about a coverup and the larg­er that coverup appears to get. It’s the kind of sto­ry that unfor­tu­nate­ly means we prob­a­bly won’t ever real­ly learn what was going on. Espe­cial­ly if it involved a sweet­heart deal for an intel­li­gence-pro­tect­ed Sau­di-con­nect­ed under­age sex traf­fick­ing ring.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | July 15, 2019, 12:45 pm
  15. @Pterrafractyl–

    Sau­di Ara­bia!

    Inter­est­ing.

    Maybe he was involved with, or adja­cent to, some of the things men­tioned at the con­clu­sion of FTR 31001.

    https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-1001-further-reflections-on-weaponized-feminism-and-the-metoo-movement/

    Best,

    Dave

    Posted by Dave Emory | July 15, 2019, 5:30 pm
  16. @Dave: There was a recent NY Times piece that includ­ed descrip­tions from guests of Jef­frey Epstein’s Man­hat­tan town­house last year. The walls were cov­ered with pho­tos of peo­ple Epstein had met. He appar­ent­ly specif­i­cal­ly point­ed out his pho­to of Sau­di Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmon to one of the guests.

    And now we’ve learned the coun­try that issued Epstein’s pass­port: Aus­tria. Intrigu­ing­ly, while the name on the pass­port is fake, accord­ing to the fol­low­ing arti­cle, pros­e­cu­tors still haven’t estab­lished whether or not the pass­port is actu­al­ly fake or was indeed issued by the Aus­tri­an gov­ern­ment:

    The Dai­ly Beast

    Jef­frey Epstein Had ‘Piles of Cash,’ Dia­monds, Aus­tri­an Pass­port in Safe

    Pros­e­cu­tors are argu­ing he should be held with­out bail until tri­al because he’s a flight risk.

    Per­vaiz Shall­wani
    Kate Briquelet
    Tra­cy Con­nor
    Updat­ed 07.16.19 7:13PM ET / Pub­lished 07.15.19 10:19AM ET

    FBI agents found “piles of cash,” dozens of dia­monds and an expired for­eign pass­port in Jef­frey Epstein’s when they raid­ed his Man­hat­tan man­sion last week, pros­e­cu­tors revealed Mon­day.

    Pros­e­cu­tors said the pass­port was issued by Aus­tria, was dat­ed in the 1980s, and gave a res­i­dence in Sau­di Ara­bia. It was not issued under Epstein’s name but did have what appeared to be a pho­to of him. Pros­e­cu­tors have not deter­mined if it was issued by the gov­ern­ment or is a fake, they said.

    The safe’s con­tents were dis­closed dur­ing a bail hear­ing at which prosecutors—and accusers—argued that Epstein is a flight risk and should be kept locked up until his sex-traf­fick­ing tri­al.

    “I was sex­u­al­ly abused by Jef­frey Epstein start­ing at age 14,” accuser Court­ney Wild told the court. “I would just like the court to not to grant him bond, just for the safe­ty of any oth­er girls out there. He is a scary per­son to have walk­ing the streets.”

    Anoth­er woman, Annie Farmer, said she was 16 when she met Epstein and he flew her to New Mex­i­co. “He was inap­pro­pri­ate with me,” she said.

    Farmer’s old­er sis­ter, Maria, claimed in an affi­davit in April that Epstein had abused her under­age sis­ter in New Mex­i­co and also accused Epstein and his alleged madam, socialite Ghis­laine Maxwell, of rap­ing her at bil­lion­aire Les Wexner’s Ohio Man­sion. The retail mogul Wexn­er is Epstein’s only known client. He did not respond to Maria Farmer’s alle­ga­tions.

    Jour­nal­ist Vicky Ward has said that the Farmer sis­ters and their moth­er tried to warn about Epstein’s sex­u­al pre­da­tions in 2003 for her now-famous pro­file of the financier for Van­i­ty Fair, but that edi­tor Gray­don Carter cut the alle­ga­tions from the final piece. (Carter has claimed that he did­n’t “have con­fi­dence” in Ward’s report­ing at the time.)

    Epstein, 66, look­ing fatigued and wear­ing navy-blue jail garb, stared blankly ahead for most of the hear­ing.

    He has been held at the fed­er­al Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter in Man­hat­tan since his July 6 arrest but has asked to be released and put on house arrest with armed guards and sur­veil­lance.

    Pros­e­cu­tors said that was inad­e­quate to make sure he would not skip town.

    “The defen­dant is ask­ing for spe­cial treat­ment to build his own jail,” Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney Alex Ross­miller told the court, adding that Epstein has “vast assets and every incen­tive in the world to use those assets.”

    Bank doc­u­ments the gov­ern­ment got last week show Epstein has $110 mil­lion in a sin­gle account—and anoth­er $400 mil­lion in var­i­ous hold­ings, Ross­miller not­ed.

    A fed­er­al pro­ba­tion office agrees with pros­e­cu­tors that Epstein should be detained, but U.S. Dis­trict Judge Richard Berman said he has not decid­ed whether to grant bail and won’t announce a rul­ing until Thurs­day.

    He told the defense he is not sat­is­fied with the finan­cial infor­ma­tion that Epstein filed under seal, which amount­ed to “less than a page,” and is inclined to make it pub­lic.

    Epstein’s team said the bail sub­mis­sion was “admit­ted­ly rough.” But, attor­ney Mar­tin Wein­berg added, “Let me be blunt, what­ev­er bond you want Mr. Epstein to sign... he will sign. He ful­ly intends to appear.”

    To bol­ster his argu­ment that Epstein should be allowed to await tri­al on house arrest in what pros­e­cu­tors referred to as his “gild­ed cage,” Wein­berg dropped the names of two of the biggest finan­cial vil­lains in mod­ern U.S. his­to­ry who got bail: Ponzi schemer Bernie Mad­off and Enron felon Jef­frey Skilling.

    “He’s not an out-of-con­trol rapist,” Wein­berg said of his client.

    “How do you know that?” Judge Berman retort­ed.

    Monday’s hear­ing fol­lowed a flur­ry of fil­ings in which Epstein’s defense team and fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors dueled over whether the filthy-rich financier would go on the lam if he was released.

    The gov­ern­ment argued that Epstein’s inter­na­tion­al con­nec­tions and wealth meant it would be easy for him to get beyond the arm of the law.

    Even if he didn’t turn fugi­tive, pros­e­cu­tors argued, Epstein has a his­to­ry of wit­ness-tam­per­ing, includ­ing wiring $350,000 late last year to two alleged accom­plices after the Mia­mi Her­ald pub­lished its expose on his Flori­da plea deal.

    Epstein’s attor­neys, on the oth­er hand, have argued that the indict­ment unsealed last week is so flim­sy that their client, who plead­ed not guilty, has no rea­son not to fight the charges.

    “You don’t pun­ish first and have a tri­al sec­ond,” Wein­berg told the judge.

    Epstein has offered up a bail pack­age that includ­ed armed guards and sur­veil­lance cam­eras, a GPS ankle mon­i­tor, and a “trustee” who would live in the sev­en-sto­ry man­sion and report back to the feds.

    Epstein had just returned from France—where he has a lux­u­ry apart­ment on one of the showiest boule­vards in Paris—when the FBI swooped down a week ago and arrest­ed him at Teter­boro Air­port in New Jer­sey.

    ...

    Editor’s note: The sto­ry has been updat­ed to cor­rect the ori­gin of the pass­port found in Epstein’s safe. Pros­e­cu­tors ini­tial­ly told The Dai­ly Beast that it was from Sau­di Ara­bia but on Tues­day said it was Aus­tri­an.

    ———–

    “Jef­frey Epstein Had ‘Piles of Cash,’ Dia­monds, Aus­tri­an Pass­port in Safe” by Per­vaiz Shall­wani, Kate Briquelet, Tra­cy Con­nor; The Dai­ly Beast; 07/15/2019

    Pros­e­cu­tors said the pass­port was issued by Aus­tria, was dat­ed in the 1980s, and gave a res­i­dence in Sau­di Ara­bia. It was not issued under Epstein’s name but did have what appeared to be a pho­to of him. Pros­e­cu­tors have not deter­mined if it was issued by the gov­ern­ment or is a fake, they said.

    So it’s entire­ly pos­si­ble the Aus­tri­an gov­ern­ment actu­al­ly issued this pass­port with a fake name. Accord­ing to the fol­low­ing arti­cle, the pass­port expired 32 years ago (around 1987). So it was pre­sum­ably issued some time in the ear­ly 80s. Accord­ing to Epstein’s lawyers, he got the Aus­tri­an pass­port to ward off hijack­ers and ter­ror­ists while trav­el­ing in the Mid­dle East because his Jew­ish ances­try and immense wealth made him a tar­get. Based on that, it sounds like Epstein was spend­ing quite a bit of time in the Mid­dle East in the 80’s:

    NBC News

    Jef­frey Epstein’s lawyers: He had a doc­tored pass­port to ward off hijack­ers, ter­ror­ists
    Pros­e­cu­tors revealed the exis­tence of the pass­port at a Mon­day bail hear­ing, argu­ing that it demon­strat­ed the accused sex traf­fick­er was a flight risk.

    By Tom Win­ter and Rich Schapiro
    July 16, 2019, 6:03 PM CDT

    Jef­frey Epstein’s lawyers offered an unusu­al expla­na­tion for a pass­port found in his home with his pho­to and a dif­fer­ent name on it, say­ing he obtained the trav­el doc­u­ment years ago to ward off “kid­napers, hijack­ers and ter­ror­ists.”

    “The pass­port was for per­son­al pro­tec­tion in the event of trav­el to dan­ger­ous areas, only to be pre­sent­ed to poten­tial kid­napers, hijack­ers or ter­ror­ists should vio­lent episodes occur,” his lawyers wrote in court papers Tues­day, say­ing that Epstein’s Jew­ish faith and ample finances made him a tar­get in the Mid­dle East.

    Fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors revealed the exis­tence of the pass­port at a Mon­day bail hear­ing, argu­ing that it demon­strat­ed Epstein was a flight risk and should remain behind bars. The pros­e­cu­tors said the expired pass­port was issued in the 1980s and indi­cat­ed that Epstein was liv­ing in Sau­di Ara­bia.

    In the court papers filed Tues­day, Epstein’s lawyers said the trav­el doc­u­ment came from Aus­tria and had expired 32 years ago.

    “The gov­ern­ment offers noth­ing to sug­gest – and cer­tain­ly no evi­dence – that Epstein ever used it,” his lawyers said. “In any case, Epstein – an afflu­ent mem­ber of the Jew­ish faith – acquired the pass­port in the 1980s, when hijack­ings were preva­lent, in con­nec­tion to Mid­dle East trav­el.”

    Epstein, 66, is fac­ing up to 45 years in prison if con­vict­ed on charges of oper­at­ing a sex traf­fick­ing ring and prey­ing on under­age girls as young as 14. He has plead­ed not guilty.

    His lawyers have request­ed that he be allowed to remain at his $77 mil­lion Man­hat­tan home with elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing as the case pro­ceeds.

    At the Mon­day bail hear­ing, pros­e­cu­tors told U.S. Dis­trict Judge Richard Berman that, in addi­tion to the pass­port, fed­er­al agents found piles of cash and dozens of dia­monds inside a safe in his town­house.

    In court papers filed Tues­day, the pros­e­cu­tors detailed the dis­cov­ery: $70,000 in cash and 48 loose dia­monds rang­ing from 1 to 2.38 carats.

    “Such ready cash and loose dia­monds are con­sis­tent with the capa­bil­i­ty to leave the juris­dic­tion at a moment’s notice,” pros­e­cu­tors say.

    Berman is slat­ed to decide on Epstein’s bail request on Thurs­day.

    The wealthy financier was fac­ing sim­i­lar alle­ga­tions in 2007 when he signed a con­tro­ver­sial non-pros­e­cu­tion deal in Flori­da that allowed him to dodge the prospect of a long fed­er­al prison sen­tence.

    Epstein ulti­mate­ly plead­ed guilty to state charges of solic­it­ing minors for pros­ti­tu­tion, and served a 13-month sen­tence in a Flori­da coun­ty jail. He was also ordered to pay resti­tu­tion to his vic­tims and reg­is­ter as a sex offend­er.

    ...

    ———-

    “Jef­frey Epstein’s lawyers: He had a doc­tored pass­port to ward off hijack­ers, ter­ror­ists” ny Tom Win­ter and Rich Schapiro; NBC News; 07/16/2019

    ““The pass­port was for per­son­al pro­tec­tion in the event of trav­el to dan­ger­ous areas, only to be pre­sent­ed to poten­tial kid­napers, hijack­ers or ter­ror­ists should vio­lent episodes occur,” his lawyers wrote in court papers Tues­day, say­ing that Epstein’s Jew­ish faith and ample finances made him a tar­get in the Mid­dle East.

    That sure sounds like Epstein was doing a lot of Mid­dle East­ern trav­el in the ear­ly to mid-80s. Recall that Epstein joined Bear Stearns in 1976 and left to start his own firm in 1981 to run in firm with hard­ly any pub­licly known clients. So the 1980s was a par­tic­u­lar­ly mys­te­ri­ous decade in Epstein’s back­ground that now includes an appar­ent large num­ber of trips to the Mid­dle East:

    ...
    In the court papers filed Tues­day, Epstein’s lawyers said the trav­el doc­u­ment came from Aus­tria and had expired 32 years ago.

    “The gov­ern­ment offers noth­ing to sug­gest – and cer­tain­ly no evi­dence – that Epstein ever used it,” his lawyers said. “In any case, Epstein – an afflu­ent mem­ber of the Jew­ish faith – acquired the pass­port in the 1980s, when hijack­ings were preva­lent, in con­nec­tion to Mid­dle East trav­el.”
    ...

    Now here’s an arti­cle from 2013 that describes Aus­tria as the Euro­pean coun­try most will­ing to basi­cal­ly sell pass­ports to the super-rich. Epstein’s pass­port was issued in the 80’s so it’s pos­si­ble Aus­tri­a’s cur­rent lax pass­port pol­i­cy isn’t reflec­tive of Aus­tri­a’s poli­cies at the time Epstein got the pass­port. But it seems like a pret­ty good bet that Aus­tria was sell­ing pass­ports back in the 80’s too if they’re doing it today:

    Deutsche-Welle

    Euro­pean cit­i­zen­ship: sold to the super wealthy

    The island nation of Mal­ta plans to start sell­ing cit­i­zen­ship to rich for­eign­ers. Wealth is a fac­tor that pro­vides clear advan­tages for get­ting a sec­ond pass­port in oth­er Euro­pean Union coun­tries as well.

    Julia Mah­ncke, Chris­t­ian Ignatzi
    15.11.2013

    Mon­ey can indeed buy hap­pi­ness, at least if the def­i­n­i­tion of hap­pi­ness involves cit­i­zen­ship in a Euro­pean Union coun­try. A pass­port from an EU mem­ber state is use­ful for peo­ple from cri­sis-torn regions, non-Euro­peans who live and work in Europe, and even to peo­ple who want to trav­el the globe. Bypassed visa require­ments with­in Europe also make it eas­i­er to do busi­ness on the con­ti­nent, if a per­son has an EU pass­port.

    Mal­ta is the most recent EU coun­try that has start­ed offer­ing to sell its cit­i­zen­ship — the new iden­ti­fi­ca­tion doc­u­ment will cost 650,000 euros. Mal­tese Prime Min­is­ter Joseph Mus­cat is hop­ing this will bring more mon­ey — and rich peo­ple — to the coun­try. It’s expect­ed that 200 to 300 peo­ple will apply each year.

    Mus­cat esti­mat­ed that 45 sold pass­ports would be sold in the first year bring­ing in around 30 mil­lion euros ($40 mil­lion). The polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion in Mal­ta has crit­i­cized the scheme for ben­e­fit­ting Russ­ian oli­garchs who would nei­ther have to live on the island nor invest mon­ey there.

    Rights with­out respon­si­bil­i­ties

    Menderes Can­dan, an expert in migra­tion com­plet­ing his doc­tor­ate at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mün­ster in Ger­many, said he finds the con­cept of sell­ing cit­i­zen­ship prob­lem­at­ic. “While rich peo­ple are able to sim­ply buy cit­i­zen­ship, there are a num­ber of refugees on Mal­ta who have sought in vain to get into the coun­try, and who aren’t doing well,” Can­dan said.

    Jan Philipp Albrecht, a Mem­ber of Euro­pean Par­lia­ment from the Ger­man Greens par­ty, also point­ed out that many peo­ple who have put their roots in Europe are still wait­ing for cit­i­zen­ship from a Euro­pean coun­try. “The allo­ca­tion must be equal for all,” he told DW.

    Can­dan added that cur­rent Mal­tese cit­i­zens won’t ben­e­fit from the pol­i­cy, for exam­ple through col­lec­tion of tax­es. “Cit­i­zen­ship involves not only rights, but respon­si­bil­i­ties. But I can’t imag­ine that for­eign investors will be held to this,” he said.

    Investor-cit­i­zens

    Nicos Anas­tasi­ades, the pres­i­dent of Cyprus, announced his inten­tion to grant cit­i­zen­ship to investors in April 2013. In order to receive a Cypri­ot pass­port, for­eign­ers would have to pay 3 mil­lion euros.

    In mak­ing this announce­ment, Anas­tasi­ades — ref­er­enc­ing poten­tial loss­es from EU bailout mea­sures — was attempt­ing to pla­cate Russ­ian busi­ness­men at their annu­al finan­cial meet­ing in the south­ern Cypri­ot city of Limas­sol. Before then, it had been pos­si­ble to “pur­chase” a Cypri­ot pass­port, but that cost 15 mil­lion euros in invest­ment over five years.

    Albrecht called such rules “inap­pro­pri­ate,” and said he would pre­fer a com­mon immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy for all Euro­pean coun­tries. “I find it espe­cial­ly alarm­ing that EU mem­ber states can grant cit­i­zen­ship so arbi­trar­i­ly,” he said.

    Dif­fer­ing rules

    At present, the immi­gra­tion poli­cies of var­i­ous EU coun­tries dif­fer great­ly. Until 2001, Ire­land also allowed for­eign investors to gain cit­i­zen­ship fair­ly eas­i­ly. But now it takes a 500,000 euro invest­ment in a pub­lic project in the fields of edu­ca­tion, health, art or sports to receive a guar­an­teed res­i­den­cy per­mit.

    In Por­tu­gal, immi­gra­tion remains con­nect­ed to real estate pur­chas­es. Spain is also con­sid­er­ing a sim­i­lar plan: for a min­i­mum of 160,000 euros, a new home­own­er can receive per­ma­nent res­i­den­cy. In Hun­gary, pur­chase of gov­ern­ment bonds open the way to a new home coun­try. Many of those inter­est­ed — in addi­tion to Rus­sians — come from Chi­na and India.

    But Aus­tria remains the Euro­pean coun­try that does the most to gain well-to-do poten­tial cit­i­zens. The gov­ern­ment is per­mit­ted by law to grant cit­i­zen­ship to those for­eign­ers “who have already made and are expect­ed to make extra­or­di­nary achieve­ments in the inter­est of the repub­lic.” Accord­ing to media reports, a Sau­di hotel investor and Russ­ian singer Anna Netre­bko met these cri­te­ria and received Aus­tri­an pass­ports.

    Bought cit­i­zen­ship the excep­tion

    Diet­rich Thrän­hardt, an immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy expert and pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mün­ster, also con­sid­ered such arrange­ments prob­lem­at­ic. “But they don’t threat­en the EU,” he told DW, adding that only a small num­ber of peo­ple gain cit­i­zen­ship this way.

    Accord­ing to infor­ma­tion from Aus­tria, no for­eign investors received cit­i­zen­ship in 2012. The year before, 23 peo­ple were able to make use of the spe­cial clause in Aus­tri­an immi­gra­tion law.

    In the entire EU, Aus­tria places the high­est hur­dles against those who seek to gain Euro­pean cit­i­zen­ship via con­ven­tion­al routes, Thrän­hardt added. He said the coun­try is known for its high fees and long waits. He point­ed out that across the EU, the process is made eas­i­er for those with mon­ey.

    ...

    ———

    “Euro­pean cit­i­zen­ship: sold to the super wealthy” by Julia Mah­ncke, Chris­t­ian Ignatzi; Deutsche-Welle; 11/15/2013

    But Aus­tria remains the Euro­pean coun­try that does the most to gain well-to-do poten­tial cit­i­zens. The gov­ern­ment is per­mit­ted by law to grant cit­i­zen­ship to those for­eign­ers “who have already made and are expect­ed to make extra­or­di­nary achieve­ments in the inter­est of the repub­lic.” Accord­ing to media reports, a Sau­di hotel investor and Russ­ian singer Anna Netre­bko met these cri­te­ria and received Aus­tri­an pass­ports.”

    So as of 2013, Aus­tria was the Euro­pean gov­ern­ment that was doing the most to sell pass­ports to wealthy for­eign­ers. Espe­cial­ly for­eign­ers “who have already made and are expect­ed to make extra­or­di­nary achieve­ments in the inter­est of the repub­lic.” So had Epstein already made extra­or­di­nary achieve­ments in the inter­est of Aus­tria back in the 80’s? Was he expect­ed to at the time? Or did he sim­ply make a large pay­ment? At this point we have no idea.

    But accord­ing to Epstein’s defense, he was giv­en this pass­port by a friend and the pass­port had already been used before Epstein got it and had been used to trav­el to Sau­di Ara­bia, France, the UK, and Spain based on the pass­port stamps. Epstein nev­er actu­al­ly used the pass­port. So if this sto­ry from Epstein’s defense is accu­rate, Epstein’s friend some­how got some­one else’s pass­port and doc­tored it to add Epstein’s pic­ture. It’s an ali­bi that rais­es the ques­tion of whether or not the doc­tored pass­port was the pass­port of an Aus­tri­an cit­i­zen or the pass­port of a wealthy non-Aus­tri­an who had pur­chased an Aus­tri­an pass­port. Because if this was the doc­tored pass­port of a wealthy for­eign­er who paid a large sum the Aus­tri­an gov­ern­ment to get it that would imply Epstein’s fake pass­port was using the name of a rather wealthy and poten­tial­ly inter­na­tion­al­ly known indi­vid­ual, unless the name was changed too. Of course, it’s also pos­si­ble Epstein’s defense is sim­ply lying and it was Epstein who used that pass­port to make those trips in the 80’s:

    The Dai­ly Beast

    Epstein Says Friend Gave Him Fake For­eign Pass­port Used in 4 Coun­tries
    His lawyers say he got it from a friend and that it had already been used.

    Tra­cy Con­nor
    Exec­u­tive Edi­tor
    Updat­ed 07.18.19 10:25AM ET Pub­lished 07.17.19 5:34PM ET

    Jef­frey Epstein’s lawyers said Thurs­day that the fake, for­eign pass­port found in his safe was giv­en to him by a friend and had already been used when he got it.

    Their claim, in a let­ter to the judge who will decide if Epstein gets bail, came in response to a pros­e­cu­tion fil­ing that revealed the pass­port con­tained stamps from France, Spain, the Unit­ed King­dom, and Sau­di Ara­bia.

    Pros­e­cu­tors have cit­ed the passport—which was issued in Aus­tria but had a Sau­di Ara­bia address, a fake name and Epstein’s photo—as evi­dence that the accused sex traf­fick­er is a flight risk.

    “Epstein was giv­en the pass­port at issue by a friend,” defense lawyer Marc Fer­nich wrote.

    “Some Jew­ish-Amer­i­cans were infor­mal­ly advised at the time to car­ry iden­ti­fi­ca­tion bear­ing a non-Jew­ish name when trav­el­ing inter­na­tion­al­ly in case of hijack­ing.

    “He nev­er used the doc­u­ment to trav­el inter­na­tion­al­ly and nev­er pre­sent­ed it to any immi­gra­tion or cus­toms author­i­ty. The pass­port stamps, pre­dat­ing his receipt of the doc­u­ment, do not reflect Mr. Epstein’s entries or exits.”

    The let­ter did not dis­close who gave the pass­port to Epstein or why he still had the trav­el doc­u­ment, which was from the 1980s and had long expired.

    ...

    ———-

    “Epstein Says Friend Gave Him Fake For­eign Pass­port Used in 4 Coun­tries” by Tra­cy Con­nor; The Dai­ly Beast; 07/18/2019

    “Their claim, in a let­ter to the judge who will decide if Epstein gets bail, came in response to a pros­e­cu­tion fil­ing that revealed the pass­port con­tained stamps from France, Spain, the Unit­ed King­dom, and Sau­di Ara­bia.

    The mys­tery pass­port just keeps get­ting more mys­te­ri­ous. Along with the mys­tery of why he kept this pass­port decades after it expired. Are expire pass­ports from decades ago use­ful when flee­ing?

    There’s an ele­ment to the time­line of all this this also worth point­ing out: while the spe­cif­ic child sex traf­fick­ing charges Epstein faces took place from 2002–2005, it’s worth not­ing that news reports from the ear­ly 90’s men­tioned Epstein accom­pa­ny­ing Ghis­laine Maxwell, the Lon­don socialite who is alleged to be Epstein’s ‘madam’ who recruit­ed the under­age girls, going back to the ear­ly 90’s. So while Epstein’s dis­cov­ered Aus­tri­an pass­port expired in 1987, years before the peri­od when he’s charged with run­ning the traf­fick­ing ring, the fact he was already part­ner­ing with Maxwell by the ear­ly 90’s sug­gests that he may have already been oper­at­ing some sort of sex traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion by that point. Addi­tion­al­ly, some of his accusers date the events back to the mid-90s:

    The Dai­ly Beast

    Jef­frey Epstein Dodged Ques­tions About Sex With His Dal­ton Prep-School Stu­dents
    As a teacher, Epstein daz­zled par­ents at Dal­ton with his math genius and piano skills. But in lat­er depo­si­tions, he balked at ques­tions about rela­tions with his stu­dents.

    Thomas Volscho
    Updat­ed 07.13.19 3:37AM ET / Pub­lished 07.12.19 9:22PM ET

    “I’m teach­ing a bunch of lit­tle brats next year.”—Jeffrey Epstein, 1974–75 Dal­ton School Year­book

    It took a clan­des­tine FBI-NYPD joint sting oper­a­tion to arrest the elu­sive con­vict­ed sex offend­er Jef­frey E. Epstein on Sat­ur­day July 6th on the tar­mac of Teter­boro air­port in New Jer­sey (a sto­ry first bro­ken by The Dai­ly Beast). Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, a sledge­ham­mer was used to break the entry to his mas­sive $77 mil­lion New York City town­house on East 71st Street. Police recov­ered hun­dreds, pos­si­bly thou­sands, of nude images of young women and girls—an auto­mat­ic legal prob­lem for a man who is on mul­ti­ple sex offend­er reg­istries. Epstein’s case may be one of the most extreme cas­es of orga­nized child abuse in mod­ern his­to­ry.

    Epstein is with­out doubt the wealth­i­est indi­vid­ual on any sex offend­er reg­istry in the Unit­ed States (and he is at Lev­el 3—at great­est risk of abus­ing more chil­dren). On his reg­istry entry, the fol­low­ing res­i­dences are list­ed: his $7.8 mil­lion 70-acre pri­vate island in the U.S. Vir­gin Islands (his pri­ma­ry res­i­dence owned by his Delaware-based LLC, L.S.J.), his Paris apart­ment on Avenue Foch (one of the most expen­sive address­es in the world), his $15.5 mil­lion Palm Beach estate, his $77 mil­lion New York City town­house (a gift from Victoria’s Secret founder Leslie Wexn­er), and his $10 mil­lion castle/ranch in New Mex­i­co. At the bot­tom of his res­i­dences is anoth­er island in the Vir­gin Islands, Great St. James. Epstein pur­chased it in 2016 for $18 mil­lion and was active­ly (and with­out per­mit) devel­op­ing an even larg­er com­pound on its 165 acres—that is, until his arrest this past Sat­ur­day.

    As far as vehi­cles, his offend­er reg­istry entries list two Gulf­stream jets (though his lawyers say he sold one of them in June), two heli­copters, nine Mer­cedes-Ben­zes, nine Chevy Sub­ur­bans, three Cadil­lac Escalades, three Harley-David­sons, one $375k Bent­ley Mul­sanne, a jet-ski, and oth­er assort­ed items. He has wined and dined Amer­i­can pres­i­dents, princes, elite aca­d­e­mics, socialites, cor­po­rate CEOs and oth­er VIPs. His alleged vic­tims were lit­tle girls, often eco­nom­i­cal­ly des­ti­tute or run­aways or orphans—from sixth graders to high-school sopho­mores. Because his alleged crimes span mul­ti­ple decades, his vic­tims like­ly num­ber in the hundreds—or more.

    *******

    “Unno­ticed by almost every­body, trav­el­ling with her was a grey­ing, plump­ish, mid­dle-aged Amer­i­can busi­ness­man who man­aged to avoid the pho­tog­ra­phers.” —Mail on Sun­day, Nov. 15, 1992 (Lon­don edi­tion)

    That busi­ness­man was Jef­frey Epstein. In the ear­ly 1990s, British news­pa­pers that fol­lowed British socialite Ghis­laine Maxwell (alleged to be Epstein’s chief pro­cur­er of vic­tims) tried to fig­ure out who Epstein was. The Mail on Sun­day asked in 1992: “But what is he—property devel­op­er, con­cert pianist, math teacher, cor­po­rate trea­sure hunter, stock­bro­ker, mer­chant banker or globe-trot­ting busi­ness­man?” No one seemed to know.

    Giv­en Epstein’s appar­ent mys­tique, I checked New York City’s birth, cen­sus, and mar­riage records to be cer­tain about the facts. Epstein was born Jan. 20 1953 in Brook­lyn, NY. His par­ents were Paula (nee Stolof­sky, 1918–2004) and Sey­mour G. Epstein (1916–1991) and they were mar­ried in Brook­lyn in 1952—shortly before Jef­frey Epstein’s birth.

    Epstein grew up dur­ing the 1950s and 1960s in the Lafayette neigh­bor­hood around Coney Island, as doc­u­ment­ed by James Pat­ter­son, John Con­nol­ly, and Tim Mal­loy in their 2016 book on Epstein, Filthy Rich. Epstein attend­ed the now-shut­tered Lafayette High School, a work­ing-class high school that pro­duced a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of pro­fes­sion­al base­ball play­ers. Epstein’s moth­er, Paula, was a home­mak­er while his father, Sey­mour, worked for the New York City Parks Depart­ment as a groundskeep­er and gar­den­er. Dur­ing their retire­ment years, Epstein’s par­ents (as well as sev­er­al mater­nal aunts) resided in near­by prop­er­ties he pur­chased in West Palm Beach. In 1991, Epstein’s father passed away at the Cleve­land Clin­ic in Ohio at the age of 75. His moth­er passed away in 2004 at age 85 in Palm Beach.

    Epstein has a younger broth­er, Mark (“Pug­gy”), who has joined him in real-estate deals through­out the years. Mark oper­ates a real-estate busi­ness, OSSA Prop­er­ties, which owns some of the prop­er­ties—includ­ing the apart­ments in the 301 East 66th Street building—where Jef­frey Epstein’s alleged sex slaves and oth­er employ­ees were housed (real-estate own­er­ship between the broth­ers may have com­min­gled).

    Jef­frey Epstein grad­u­at­ed from Lafayette High School in 1969 at age 16, hav­ing skipped two grades. He was “chub­by with curly hair and a high, ‘hee-hee’ kind of laugh,” accord­ing to Filthy Rich. In the fall of 1969, Epstein start­ed at Coop­er Union and stud­ied there for two years until the spring semes­ter of 1971. Many writ­ers say he attend­ed New York Uni­ver­si­ty (NYU) after Coop­er Union, but they rarely give spe­cif­ic dates. I decid­ed to ver­i­fy through Nation­al Stu­dent Clear­ing­house records exact­ly when Epstein went to col­lege and where. Coop­er Union does not par­tic­i­pate in the Nation­al Clear­ing­house, but NYU does. It turned out that Epstein was enrolled at NYU between Sep­tem­ber of 1971 and June of 1974. Thus, most of Epstein’s col­lege study years were spent at NYU. I ver­i­fied that he did not grad­u­ate from NYU with their reg­is­trar.

    In a 2002 pro­file in New York mag­a­zine, Thomas Lan­don report­ed that Epstein stud­ied at NYU’s Courant Insti­tute of Math­e­mat­i­cal Sci­ences. It is not clear why Epstein attend­ed two insti­tu­tions of high­er edu­ca­tion but did not grad­u­ate from either. When Epstein joined the board of Rock­e­feller Uni­ver­si­ty, he mis­rep­re­sent­ed his edu­ca­tion­al and employ­ment back­ground; a press release stat­ed that he had “stud­ied physics at Coop­er Union in New York and then joined Bear Stearns, becom­ing a Lim­it­ed Part­ner until 1981.” Between Coop­er Union and Bear Stearns, Epstein stud­ied at NYU and was a teacher for two years (two unre­port­ed and sig­nif­i­cant events). When a con­vict­ed sex offend­er fac­ing sex-traf­fick­ing charges was first employed as a teacher, it bears at least some scruti­ny.

    **********

    After the sum­mer of 1974, Epstein began work­ing as a teacher of math­e­mat­ics and physics at the Dal­ton School in the Upper East Side of Man­hat­tan. It has been report­ed that he began there in 1973, but this is incor­rect. I searched the 1973–74 Dal­ton year­book and there is no men­tion of Jef­frey Epstein. I then searched Dalton’s school news­pa­per and found in the Sep­tem­ber 1974 issue that “... Mr. Epstein, who will also teach physics, [has] also joined the depart­ment this year.” Epstein also con­firmed that he taught there between 1974 and 1976 in a depo­si­tion.

    In the Unit­ed States, there are var­i­ous schools that edu­cate chil­dren from the social upper classes—Kent School, Horace Mann, Miss Porter’s. Dal­ton is among that set. These schools are often restrict­ed to chil­dren from the “old mon­ey” stra­tum in soci­ety, with a small num­ber of schol­ar­ship stu­dents or ath­letes from non-elite back­grounds.

    In 1974, Dal­ton was run by head­mas­ter Don­ald Barr—father of Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Barr, whose Jus­tice Depart­ment recent­ly began a review of Epstein’s 2007 non-pros­e­cu­tion agree­ment for the Palm Beach child sex­u­al assault charges. Writ­ers have not­ed the inter­est­ing coin­ci­dence. How­ev­er, Don­ald Barr resigned in tur­moil in Feb­ru­ary of 1974 (accord­ing to the March 14, 1974 issue of The Dal­ton­ian) which was sev­en months before Jef­frey Epstein began teach­ing there that fall. While it is pos­si­ble that Don­ald Barr may have hired Epstein, if he made per­son­nel deci­sions long in advance, the Dal­ton School lost four math teach­ers (accord­ing to The Dal­ton­ian) pri­or to the 1974–75 school year. There­fore the school may have hired Epstein, in part, out of an urgent need to fill vacant positions—even though Epstein did not have a col­lege degree.

    Peter Branch was the act­ing head­mas­ter after Barr’s depar­ture and he may have hired Epstein. Full ver­i­fi­ca­tion would require access to Dalton’s per­son­nel records, if they still retain them. I put a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Law (FOIL) request into the State of New York Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion and they report­ed hav­ing no teach­ing license on file for Epstein—this may sug­gest that he was not plan­ning on a career in teach­ing. Unlike pub­lic schools, it should be not­ed, a pri­vate school like Dal­ton does not require its teach­ers to pos­sess a state teach­ing license or cer­tifi­cate.

    While at the Dal­ton School, Epstein was the coach of the math team. In com­pe­ti­tions with sev­er­al local schools, Epstein led the stu­dents to vic­to­ry in one instance and to sec­ond place in anoth­er. At a Feb­ru­ary 1976 math meet, the Dal­ton team com­pet­ed against Ramaz and the Man­hat­tan Tal­mu­dic Acad­e­my with “Boss Epstein watch­ing from the side­lines…” (The Dal­ton­ian March 5, 1976). At anoth­er match up in April 1976, Epstein told his team “a vic­to­ry would be as easy as Pi.” The paper report­ed Epstein would be start­ing a “math-track team” the fol­low­ing year due to his “unique phi­los­o­phy of inte­grat­ing phys­i­cal exer­cise with spir­i­tu­al and math­e­mat­i­cal stim­u­la­tion.” The Dal­ton School stu­dents and fam­i­lies are com­prised of some of the wealth­i­est fam­i­lies in the Unit­ed States—unlike Epstein’s own. But this access may have cre­at­ed an open­ing for him.

    As a young man from a work­ing-class neigh­bor­hood in Brook­lyn (equipped with a deep Brook­lyn accent), Jef­frey Epstein at Dal­ton like­ly had to be a “quick study” to grace­ful­ly flow among the social upper class. Vicky Ward’s 2003 Van­i­ty Fair pro­file of Epstein deemed him “The Tal­ent­ed Mr. Epstein”—drawing a par­al­lel to Matt Damon’s char­ac­ter in the 1999 film The Tal­ent­ed Mr. Rip­ley, where Tom Rip­ley cons his way into the upper class through fraud and mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion (and plen­ty of piano play­ing). To wit, the April 1975 issue of The Dal­ton­ian cov­ered a Par­ent-Teacher Asso­ci­a­tion event, “the first par­ent-fac­ul­ty musi­cal in recent mem­o­ry,” not­ing that “Mr. Epstein proved him­self to be the ivory show man on the piano.”

    Was Epstein woo­ing and daz­zling the par­ents as a means of gain­ing access to their rar­efied world? It seems to have worked because a par­ent won­dered what he was doing there and put him in touch with the chair­man of Bear Stearns, Ace Green­berg (whose chil­dren also attend­ed Dal­ton; Epstein may have tutored them). After the 1975–1976 school year was fin­ished, Epstein informed the school he was not return­ing and began his career on Wall Street at Bear Stearns.

    After just four years, on August 1, 1980, Bear Stearns pub­lished an advert in The Wall Street Jour­nal list­ing all the peo­ple who had made lim­it­ed part­ner, includ­ing Jef­frey E. Epstein (along with peo­ple such as Lar­ry Kud­low, for­mer CNBC com­men­ta­tor and cur­rent direc­tor of the Nation­al Eco­nom­ic Coun­cil). Epstein, it seemed, was on the path, to accu­mu­lat­ing the eco­nom­ic rich­es nec­es­sary for entry into the one per­cent. Obtain­ing the social graces required for accep­tance by the social upper class would come much lat­er with the help of sev­er­al socialites, but most­ly Ghis­laine Maxwell.

    **********

    ...

    Epstein’s 2019 charges are for crimes com­mit­ted in New York and Flori­da between 2002 and 2005. How­ev­er, there are alle­ga­tions against Epstein from ear­li­er time peri­ods (such as Maria Farmer’s 2019 sworn affi­davit that she and her 15-year old sib­ling were assault­ed by Epstein and Maxwell in var­i­ous loca­tions in 1996—alle­ga­tions that were report­ed­ly nixed by an edi­tor from Vicky Ward’s 2003 pro­file of Epstein). One thing to keep in mind is Epstein was a school teacher and would have had pos­si­ble access to vic­tims there as well. There are no reports that he did any­thing at Dal­ton school, but he was asked about his rela­tions with stu­dents in a depo­si­tion in 2009 and here is what he said:
    [see image of Epstein’s answers]

    His answer about the ages of his stu­dents is note­wor­thy. He replies “Most­ly old—mostly 17 and 18.” This tells us that Epstein thinks that the ages of 17 and 18 are “old.” He is asked what sub­ject he was teach­ing, and he answers truth­ful­ly, physics and math­e­mat­ics. The attor­ney asks if any of the girls he was teach­ing were under age 17 at the time, and Epstein answers that he does not know—this sounds gen­uine. Things take a turn when the attor­ney asks Epstein if he had any sex­u­al con­tact with any stu­dents at Dal­ton. Epstein answers the first time with a ques­tion, “Again?” He is asked a sec­ond time and again answers with a ques­tion, “While I was a teacher?” The attor­ney says yes, let’s start with that ques­tion and Epstein gives a sol­id “no.” The attor­ney press­es “How about after?” and Epstein says “Not that I remem­ber.”

    In sum­ma­ry, Epstein revealed that he feels high-school stu­dents aged 17 to 18 years are “old” and he that he does not remem­ber if he had sex­u­al con­tact with Dal­ton stu­dents after he was a teacher there. The final time he is asked, he reads from a state­ment in which he claims that the attorney’s law firm is engaged in fraud and then pleads his Fifth Amend­ment rights. Ques­tions about sex­u­al con­tact with Dal­ton stu­dents appear to be sen­si­tive for him. Epstein depo­si­tions are extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to read because he pleads the Fifth to almost every question—as he even­tu­al­ly does here.

    **********

    Julie Brown of the Mia­mi Her­ald has done a sig­nif­i­cant amount of research on the Epstein case with her and her col­leagues’ award-win­ning Per­ver­sion of Jus­tice series. The exten­sive report­ing in the Mia­mi Her­ald, The Dai­ly Beast, and by inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists like Ed Opper­man, Pearse Red­mond, William Ram­sey and oth­ers has like­ly influ­enced law enforce­ment to con­sid­er the new evi­dence uncov­ered by the press—including pos­si­ble new loca­tions where recruit­ment or abuse might have occurred.

    Relat­ed to Epstein’s depo­si­tion above, Vir­ginia Roberts Giuf­fre, who accused Epstein of sex­u­al­ly abus­ing her as an under­age girl and loan­ing her out to his famous friends, claimed that Epstein “lost inter­est” as she got old­er and sent her to Thai­land to bring him anoth­er vic­tim, at which point she says she escaped from Epstein.

    Anoth­er alarm­ing detail about Epstein is report­ed in Vicky Ward’s 2003 Van­i­ty Fair arti­cle. She not­ed that Epstein left a paper­back copy of the Mar­quis de Sade’s The Mis­for­tunes of Virtue lying on a table at his 71st Street town­house. Why would Epstein have left this book out in plain view? This obscene nov­el (even Napoleon ordered its author jailed) is about a 12-year-old French girl, Jus­tine, who trav­els alone across France and winds up in a monastery and is forced to become the sex slave of monks where she endures repeat­ed sex­u­al assaults and is ordered to par­tic­i­pate in orgies. She escapes but suf­fers sim­i­lar abus­es and encoun­ters as the sto­ry fol­lows her life until the age of 26.

    Jus­tine may have been a pedophile’s fan­ta­sy sto­ry in which the vic­tim some­how learns “virtue” from what she endures. Jus­tine almost par­al­lels the life of some of Epstein’s alleged vic­tims. What is even more trag­ic is that in the course of her report­ing, Ward found two of Epstein’s vic­tims and their moth­er. Ward says they detailed in 2003 how Epstein sex­u­al­ly assault­ed them in the mid-1990s—including the time when one was alleged­ly held cap­tive for 12 hours at mogul Leslie Wexner’s Ohio prop­er­ty after she says Epstein and Maxwell assault­ed her. (Wexn­er has not respond­ed to the alle­ga­tions.) Per­haps their sto­ries might have been able to deter or expose Epstein ear­li­er, if they had been pub­lished when the girls first came for­ward.

    We can expect a trove of infor­ma­tion about Epstein to con­tin­ue to emerge now that he is in jail. Indeed, the Mia­mi Her­ald reports that at least a dozen new vic­tims have come for­ward since his arrest. Epstein and his accom­plices may have seen his vic­tims as lit­tle girls—but now they are strong, brave women fight­ing back today.

    ———-

    “Jef­frey Epstein Dodged Ques­tions About Sex With His Dal­ton Prep-School Stu­dents” by Thomas Volscho; The Dai­ly Beast; 07/13/2019

    “Epstein’s 2019 charges are for crimes com­mit­ted in New York and Flori­da between 2002 and 2005. How­ev­er, there are alle­ga­tions against Epstein from ear­li­er time peri­ods (such as Maria Farmer’s 2019 sworn affi­davit that she and her 15-year old sib­ling were assault­ed by Epstein and Maxwell in var­i­ous loca­tions in 1996—alle­ga­tions that were report­ed­ly nixed by an edi­tor from Vicky Ward’s 2003 pro­file of Epstein). One thing to keep in mind is Epstein was a school teacher and would have had pos­si­ble access to vic­tims there as well. There are no reports that he did any­thing at Dal­ton school, but he was asked about his rela­tions with stu­dents in a depo­si­tion in 2009 and here is what he said

    So two of Epstein’s accusers claim Epstein abused them in var­i­ous loca­tions in 1996. Beyond that, Epstein’s 2009 depo­si­tion sure hint­ed at rela­tion­ships with stu­dents while he was teach­ing at Dal­ton back in the 70’s:

    ...
    His answer about the ages of his stu­dents is note­wor­thy. He replies “Most­ly old—mostly 17 and 18.” This tells us that Epstein thinks that the ages of 17 and 18 are “old.” He is asked what sub­ject he was teach­ing, and he answers truth­ful­ly, physics and math­e­mat­ics. The attor­ney asks if any of the girls he was teach­ing were under age 17 at the time, and Epstein answers that he does not know—this sounds gen­uine. Things take a turn when the attor­ney asks Epstein if he had any sex­u­al con­tact with any stu­dents at Dal­ton. Epstein answers the first time with a ques­tion, “Again?” He is asked a sec­ond time and again answers with a ques­tion, “While I was a teacher?” The attor­ney says yes, let’s start with that ques­tion and Epstein gives a sol­id “no.” The attor­ney press­es “How about after?” and Epstein says “Not that I remem­ber.”

    In sum­ma­ry, Epstein revealed that he feels high-school stu­dents aged 17 to 18 years are “old” and he that he does not remem­ber if he had sex­u­al con­tact with Dal­ton stu­dents after he was a teacher there. The final time he is asked, he reads from a state­ment in which he claims that the attorney’s law firm is engaged in fraud and then pleads his Fifth Amend­ment rights. Ques­tions about sex­u­al con­tact with Dal­ton stu­dents appear to be sen­si­tive for him. Epstein depo­si­tions are extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to read because he pleads the Fifth to almost every question—as he even­tu­al­ly does here.
    ...

    And in 1992, the Mail on Sun­day, report­ed on Epstein trav­el­ing with Ghis­laine Maxwell. So the pair who would for the core of this sex traf­fick­ing ring were already trav­el­ing togeth­er by the ear­ly 90s and Epstein was already try­ing to avoid pho­tog­ra­phers at the time:

    ...
    “Unno­ticed by almost every­body, trav­el­ling with her was a grey­ing, plump­ish, mid­dle-aged Amer­i­can busi­ness­man who man­aged to avoid the pho­tog­ra­phers.” —Mail on Sun­day, Nov. 15, 1992 (Lon­don edi­tion)

    That busi­ness­man was Jef­frey Epstein. In the ear­ly 1990s, British news­pa­pers that fol­lowed British socialite Ghis­laine Maxwell (alleged to be Epstein’s chief pro­cur­er of vic­tims) tried to fig­ure out who Epstein was. The Mail on Sun­day asked in 1992: “But what is he—property devel­op­er, con­cert pianist, math teacher, cor­po­rate trea­sure hunter, stock­bro­ker, mer­chant banker or globe-trot­ting busi­ness­man?” No one seemed to know.
    ...

    It’s those alle­ga­tions of abuse in the mid-90’s and the fact that Epstein was clear­ly already a trav­el­ing com­pan­ion of Ghis­laine Maxwell as ear­ly as 1992 that makes this mys­tery pass­port that expired in 1987 so mys­te­ri­ous. Espe­cial­ly giv­en the gen­er­al mys­tery of what Epstein was up to through­out the 1980s. We know he left Bear Stearns to start his own mys­tery finan­cial firm with mys­tery clients in the ear­ly 80’s and that’s about it. The rest real­ly is a mys­tery at this point.

    And in relat­ed news, NBC just uncov­ered a video of Epstein and Don­ald Trump par­ty­ing at Mar-a-Lago in 1992. They cer­tain­ly seem pret­ty chum­my at the time.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | July 18, 2019, 1:06 pm
  17. While the Jef­frey Epstein scan­dal pos­es a num­ber of obvi­ous poten­tial direct threats to Pres­i­dent Trump’s 2020 cam­paign — giv­en both the unsa­vory nature of Trump’s past friend­ship with Epstein as well as the implic­it focus the Epstein sto­ry puts on all the rest of Trump’s his­to­ry of misog­y­ny and creepi­ness around teens — here’s an arti­cle that hints at one of the indi­rect ways the Jef­frey Epstein scan­dal could end up cre­at­ing more trou­ble for Trump. And more trou­ble for Deutsche Bank:

    Deutsche bank employ­ees are once against anony­mous­ly talk­ing to the press about the out­landish con­duct at Deutsche Bank’s pri­vate bank for high net-worth clients. This time it involves Jef­frey Epstein’s account. Or rather, the many accounts of Jef­frey Epstein. He appar­ent­ly has so many accounts the bank keeps find­ing new ones. That’s right, Deutsche Bank keeps find­ing new Epstein accounts. Bank offi­cers decid­ed to end its rela­tion­ship with Epstein fol­low­ing the Decem­ber 2018 Mia­mi Her­ald inves­ti­ga­tion into Epstein, but dis­cov­ered that end­ing that rela­tion­ship would be trick­i­er than they imag­ined because Epstein and his busi­ness had sev­er­al dozen accounts with the bank.

    We’re told that the bank’s offi­cials have pre­vi­ous­ly thought they shut down all of Epstein’s accounts, only to dis­cov­er new accounts they weren’t aware of and this appar­ent­ly has hap­pened on a num­ber of occa­sions. So some of Epstein’s accounts were effec­tive­ly hid­den from the bank itself. It’s being blamed on Deutsche Bank’s “anti­quat­ed tech­nol­o­gy sys­tems”. That’s how scan­dalous­ly lax Deutsche Bank’s inter­nal con­trols are at its pri­vate bank. Clients get secret accounts that are secret even to the bank itself thanks to an “anti­quat­ed tech­nol­o­gy sys­tems”.

    Of course, the nar­ra­tive about bank offi­cials think­ing they close all of Epstein’s accounts only to dis­cov­er new ones they did­n’t know about could obvi­ous­ly be an “oop!” cov­er sto­ry so the bank can pre­tend like it did­n’t know­ing­ly wait until the Epstein scan­dal reerupt­ed this year to end its rela­tion­ship with Epstein. What we’re told at this point is that Epstein has been a client with Deutsche Bank’s pri­vate bank since at least 2013. The bank appar­ent­ly does­n’t know if it had a rela­tion­ship with the bank ear­li­er than that peri­od, which is the kind of ambi­gu­i­ty that sug­gests there was an ear­li­er rela­tion­ship that they don’t want to dis­close.

    We’re also learn­ing that Epstein had pre­vi­ous­ly had a bank­ing rela­tion­ship with JP Mor­gan’s pri­vate bank­ing unit from the late 1990’s until 2013, which is the peri­od of time when Epstein is charged with run­ning his under­age sex traf­fick­ing ring. So while the Epstein case is cer­tain­ly very bad news for Deutsche Bank and Don­ald Trump, it’s also poten­tial­ly pret­ty awful news for JP Mor­gan.

    We’re also told that there were trans­ac­tions tak­ing place in “some of Epstein’s accounts” as late as “late spring” of this year. That sug­gests a late May-to-mid-June time frame. It also sug­gests Epstein still had mul­ti­ple accounts as of “late Spring”. Keep in mind that Epstein was arrest­ed a few weeks ago on July 6, so we’re talk­ing about trans­ac­tions out of mul­ti­ple accounts that Deutsche Bank claims to have not known exist­ed that hap­pened about a month before his arrest.

    In both 2015 and 2016, anti-mon­ey laun­der­ing com­pli­ance offi­cers in Deutsche Bank’s offices in New York and Jack­sonville, Flori­da, raised what we are told was a vari­ety of con­cerns about the bank’s rela­tion­ship with Epstein. Among those con­cerns were sim­ply con­cern over the dam­age to the rep­u­ta­tion of the bank that could hap­pen from hav­ing some­one like Epstein as a client. But we are also told that the com­pli­ance offi­cers saw poten­tial­ly ille­gal activ­i­ty in one of Epstein’s account “on at least on occa­sion”. It’s, again, the kind of vague lan­guage sug­gests this hap­pened on more than one occa­sion. These com­pli­ance offi­cers filed a sus­pi­cious activ­i­ties report but it’s unclear if it was ever filed with the US trea­sury depart­ment, which also sug­gests it was­n’t ever filed.

    Then, ear­li­er this year, as bank offi­cials were try­ing to dis­en­tan­gle the bank from Epstein, the bank found addi­tion­al “prob­lem­at­ic” trans­ac­tions in Epstein’s accounts. In this case it sounds like the sus­pi­cious activ­i­ties reports were actu­al­ly filed with the US gov­ern­ment. We are also told that Deutsche Bank is are still try­ing to deter­mine what Mr. Epstein was using his accounts for, includ­ing where and to whom he had pre­vi­ous­ly moved mon­ey.

    So we are now being told by these anony­mous Deutsche Bank insid­ers that Epstein has had mul­ti­ple accounts the bank has known about and at least one of these accounts was flagged for sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty in 2015 and 2016 but like­ly nev­er report­ed it to the gov­ern­ment. And there are also mul­ti­ple accounts that the bank has only recent­ly dis­cov­ered and the bank has yet to deter­mine where and to whom those accounts moved mon­ey to. In oth­er words, there was basi­cal­ly no due dili­gence going on at Deutsche Bank’s pri­vate bank.

    How might this rev­e­la­tion about Deutsche Bank’s pri­vate bank­ing divi­sions near com­plete lack of due dili­gence com­pli­cate Don­ald Trump’s 2020 cam­paign? Well, recall how one of the #Rus­si­a­Gate affair includ­ed the mys­tery of Russ­ian lawyer Natalia Vesel­nit­skaya also work­ing for defense of Pre­ve­zon, one of the com­pa­nies charged in the Mag­nit­sky affair for mon­ey-laun­der­ing involv­ing Man­hat­tan real estate. Also work­ing on Prevezon’s defense was FusionG­PS. And in 2015, Jared Kush­n­er made pur­chase of Man­hat­tan real estate from Lev Leviev, the own­er of one, AFI, which is of the com­pa­nies also charged with help­ing Pre­ve­zon with mon­ey laun­der­ing using Man­hat­tan real estate. Kushner’s pur­chase was for $295 mil­lion. A month before the 2016 elec­tion, Deutsche Bank loaned Kush­n­er $285 mil­lion. In 2016 and 2017, Deutsche Bank employ­ees flagged a num­ber of sus­pi­cious trans­ac­tions from both Kushner’s and Trump’s accounts that looked like pos­si­ble mon­ey laun­der­ing. So the ques­tion of whether or not those Trump and Kush­n­er accounts at Deutsche Bank’s pri­vate bank were engaged in mon­ey laun­der­ing or some sort of oth­er illic­it activ­i­ty is an ongo­ing unan­swered ques­tion and now we learn about the Epstein case that Deutsche Bank’s pri­vate bank­ing unit was even worse than imag­ined:

    The New York Times

    Jef­frey Epstein Moved Mon­ey Over­seas in Trans­ac­tions His Bank Flagged to U.S.

    By David Enrich and Jo Beck­er

    Jul 23, 2019

    As Deutsche Bank offi­cials this year scram­bled to extri­cate them­selves from a years­long rela­tion­ship with Jef­frey Epstein, the wealthy financier charged this month with sex traf­fick­ing, they uncov­ered sus­pi­cious trans­ac­tions in which Mr. Epstein had moved mon­ey out of the Unit­ed States.

    Deutsche Bank report­ed the trans­ac­tions to a fed­er­al agency in charge of polic­ing finan­cial crimes, accord­ing to three peo­ple famil­iar with the bank’s inter­nal process­es. The report came as the bank start­ed look­ing for signs that Mr. Epstein was using his finan­cial resources for the pur­pos­es of sex traf­fick­ing.

    ...

    Deutsche Bank has been con­tact­ed by pros­e­cu­tors and oth­er gov­ern­ment author­i­ties inves­ti­gat­ing Mr. Epstein. Joerg Eigen­dorf, a Deutsche Bank spokesman, said the bank was “absolute­ly com­mit­ted to coop­er­at­ing with all rel­e­vant author­i­ties.”

    Deutsche Bank exec­u­tives are still try­ing to under­stand the depth and scope of the bank’s rela­tion­ship with Mr. Epstein, who has been a client of its pri­vate-bank­ing divi­sion since at least 2013 — years after his con­duct became pub­lic in a pros­ti­tu­tion case involv­ing a teenage girl. Mr. Epstein struck a lenient plea deal that includ­ed a non-pros­e­cu­tion agree­ment from fed­er­al author­i­ties, and the case has been held up as a glar­ing exam­ple of how the wealthy and well-con­nect­ed can evade con­se­quences.

    At least one bank dropped Mr. Epstein as a client in the years after his guilty plea. But it wasn’t until late last year, after The Mia­mi Her­ald pub­lished an inves­ti­ga­tion into the ear­li­er sex­u­al abuse alle­ga­tions, that Deutsche Bank decid­ed to sev­er ties with him. The process proved more com­pli­cat­ed and time-con­sum­ing than exec­u­tives had ini­tial­ly antic­i­pat­ed because Deutsche Bank’s pri­vate-bank­ing divi­sion had opened sev­er­al dozen accounts for Mr. Epstein and his busi­ness­es.

    The bank’s anti­quat­ed tech­nol­o­gy sys­tems did not help. On a num­ber of occa­sions, Deutsche Bank exec­u­tives had thought they had shut down all of Mr. Epstein’s accounts, only to learn that there were oth­ers that they had not pre­vi­ous­ly been aware of, accord­ing to one of the peo­ple.

    At least as of late spring, there were still trans­ac­tions tak­ing place in some of Mr. Epstein’s Deutsche Bank accounts, the three peo­ple said. Exec­u­tives now believe that they have closed all of Mr. Epstein’s accounts.

    The bank’s rela­tion­ship with Mr. Epstein has been anoth­er black eye for Deutsche Bank, which is lay­ing off thou­sands of employ­ees as it strug­gles to return to prof­itabil­i­ty. The bank has been dogged by repeat­ed finan­cial scan­dals. It is under fed­er­al crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion for poten­tial mon­ey laun­der­ing, an inves­ti­ga­tion that has raised ques­tions about Deutsche Bank’s han­dling of sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty reports.

    Two con­gres­sion­al com­mit­tees and state pros­e­cu­tors in New York have also opened inves­ti­ga­tions into the bank’s rela­tion­ship with Pres­i­dent Trump, who received a total of more than $2 bil­lion in loans from Deutsche Bank over near­ly two decades, even as oth­er major banks refused to do busi­ness with him.

    Mr. Epstein appears to have moved his busi­ness to Deutsche Bank after JP Mor­gan Chase cut ties with him. He had been a client of JPMorgan’s pri­vate-bank­ing divi­sion from the late 1990s until around 2013, five years after he had plead­ed guilty to state pros­ti­tu­tion charges.

    In addi­tion to wealth-man­age­ment accounts, Deutsche Bank also pro­vid­ed loans to Mr. Epstein and his busi­ness­es, accord­ing to three peo­ple famil­iar with the rela­tion­ship.

    That rela­tion­ship has been cause for con­cern with­in the bank even before the height­ened scruti­ny brought by The Herald’s report­ing.

    In 2015 and 2016, anti-mon­ey laun­der­ing com­pli­ance offi­cers in Deutsche Bank’s offices in New York and Jack­sonville, Fla., raised a vari­ety of con­cerns about the work the bank was doing with Mr. Epstein. The employ­ees were con­cerned that the bank’s rep­u­ta­tion could be harmed if it became pub­lic that Mr. Epstein was a client, accord­ing to the three peo­ple famil­iar with the rela­tion­ship.

    In addi­tion, the com­pli­ance offi­cers on at least one occa­sion noticed poten­tial­ly ille­gal activ­i­ty in one of Mr. Epstein’s accounts, includ­ing trans­ac­tions in which mon­ey was mov­ing out­side the Unit­ed States, two of the peo­ple said. The com­pli­ance offi­cers pro­duced a so-called sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty report, but it is unclear whether the report was ever filed with the Trea­sury Department’s finan­cial-crimes divi­sion.

    Despite the com­pli­ance offi­cers’ mis­giv­ings, the bank con­tin­ued to do exten­sive busi­ness with Mr. Epstein.

    Ear­li­er this year, as the bank rushed to dis­en­tan­gle itself from him, offi­cials dis­cov­ered addi­tion­al trans­ac­tions that they saw as prob­lem­at­ic, three peo­ple said. That prompt­ed the bank to sub­mit a sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty report to the Trea­sury Depart­ment.

    The nature of the bank’s con­cerns about the 2019 trans­ac­tions was not clear. Just because a bank files a sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty report does not mean the trans­ac­tion was actu­al­ly improp­er: Banks some­times err on the side of over-report­ing trou­bling trans­ac­tions to avoid gov­ern­ment crit­i­cism that they missed red flags.

    The report was filed with the gov­ern­ment as Deutsche Bank con­duct­ed an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into its rela­tion­ship with Mr. Epstein. Deutsche Bank offi­cials are still try­ing to deter­mine what Mr. Epstein was using his accounts for, includ­ing where and to whom he had pre­vi­ous­ly moved mon­ey.

    “We’re still try­ing to get our arms around it,” one of the peo­ple said.

    ———-

    “Jef­frey Epstein Moved Mon­ey Over­seas in Trans­ac­tions His Bank Flagged to U.S.” by David Enrich and Jo Beck­er; The New York Times; 07/23/2019

    ““We’re still try­ing to get our arms around it,” one of the peo­ple said.”

    Yep, Deutsche Bank is still try­ing to “get our arms around” under­stand­ing what the bank itself did. The bank is play­ing dumb about its own actions. And the scary part is that the bank might actu­al­ly be “dumb” in the sense that it’s inten­tion­al­ly blind­ing itself to what’s going on inside the bank so it can ‘legit­i­mate­ly’ claim to not know what’s going on dur­ing sit­u­a­tions like this. Com­bined with the fact that Epstein had dozens of both per­son­al and busi­ness accounts at the bank and it’s the per­fect recipe for mon­ey laun­der­ing:

    ...
    Deutsche Bank exec­u­tives are still try­ing to under­stand the depth and scope of the bank’s rela­tion­ship with Mr. Epstein, who has been a client of its pri­vate-bank­ing divi­sion since at least 2013 — years after his con­duct became pub­lic in a pros­ti­tu­tion case involv­ing a teenage girl. Mr. Epstein struck a lenient plea deal that includ­ed a non-pros­e­cu­tion agree­ment from fed­er­al author­i­ties, and the case has been held up as a glar­ing exam­ple of how the wealthy and well-con­nect­ed can evade con­se­quences.

    At least one bank dropped Mr. Epstein as a client in the years after his guilty plea. But it wasn’t until late last year, after The Mia­mi Her­ald pub­lished an inves­ti­ga­tion into the ear­li­er sex­u­al abuse alle­ga­tions, that Deutsche Bank decid­ed to sev­er ties with him. The process proved more com­pli­cat­ed and time-con­sum­ing than exec­u­tives had ini­tial­ly antic­i­pat­ed because Deutsche Bank’s pri­vate-bank­ing divi­sion had opened sev­er­al dozen accounts for Mr. Epstein and his busi­ness­es.
    ...

    And note how vague descrip­tions of “anti­quat­ed tech­nol­o­gy sys­tems” are used to explain how the bank can’t track down which accounts Epstein holds. If a bank uses an “anti­quat­ed tech­nol­o­gy sys­tem” in 2019, that’s a delib­er­ate choice. The sys­tem is appar­ent­ly so anti­quat­ed that Epstein was able to use his accounts at least as of late spring (up to mid-June) of this year despite the bank’s offi­cers appar­ent­ly decid­ing to close his accounts in Decem­ber. It rais­es the ques­tion of how many oth­er clients have secret bank accounts with Deutsche Bank that the bank ‘offi­cial­ly’ does­n’t know about:

    ...
    The bank’s anti­quat­ed tech­nol­o­gy sys­tems did not help. On a num­ber of occa­sions, Deutsche Bank exec­u­tives had thought they had shut down all of Mr. Epstein’s accounts, only to learn that there were oth­ers that they had not pre­vi­ous­ly been aware of, accord­ing to one of the peo­ple.

    At least as of late spring, there were still trans­ac­tions tak­ing place in some of Mr. Epstein’s Deutsche Bank accounts, the three peo­ple said. Exec­u­tives now believe that they have closed all of Mr. Epstein’s accounts.
    ...

    It’s also pret­ty remark­able that the bank did­n’t decide to qui­et­ly close these accounts in 2015 or 2016 after the bank’s own anti-mon­ey laun­der­ing com­pli­ance offi­cers flagged at least one account that was poten­tial­ly involved in ille­gal activ­i­ty and these offi­cers specif­i­cal­ly brought up to the bank the risk to the bank’s rep­u­ta­tion over the rela­tion­ship with Epstein. It’s either a reflec­tion of how lit­tle the bank cared about hav­ing unsa­vory clients or a reflec­tion of how much the bank val­ued Epstein as a client. Giv­en the ongo­ing ques­tion of whether or not Epstein was involved in intel­li­gence, the fact that Deutsche Bank was so cav­a­lier about a client like Epstein should be kept in mind when con­sid­er­ing which intel­li­gence agen­cies he may have been involved with:

    ...
    In addi­tion to wealth-man­age­ment accounts, Deutsche Bank also pro­vid­ed loans to Mr. Epstein and his busi­ness­es, accord­ing to three peo­ple famil­iar with the rela­tion­ship.

    That rela­tion­ship has been cause for con­cern with­in the bank even before the height­ened scruti­ny brought by The Herald’s report­ing.

    In 2015 and 2016, anti-mon­ey laun­der­ing com­pli­ance offi­cers in Deutsche Bank’s offices in New York and Jack­sonville, Fla., raised a vari­ety of con­cerns about the work the bank was doing with Mr. Epstein. The employ­ees were con­cerned that the bank’s rep­u­ta­tion could be harmed if it became pub­lic that Mr. Epstein was a client, accord­ing to the three peo­ple famil­iar with the rela­tion­ship.

    In addi­tion, the com­pli­ance offi­cers on at least one occa­sion noticed poten­tial­ly ille­gal activ­i­ty in one of Mr. Epstein’s accounts, includ­ing trans­ac­tions in which mon­ey was mov­ing out­side the Unit­ed States, two of the peo­ple said. The com­pli­ance offi­cers pro­duced a so-called sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty report, but it is unclear whether the report was ever filed with the Trea­sury Department’s finan­cial-crimes divi­sion.

    Despite the com­pli­ance offi­cers’ mis­giv­ings, the bank con­tin­ued to do exten­sive busi­ness with Mr. Epstein.
    ...

    But let’s not for­get that Deutsche Bank isn’t the only bank that should be run­ning away from its rela­tion­ship with Epstein. JP Mor­gan is arguably in a much more pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion giv­en that it was bank­ing with Epstein from the late 90’s up through 2013, the peri­od of time that cov­ers the sex traf­fick­ing and what­ev­er finan­cial activ­i­ty he was engaged in dur­ing that peri­od when he was build­ing his still-mys­te­ri­ous finan­cial empire:

    ...
    Mr. Epstein appears to have moved his busi­ness to Deutsche Bank after JP Mor­gan Chase cut ties with him. He had been a client of JPMorgan’s pri­vate-bank­ing divi­sion from the late 1990s until around 2013, five years after he had plead­ed guilty to state pros­ti­tu­tion charges.
    ...

    So it’s going to be inter­est­ing to see if the sto­ry of Deutsche Bank set­ting itself up to the per­fect ‘see no evil, hear no evil, report no evil’ mon­ey laun­der­ing machine pow­ered by ‘anti­quat­ed tech­nol­o­gy sys­tems’ ends up becom­ing a larg­er sto­ry on its own. Per­haps large enough to make the Amer­i­can elec­torate notice that one of the most fas­ci­nat­ing mys­ter­ies of the entire #Rus­si­a­Gate scan­dal — the mys­tery of the sus­pi­cious trans­ac­tions in the Trump and Jush­n­er Deutsche Bank accounts and whether or not it involved one of the enti­ties at the heart of the Mag­nit­sky scan­dal — hap­pens to involve this same mon­ey laun­der­ing machine. It’s one of the many intrigu­ing crim­i­nal mys­ter­ies swirling around the 2020 elec­tion. That’s, of course, assum­ing enough of the US elec­torate cares whether or not the US pres­i­dent lived a life of crime, which remains one of the oth­er mys­ter­ies swirling around the 2020 elec­tion.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | July 27, 2019, 4:13 pm
  18. There was recent three part series of arti­cles in Mint Press by Whit­ney Webb about the mys­te­ri­ous back­ground of Jef­frey Epstein. The over­all gist of the series is that Epstein had deep ties to a net­work of peo­ple with deep ties to US intel­li­gence (in par­tic­u­lar Rea­gan-era US intel­li­gence), Israeli intel­li­gence, orga­nized crime and a group of pro-Israel bil­lion­aires known as the Mega Group. Part of what makes this his­to­ry so fas­ci­nat­ing is that it’s basi­cal­ly a rehash­ing of much of what we already know about the many lines of his­tor­i­cal con­ti­nu­ity between the sig­nif­i­cant scan­dals of the 20th cen­tu­ry involv­ing West­ern covert oper­a­tions and right-wing pol­i­tics and the fas­ci­nat­ing role the Mossad has played as both an inde­pen­dent force but also a part­ner for West­ern intel­li­gence.

    Anoth­er part of what makes this his­to­ry so inter­est­ing is how friend­ly Don­ald Trump has been with so many of the fig­ures involved with this his­to­ry, in part because Trump’s men­tor Roy Cohn has so many ties to these fig­ures. In gen­er­al, the net­work of wealthy and influ­en­tial Jews described in the series veer strong­ly towards to the very con­ser­v­a­tive and right-wing Jews with deep ties to the Repub­li­can Par­ty in the US and Likud Par­ty in Israel. So while the sto­ry of Epstein appears to be a sto­ry involv­ing Israeli covert oper­a­tions, it’s impor­tant to keep in mind that this appears to be pre­dom­i­nant­ly right-wing Jews net­work­ing with their right-wing coun­ter­parts around the globe. Giv­en the indi­ca­tions that Epstein was a far right tran­shu­man­ist, the fact that his clos­est long-time asso­ciates in the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty appear to be pre­dom­i­nant­ly tied to the Repub­li­can and Likud Par­ties seems par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant.

    The fol­low­ing piece also dis­cuss­es the con­nec­tions between Epstein and Ronald Laud­er, the bil­lion­aire heir of Estee Laud­er. As the arti­cle notes, Laud­er is very close to the Repub­li­can Par­ty and the rise of Ben­jamin Netanyahu and is a major financier of the Likd Par­ty. In 1983, Laud­er was made the Unit­ed States Deputy Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense for Euro­pean and NATO Affairs despite hav­ing no expe­ri­ence out­side of work­ing for his par­en­t’s cos­met­ics com­pa­ny. In 1986, Laud­er was made the US ambas­sador to Aus­tria. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing in light of the dis­cov­ery of an Aus­tri­an pass­port (list­ing a Sau­di Ara­bi­an res­i­dence) that was found in Epstein’s safe.

    But it’s impor­tant to note that there appears to be a mis­take in the fol­low­ing arti­cle (Part 3 of the series) regard­ing Epstein’s mys­te­ri­ous Aus­tri­an pass­port and the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Ronald Laud­er played a role in him acquir­ing it: The arti­cle states that Epstein’s pass­port was issue in 1987, which would be dur­ing the time when Laud­er was ambas­sador to Aus­tria. But as we’ve seen, Epstein’s pros­e­cu­tors told us that Epstein got the pass­port “some time in the 80’s” and the pass­port expired 32 years ago, which would be 1987. So that makes it a lot less like­ly that Laud­er’s sta­tus as ambas­sador to Aus­tria played a role in acquir­ing that pass­port. Still, he’s an illus­tra­tive fig­ure in terms get­ting a sense of the kinds of fig­ures behind the rise of Epstein.

    And there’s one par­tic­u­lar angle to this his­to­ry cov­ered in Part 3 of the series that is par­tic­u­lar­ly top­i­cal giv­en the cur­rent envi­ron­ment of mass sur­veil­lance con­duct­ed by intel­li­gence-con­nect­ed Sil­i­con Val­ley giants and one mega-hack after anoth­er: Robert Maxwell, father of Ghis­laine Maxwell, was a key fig­ure in the PROMIS soft­ware scan­dal of the 80’s (see Mis­cel­la­neous archives M50 Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4, M51 Parts 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, 2b, 2c, 3, and 4, and FTR#82).

    As we’ll see, it turns out Jef­frey Epstein was a pri­ma­ry investor in a con­tem­po­rary com­pa­ny start­ed by for­mer Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ehud Barack that, on the sur­face, has an num­ber of par­al­lels with the PROMIS sto­ry. The com­pa­ny, Reporty Home­land Secu­ri­ty, now called Car­byne, offers a smart­phone app that allows peo­ple to imme­di­ate­ly patch into emer­gency response dis­patch­ers. So Reporty is osten­si­bly a pub­lic safe­ty app. But it sounds like it’s much more than that. The key tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion devel­oped by Reporty is the abil­i­ty of the app to scan vir­tu­al­ly all of the avail­able modes of com­mu­ni­ca­tion in a giv­en area, find the best way to ensure some­one can com­mu­ni­cate with the emer­gency dis­patch­er with­out infor­ma­tion being dropped. The algo­rithm quick­ly the avail­able com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels around some­one (IP/ umts / 2G / 3G /4G / LTE etc.) and decides which chan­nel to use to send the infor­ma­tion to dis­patch­er. Reporty has sev­er­al employ­ees from Israel’s cyber oper­a­tions intel­li­gence units. So Reporty facil­i­ates the rapid com­mu­ni­ca­tions between a nation’s civil­ian telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions infra­struc­ture and the emer­gency infra­struc­ture infra­struc­ture that includes tech­nol­o­gy for rout­ing, indoor posi­tion­ing plat­form, dis­patch sys­tems, and mon­i­tor­ing. That sure sounds like the kind of tech­nol­o­gy that would have some use­ful intel­li­gence appli­ca­tions. Reporty is set up to work in 160 coun­tries and the US Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty is report­ed­ly quite inter­est­ed in this kind of tech­nol­o­gy.

    Epstein report­ed­ly financed the bulk of Ehud Barak’s 2014 invest­ment in Reporty. Ehud Barak’s name has already sur­faced in the sto­ries of Epstein fol­low­ing reports that Barak vis­it­ed Epstein’s Man­hat­tan res­i­dence and his pri­vate island. Barak asserts that he met Epstein 17 years ago after being intro­duced by Shi­mon Peres and has nev­er attend­ing any par­ties with him or seen him in the com­pa­ny of women or young girls. But Epstein’s Man­hat­tan neigh­bors claim that Barak fre­quent­ly stayed at Epstein’s place and pho­tos have been released show­ing Barak enter­ing Epstein’s place in the com­pa­ny of four women includ­ing one iden­ti­fied as an Epstein trav­el­ing com­pan­ion. So Ehud Barak appears to be one of Epstein’s ‘clients’ in addi­tion to being a busi­ness part­ner with Epstein which makes it worth ask­ing whether or not Barak’s busi­ness rela­tion­ship with Epstein is a result of Barak being a vic­tim of sex­u­al black­mail or if they’re gen­uine­ly friend­ly asso­ciates?

    Also note that Barak announced a bid to unseat Netanyahu last month so this a as polit­i­cal­ly potent sto­ry in Israel right now. And that ques­tion of whether or not Epstein was engaged in acquir­ing sex­u­al black­mail on Israeli pol­i­tics, like the cen­ter-left Ehud Barak, rais­es the larg­er ques­tion of whether or who Epstein was ulti­mate­ly work­ing for in his sex­u­al black­mail oper­a­tion. Ehud Barak, a cen­ter-left politi­cian, sure seems like the kind of tar­get the right-wing allies of Epstein would like to be able to black­mail. In oth­er words, giv­en that Epstein is both obvi­ous­ly tied to Israeli intel­li­gence but also clear­ly tied to US intel­li­gence (with some sort of odd rela­tion­ship with Aus­tria), we have to ask whether Epstein’s sex­u­al trafficking/blackmail oper­a­tion was pri­mar­i­ly an oper­a­tion on behalf of a nation state’s intel­li­gence ser­vice or pri­mar­i­ly an oper­a­tion on behalf of a pri­vate right-wing net­work of peo­ple who hap­pen to have exten­sive intel­li­gence con­nec­tions? At this point it remains very unclear. It’s one of the biggest mys­ter­ies involv­ing all of this: Epstein’s con­nec­tions are so vast and yet opaque that the more we learn about who Epstein worked with, the less obvi­ous becomes of who exact­ly he was work­ing for in the end. Of Epstein’s asso­ciates, how many were real­ly his friends and how many were peo­ple who tol­er­at­ed him because he man­aged to black­mail them? Of the peo­ple he acquired black­mail mate­r­i­al on, was he tar­get­ing them accord­ing to the nation­al secu­ri­ty inter­ests of Israel? The US? Or the pri­vate inter­est of his pow­er­ful friends who hap­pened to have deep ties to the nation­al secu­ri­ty estab­lish­ments of Israel and the West?

    Mint Press News

    Mega Group, Maxwells and Mossad: The Spy Sto­ry at the Heart of the Jef­frey Epstein Scan­dal

    The pic­ture paint­ed by the evi­dence is not a direct Epstein tie to a sin­gle intel­li­gence agency but a web link­ing key mem­bers of the Mega Group, politi­cians, and offi­cials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an orga­nized-crime net­work with deep busi­ness and intel­li­gence ties in both nations.
    by Whit­ney Webb

    August 07th, 2019

    By Whit­ney Webb

    As bil­lion­aire pedophile and alleged sex-traf­fick­er, Jef­frey Epstein sits in prison, reports have con­tin­ued to sur­face about his report­ed links to intel­li­gence, his finan­cial ties to sev­er­al com­pa­nies and “char­i­ta­ble” foun­da­tions, and his friend­ships with the rich and pow­er­ful as well as top politi­cians.

    While Part I and Part II of this series, “The Jef­frey Epstein Scan­dal: Too Big to Fail,” have focused on the wide­spread nature of sex­u­al black­mail oper­a­tions in recent Amer­i­can his­to­ry and their ties to the heights of Amer­i­can polit­i­cal pow­er and the U.S. intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty, one key aspect of Epstein’s own sex-traf­fick­ing and black­mail oper­a­tion that war­rants exam­i­na­tion is Epstein’s ties to Israeli intel­li­gence and his ties to the “infor­mal” pro-Israel phil­an­thropist fac­tion known as “the Mega Group.”

    The Mega Group’s role in the Epstein case has gar­nered some atten­tion, as Epstein’s main finan­cial patron for decades, bil­lion­aire Leslie Wexn­er, was a co-founder of the group that unites sev­er­al well-known busi­ness­men with a pen­chant for pro-Israel and eth­no-phil­an­thropy (i.e., phil­an­thropy ben­e­fit­ing a sin­gle eth­nic or eth­no-reli­gious group). How­ev­er, as this report will show, anoth­er unit­ing fac­tor among Mega Group mem­bers is deep ties to orga­nized crime, specif­i­cal­ly the orga­nized crime net­work dis­cussed in Part I of this series, which was large­ly led by noto­ri­ous Amer­i­can mob­ster Mey­er Lan­sky.

    By virtue of the role of many Mega Group mem­bers as major polit­i­cal donors in both the U.S. and Israel, sev­er­al of its most notable mem­bers have close ties to the gov­ern­ments of both coun­tries as well as their intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ties. As this report and a sub­se­quent report will show, the Mega Group also had close ties to two busi­ness­men who worked for Israel’s Mossad — Robert Maxwell and Marc Rich — as well as to top Israeli politi­cians, includ­ing past and present prime min­is­ters with deep ties to Israel’s intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty.

    One of those busi­ness­men work­ing for the Mossad, Robert Maxwell, will be dis­cussed at length in this report. Maxwell, who was a busi­ness part­ner of Mega Group co-founder Charles Bronf­man, aid­ed the suc­cess­ful Mossad plot to plant a trap­door in U.S.-created soft­ware that was then sold to gov­ern­ments and com­pa­nies through­out the world. That plot’s suc­cess was large­ly due to the role of a close asso­ciate of then-Pres­i­dent Ronald Rea­gan and an Amer­i­can politi­cian close to Maxwell, who lat­er helped aid Rea­gan in the cov­er-up of the Iran Con­tra scan­dal.

    Years lat­er, Maxwell’s daugh­ter — Ghis­laine Maxwell — would join Jef­frey Epstein’s “inner cir­cle” at the same time Epstein was bankrolling a sim­i­lar soft­ware pro­gram now being mar­ket­ed for crit­i­cal elec­tron­ic infra­struc­ture in the U.S. and abroad. That com­pa­ny has deep and trou­bling con­nec­tions to Israeli mil­i­tary intel­li­gence, asso­ciates of the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, and the Mega Group.

    Epstein appears to have ties to Israeli intel­li­gence and has well-doc­u­ment­ed ties to influ­en­tial Israeli politi­cians and the Mega Group. Yet, those enti­ties are not iso­lat­ed in and of them­selves, as many also con­nect to the orga­nized crime net­work and pow­er­ful alleged pedophiles dis­cussed in pre­vi­ous install­ments of this series.

    Per­haps the best illus­tra­tion of how the con­nec­tions between many of these play­ers often meld togeth­er can be seen in Ronald Laud­er: a Mega Group mem­ber, for­mer mem­ber of the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion, long-time donor to Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu and Israel’s Likud Par­ty, as well as a long-time friend of Don­ald Trump and Roy Cohn.

    From cos­met­ics heir to polit­i­cal play­er

    One often over­looked yet famous client and friend of Roy Cohn is the bil­lion­aire heir to the Estee Laud­er cos­met­ics for­tune, Ronald Laud­er. Laud­er is often described in the press as a “lead­ing Jew­ish phil­an­thropist” and is the pres­i­dent of the World Jew­ish Con­gress, yet his many media pro­files tend to leave out his high­ly polit­i­cal past.

    In a state­ment giv­en by Laud­er to New York Times reporter Mag­gie Haber­man in 2018, the cos­met­ics heir not­ed that he has known Trump for over 50 years, going back at least to the ear­ly 1970s. Accord­ing to Laud­er, his rela­tion­ship with Trump began when Trump was a stu­dent at the Whar­ton School at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, which Laud­er also attend­ed.

    Though the exact nature of their ear­ly friend­ship is unclear, it is evi­dent that they shared many of the same con­nec­tions, includ­ing to the man who would lat­er count them both as his clients, Roy Cohn. While much has been said of the ties between Cohn and Trump, Cohn was par­tic­u­lar­ly close to Lauder’s moth­er, Estee Laud­er (born Josephine Mentzer). Estee was even count­ed among Cohn’s most high-pro­file friends in his New York Times obit­u­ary.

    A small win­dow into the Laud­er-Cohn rela­tion­ship sur­faced briefly in a 2016 arti­cle in Politi­co about a 1981 din­ner par­ty held at Cohn’s week­end home in Green­wich, Con­necti­cut. The par­ty was attend­ed by Ronald Lauder’s par­ents, Estee and Joe, as well as Trump and his then-wife Ivana, who had a week­end home just two miles away. That par­ty was held soon after Cohn had helped Rea­gan secure the pres­i­den­cy and had reached the height of his polit­i­cal influ­ence. At the par­ty, Cohn offered toasts to Rea­gan and to then-Sen­a­tor for New York Alfonse D’Amato, who would lat­er urge Ronald Laud­er to run for polit­i­cal office.

    Two years lat­er, in 1983, Ronald Laud­er — whose only pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence at that point was work­ing for his parent’s cos­met­ics com­pa­ny — was appoint­ed to serve as Unit­ed States Deputy Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense for Euro­pean and NATO Affairs. Soon after his appoint­ment, he served on the Din­ner Trib­ute Com­mit­tee for a din­ner host­ed by the Jew­ish fra­ter­nal and strong­ly pro-Israel orga­ni­za­tion B’nai B’rith, the par­ent orga­ni­za­tion of the con­tro­ver­sial Anti-Defama­tion League (ADL), in Roy Cohn’s hon­or. Cohn’s influ­en­tial father, Albert Cohn, was the long-time pres­i­dent of B’nai B’rith’s pow­er­ful New Eng­land-New York chap­ter and Roy Cohn him­self was a mem­ber of B’nai B’rith’s Bank­ing and Finance Lodge.

    The din­ner specif­i­cal­ly sought to hon­or Cohn for his pro-Israel advo­ca­cy and his efforts to “for­ti­fy” Israel’s econ­o­my, and its hon­orary chair­men includ­ed media mogul Rupert Mur­doch, Don­ald Trump and then-head of Bear Stearns Alan Green­berg, all of whom are con­nect­ed to Jef­frey Epstein.

    Dur­ing his time as deputy assis­tant sec­re­tary of defense, Laud­er was also very active in Israeli pol­i­tics and had already become an ally of the then-Israeli rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Unit­ed Nations and future prime min­is­ter of Israel, Ben­jamin Netanyahu. Laud­er would go on to be one of the most impor­tant indi­vid­u­als in Netanyahu’s rise to pow­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing his upset vic­to­ry in 1996, and a major financier of Israel’s right-wing Likud Par­ty.

    In 1986, the year that Roy Cohn died, Laud­er left his post at the Pen­ta­gon and became the U.S. ambas­sador to Aus­tria, where his tenure was shaped by his con­fronta­tions with the then-Aus­tri­an pres­i­dent and for­mer Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tor, Kurt Wald­heim. Lauder’s inter­est in Aus­tri­an pol­i­tics has con­tin­ued well into recent years, cul­mi­nat­ing in accu­sa­tions that he sought to manip­u­late Aus­tri­an elec­tions in 2012.

    After leav­ing his ambas­sador­ship, Laud­er found­ed the Ronald S. Laud­er Foun­da­tion in 1987 and lat­er went on to run for May­or of New York against Rudy Giu­liani in 1989. Laud­er was encour­aged to run by then-Sen­a­tor Alfonse D’Amato, who had close ties to Roy Cohn and his long-time law part­ner Tom Bolan, who was D’Amato’s advis­er. At the afore­men­tioned 1983 B’nai B’rith din­ner hon­or­ing Cohn, D’Amato was the fea­tured speak­er.

    The like­ly rea­son was that Giu­liani, though once an ally of the “Roy Cohn machine,” was at the time deeply dis­liked by the late Cohn’s asso­ciates for pros­e­cut­ing Cohn’s for­mer law part­ner, Stan­ley Fried­man, for rack­e­teer­ing, con­spir­a­cy and oth­er charges. Giu­liani also had a his­to­ry of bit­ter dis­agree­ments with D’Amato. Lauder’s pri­ma­ry cam­paign, though unsuc­cess­ful, was not­ed for its vicious­ness and its cost, as it burned through more than $13 mil­lion.

    A few years lat­er, in the ear­ly 1990s, Laud­er would join a new­ly formed group that has long evad­ed scruti­ny from the media but has recent­ly become of inter­est in con­nec­tion with the Jef­frey Epstein scan­dal: the Mega Group.

    Laud­er, Epstein and the mys­te­ri­ous Aus­tri­an pass­port

    Before get­ting to the Mega Group, it is worth not­ing one par­tic­u­lar act appar­ent­ly under­tak­en by Laud­er while he was U.S. ambas­sador to Aus­tria that has recent­ly come to light in rela­tion to the arrest in ear­ly July of Jef­frey Epstein, a find­ing first report­ed by jour­nal­ist Edward Sza­ll. When police recent­ly dis­cov­ered an Aus­tri­an pass­port with Epstein’s pic­ture and a fake name after raid­ing his Man­hat­tan res­i­dence, the source and pur­pose of the pass­port came under media scruti­ny.

    Accord­ing to the Asso­ci­at­ed Press, Epstein’s defense lawyers specif­i­cal­ly argued that “a friend gave it to him [Epstein] in the 1980s after some Jew­ish-Amer­i­cans were infor­mal­ly advised to car­ry iden­ti­fi­ca­tion bear­ing a non-Jew­ish name when trav­el­ing inter­na­tion­al­ly dur­ing a peri­od when hijack­ings were more com­mon.” This claim appears to be relat­ed to con­cerns that fol­lowed the hijack­ing of Air France Flight 139 in 1976 when Israeli and Jew­ish hostages were sep­a­rat­ed from oth­er hostages based large­ly on the pass­ports in their pos­ses­sion.

    Giv­en that Epstein was unable to meet the con­ven­tion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions for an Aus­tri­an pass­port — includ­ing long-term res­i­den­cy in Aus­tria (the pass­port lists him as a res­i­dent of Sau­di Ara­bia) and flu­en­cy in Ger­man — it appears that the only way to have acquired an Aus­tri­an pass­port was by uncon­ven­tion­al means, mean­ing assis­tance from a well-con­nect­ed Aus­tri­an offi­cial or for­eign diplo­mat with clout in Aus­tria.

    Laud­er, then-ambas­sador to Aus­tria for the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion, would have been well-posi­tioned to acquire such a pass­port, par­tic­u­lar­ly for the rea­son cit­ed by Epstein’s attor­neys that Jew­ish-Amer­i­cans could be tar­get­ed dur­ing trav­el, and in light of Lauder’s very pub­lic con­cerns over threats Jews face from cer­tain ter­ror groups. Fur­ther­more, the pass­port had been issued in 1987, when Laud­er was still serv­ing as an ambas­sador.

    In addi­tion, Laud­er was well-con­nect­ed to Epstein’s for­mer patron — for­mer head of Bear Stearns Alan Green­berg, who had hired Epstein in the late 1970s imme­di­ate­ly after the lat­ter was fired from the Dal­ton School — and Don­ald Trump, anoth­er friend of Laud­er and Green­berg who began his friend­ship with Epstein in 1987, the same year the fake Aus­tri­an pass­port was issued. In 1987, Epstein also began his rela­tion­ship with his prin­ci­pal financier, Leslie Wexn­er, who is also close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with Laud­er (though some sources claim that Epstein and Wexn­er first met in 1985 but that their strong busi­ness rela­tion­ship was not estab­lished until 1987).

    Though Epstein’s defense attor­ney declined to reveal the iden­ti­ty of the “friend” who pro­vid­ed him with the fake Aus­tri­an pass­port, Laud­er was both well-posi­tioned to acquire it in Aus­tria and also deeply con­nect­ed to the Mega Group, which was co-found­ed by Epstein’s patron Leslie Wexn­er and to which Epstein has many con­nec­tions. These con­nec­tions to both the Aus­tri­an gov­ern­ment and to Epstein’s men­tor make Laud­er the most like­ly per­son to have acquired the doc­u­ment on Epstein’s behalf.

    Fur­ther­more, Epstein and the Mega Group’s ties to the Israeli intel­li­gence agency, Mossad, also sug­gest Laud­er was involved in procur­ing the pass­port, in light of his close ties to the Israeli gov­ern­ment and the fact that Mossad has a his­to­ry of using ambas­sadors abroad to pro­cure false, for­eign pass­ports for its oper­a­tives.

    Laud­er him­self has been alleged to have ties to Mossad, as he is a long-time fun­der of IDC Her­zliya, an Israeli uni­ver­si­ty close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with Mossad and their recruiters as well as Israeli mil­i­tary intel­li­gence. Laud­er even found­ed IDC Herzliya’s Laud­er School of Gov­ern­ment, Diplo­ma­cy and Strat­e­gy.

    Fur­ther­more, Laud­er co-found­ed the East­ern Euro­pean broad­cast­ing net­work CETV with Mark Palmer, a for­mer U.S. diplo­mat, Kissinger aide and Rea­gan speech­writer. Palmer is bet­ter known for co-found­ing the Nation­al Endow­ment for Democ­ra­cy (NED), an orga­ni­za­tion often described as an acces­so­ry to U.S. intel­li­gence, and one whose first pres­i­dent con­fessed to the Wash­ing­ton Post that “a lot of what we do today was done covert­ly 25 years ago by the CIA.” A 2001 report in the Evening Stan­dard not­ed that Epstein once claimed that dur­ing the 1980s he worked for the CIA, but Epstein lat­er backed away from that asser­tion..

    ...

    The mys­te­ri­ous Maxwells

    The Maxwell fam­i­ly has become a source of renewed media inter­est fol­low­ing Jef­frey Epstein’s arrest, as Ghis­laine Maxwell, long described in the media as a British “socialite,” was pub­licly cit­ed as Epstein’s long-time “on and off” girl­friend, and Epstein’s vic­tims, as well as for­mer wives of Epstein’s friends, have claimed that she was Epstein’s “pimp” and pro­cured under­age girls for his sex­u­al black­mail oper­a­tion. Ghis­laine Maxwell is also alleged to have engaged in the rape of the girls she pro­cured for Epstein and to have used them to pro­duce child pornog­ra­phy.

    Ghis­laine was the favorite and youngest daugh­ter of media mogul Robert Maxwell. Maxwell, born Jan Lud­vick Hoch, had joined the British Army in World War II. After­wards, accord­ing to authors John Lof­tus and Mark Aarons, he great­ly influ­enced the Czecho­slo­va­kian government’s deci­sion to arm Zion­ist para­mil­i­taries dur­ing the 1948 war that result­ed in Israel’s cre­ation as a state, and Maxwell him­self was also involved in the smug­gling of air­craft parts to Israel.

    Around this time, Maxwell was approached by British intel­li­gence out­fit MI6 and offered a posi­tion that Maxwell ulti­mate­ly declined. MI6 then clas­si­fied him as “Zion­ist — loy­al only to Israel” and made him a per­son of inter­est. He lat­er became an agent of the Mossad, accord­ing to sev­er­al books includ­ing Robert Maxwell: Israel’s Super­spy by Gor­don Thomas and Mar­tin Dil­lon. Fur­ther­more, Sey­mour Hersh’s The Sam­son Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arse­nal and Amer­i­can For­eign Pol­i­cy alleges ties between Maxwell and Israeli intel­li­gence.

    Accord­ing to Vic­tor Ostro­vsky, a for­mer Mossad case offi­cer:

    Mossad was financ­ing many of its oper­a­tions in Europe from mon­ey stolen from Maxwell’s news­pa­per pen­sion fund. They got their hands on the funds almost as soon as Maxwell made the pur­chase of the Mir­ror News­pa­per Group with mon­ey lent to him by Mossad.”

    In exchange for his ser­vices, the Mossad helped Maxwell sat­is­fy his sex­u­al appetite dur­ing his vis­its to Israel, pro­vid­ing him with pros­ti­tutes, “the ser­vice main­tained for black­mail pur­pos­es.” It was lat­er revealed that the hotel in which he stayed in Israel was bugged with cam­eras, allow­ing the Mossad to acquire “a small library of video footage of Maxwell in sex­u­al­ly com­pro­mis­ing posi­tions.” As with the CIA, the Mossad’s use of black­mail against both friend and foe is well-doc­u­ment­ed and known to be exten­sive.

    Maxwell was also a close asso­ciate and friend of Israeli “super­spy” Rafi Eitan, who, as pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned, was Jonathan Pollard’s han­dler and who had pre­vi­ous­ly worked direct­ly with Mey­er Lan­sky. Eitan had learned of a rev­o­lu­tion­ary new soft­ware being used by the U.S. gov­ern­ment known as “Promis” from Earl Bri­an, a long-time asso­ciate and aide to Ronald Rea­gan. Promis is often con­sid­ered the fore­run­ner to the “Prism” soft­ware used by spy agen­cies today and was devel­oped by William Hamil­ton, who leased the soft­ware to the U.S. gov­ern­ment through his com­pa­ny, Inslaw, in 1982.

    Accord­ing to author and for­mer BBC inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Gor­don Thomas, Bri­an was angry that the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice was suc­cess­ful­ly using Promis to go after orga­nized crime and mon­ey-laun­der­ing activ­i­ties and Eitan felt that the pro­gram could aid Israel. At the time, Eitan was the direc­tor of the now defunct Israeli mil­i­tary intel­li­gence agency Lekem, which gath­ered sci­en­tif­ic and tech­ni­cal intel­li­gence abroad from both pub­lic and covert sources, espe­cial­ly in rela­tion to Israel’s nuclear weapons pro­gram.

    A plan was hatched to install a “trap­door” into the soft­ware and then mar­ket Promis through­out the world, pro­vid­ing the Mossad with invalu­able intel­li­gence on the oper­a­tions of its ene­mies and allies while also pro­vid­ing Eitan and Bri­an with copi­ous amounts of cash. Accord­ing to the tes­ti­mo­ny of ex-Mossad offi­cial Ari Ben-Menashe, Bri­an pro­vid­ed a copy of Promis to Israel’s mil­i­tary intel­li­gence, which con­tact­ed an Israeli Amer­i­can pro­gram­mer liv­ing in Cal­i­for­nia who then plant­ed the “trap­door” in the soft­ware. The CIA was lat­er said to have installed its own trap­door in the soft­ware but it is unknown if they did so with a ver­sion of the already bugged soft­ware and how wide­ly it was adopt­ed rel­a­tive to the ver­sion bugged by Israeli intel­li­gence.

    After the trap­door was insert­ed, the prob­lem became sell­ing the bugged ver­sion of the soft­ware to gov­ern­ments as well as pri­vate com­pa­nies around the world, par­tic­u­lar­ly in areas of inter­est. Bri­an first attempt­ed to buy out Inslaw and Promis and then use that same com­pa­ny to sell the bugged ver­sion.

    Unsuc­cess­ful, Bri­an turned to his close friend, then-Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ed Meese whose Jus­tice Depart­ment then abrupt­ly refused to make the pay­ments to Inslaw that were stip­u­lat­ed by the con­tract, essen­tial­ly using the soft­ware for free, which Inslaw claimed to be theft. Some have spec­u­lat­ed that Meese’s role in that deci­sion was shaped, not only by his friend­ship with Bri­an, but the fact that his wife was a major investor in Brian’s busi­ness ven­tures. Meese would lat­er become an advis­er to Don­ald Trump when he was pres­i­dent-elect.

    Inslaw was forced to declare bank­rupt­cy as a result of Meese’s actions and sued the Jus­tice Depart­ment. The court lat­er found that the Meese-led depart­ment “took, con­vert­ed, stole” the soft­ware through “trick­ery, fraud and deceit.”

    With Inslaw out of the way, Bri­an sold the soft­ware all over the world. Eitan lat­er recruit­ed Robert Maxwell to become anoth­er Promis sales­man, which he did remark­ably well, even suc­ceed­ing in sell­ing the soft­ware to Sovi­et intel­li­gence and con­spir­ing with Repub­li­can Texas Sen­a­tor John Tow­er to have the soft­ware adopt­ed by the U.S. gov­ern­ment lab­o­ra­to­ry at Los Alam­os. Dozens of coun­tries used the soft­ware on their most care­ful­ly guard­ed com­put­er sys­tems, unaware that Mossad now had access to every­thing Promis touched.

    Where­as the Mossad’s past reliance on gath­er­ing intel­li­gence had relied on the same tac­tics used by its equiv­a­lents in the U.S. and else­where, the wide­spread adop­tion of the Promis soft­ware, large­ly through the actions of Earl Bri­an and Robert Maxwell, gave the Mossad a way to gath­er not just troves of coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence data, but also black­mail on oth­er intel­li­gence agen­cies and pow­er­ful fig­ures.

    Indeed, Promis’ back­door and adop­tion by intel­li­gence agen­cies all over the world essen­tial­ly pro­vid­ed the Mossad with access to troves of black­mail that the CIA and FBI had acquired on their friends and foes for over half a cen­tu­ry. Strange­ly, in recent years, the FBI has sought to hide infor­ma­tion relat­ed to Robert Maxwell’s con­nec­tion to the Promis scan­dal.

    Accord­ing to jour­nal­ist Robert Fisk, Maxwell was also involved in the Mossad abduc­tion of Israeli nuclear weapons whistle­blow­er Vanunu Mordechai. Mordechai had attempt­ed to pro­vide the media with infor­ma­tion on the extent of Israel’s nuclear weapons pro­gram, which was even­tu­al­ly pub­lished by the Sun­day Times of Lon­don. Yet, Mordechai had also con­tact­ed the Dai­ly Mir­ror with the infor­ma­tion, the Mir­ror being an out­let that was owned by Maxwell and whose for­eign edi­tor was a close Maxwell asso­ciate and alleged Mossad asset, Nicholas Davies. Jour­nal­ist Sey­mour Hersh alleged that Davies had also been involved in Israeli arms deals.

    Per Fisk, it was Maxwell who con­tact­ed the Israeli Embassy in Lon­don and told them of Mordechai’s activ­i­ties. This led to Mordechai’s entrap­ment by a female Mossad agent who seduced him as part of a “hon­ey trap” oper­a­tion that led to his kid­nap­ping and lat­er impris­on­ment in Israel. Mordechai served an 18-year sen­tence, 12 years of which were in soli­tary con­fine­ment.

    Then, there is the issue of Maxwell’s death, wide­ly cit­ed by main­stream and inde­pen­dent media alike as sus­pi­cious and a poten­tial homi­cide. Accord­ing to authors Gor­don Thomas and Mar­tin Dil­lon, Maxwell had sealed his own fate when he attempt­ed to threat­en top Mossad offi­cials with the expo­sure of cer­tain oper­a­tions if they did not help him res­cue his media empire from crip­pling debt and finan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties. Many of Maxwell’s cred­i­tors, who had grown increas­ing­ly dis­pleased with the media mogul, were Israeli and sev­er­al of them were alleged to be Mossad-con­nect­ed them­selves.

    Thomas and Dil­lon argue in their biog­ra­phy of Maxwell’s life that the Mossad felt that Maxwell had become more of a lia­bil­i­ty than an asset and killed him on his yacht three months after he demand­ed the bailout. On the oth­er extreme are the­o­ries that sug­gest Maxwell com­mit­ted sui­cide because of the finan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties his empire faced.

    ...

    ———-

    “Mega Group, Maxwells and Mossad: The Spy Sto­ry at the Heart of the Jef­frey Epstein Scan­dal” by Whit­ney Webb, Mint Press News, 08/07/2019

    “Per­haps the best illus­tra­tion of how the con­nec­tions between many of these play­ers often meld togeth­er can be seen in Ronald Laud­er: a Mega Group mem­ber, for­mer mem­ber of the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion, long-time donor to Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu and Israel’s Likud Par­ty, as well as a long-time friend of Don­ald Trump and Roy Cohn.

    Epstein had a lot of friends and asso­ciates. But the net­work of peo­ple he appeared to be asso­ci­at­ed with back in the 80’s, when he appeared to be get­ting estab­lished as an oper­a­tive of some sort, had a dis­tinct right-wing bent. This is exem­pli­fied by Ronald Laud­er, a key patron of Ben­jamin Netanyahu, the Likud Par­ty, and the Repub­li­can Par­ty. And a long-time asso­ciate of both Don­ald Trump and Roy Cohn:

    ...
    From cos­met­ics heir to polit­i­cal play­er

    One often over­looked yet famous client and friend of Roy Cohn is the bil­lion­aire heir to the Estee Laud­er cos­met­ics for­tune, Ronald Laud­er. Laud­er is often described in the press as a “lead­ing Jew­ish phil­an­thropist” and is the pres­i­dent of the World Jew­ish Con­gress, yet his many media pro­files tend to leave out his high­ly polit­i­cal past.

    In a state­ment giv­en by Laud­er to New York Times reporter Mag­gie Haber­man in 2018, the cos­met­ics heir not­ed that he has known Trump for over 50 years, going back at least to the ear­ly 1970s. Accord­ing to Laud­er, his rela­tion­ship with Trump began when Trump was a stu­dent at the Whar­ton School at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, which Laud­er also attend­ed.

    Though the exact nature of their ear­ly friend­ship is unclear, it is evi­dent that they shared many of the same con­nec­tions, includ­ing to the man who would lat­er count them both as his clients, Roy Cohn. While much has been said of the ties between Cohn and Trump, Cohn was par­tic­u­lar­ly close to Lauder’s moth­er, Estee Laud­er (born Josephine Mentzer). Estee was even count­ed among Cohn’s most high-pro­file friends in his New York Times obit­u­ary.
    ...

    And while it’s unclear what Epstein’s direct ties to Laud­er were in the 80’s, Laud­er was close with a num­ber of peo­ple who would lat­er be iden­ti­fied as Epstein asso­ciates, includ­ing Alan Green­berg and Don­ald Trump. And Laud­er was very close to the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion:

    ...
    Two years lat­er, in 1983, Ronald Laud­er — whose only pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence at that point was work­ing for his parent’s cos­met­ics com­pa­ny — was appoint­ed to serve as Unit­ed States Deputy Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense for Euro­pean and NATO Affairs. Soon after his appoint­ment, he served on the Din­ner Trib­ute Com­mit­tee for a din­ner host­ed by the Jew­ish fra­ter­nal and strong­ly pro-Israel orga­ni­za­tion B’nai B’rith, the par­ent orga­ni­za­tion of the con­tro­ver­sial Anti-Defama­tion League (ADL), in Roy Cohn’s hon­or. Cohn’s influ­en­tial father, Albert Cohn, was the long-time pres­i­dent of B’nai B’rith’s pow­er­ful New Eng­land-New York chap­ter and Roy Cohn him­self was a mem­ber of B’nai B’rith’s Bank­ing and Finance Lodge.

    The din­ner specif­i­cal­ly sought to hon­or Cohn for his pro-Israel advo­ca­cy and his efforts to “for­ti­fy” Israel’s econ­o­my, and its hon­orary chair­men includ­ed media mogul Rupert Mur­doch, Don­ald Trump and then-head of Bear Stearns Alan Green­berg, all of whom are con­nect­ed to Jef­frey Epstein.

    Dur­ing his time as deputy assis­tant sec­re­tary of defense, Laud­er was also very active in Israeli pol­i­tics and had already become an ally of the then-Israeli rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Unit­ed Nations and future prime min­is­ter of Israel, Ben­jamin Netanyahu. Laud­er would go on to be one of the most impor­tant indi­vid­u­als in Netanyahu’s rise to pow­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing his upset vic­to­ry in 1996, and a major financier of Israel’s right-wing Likud Par­ty.
    ...

    But, again, it’s impor­tant to note that Epstein’s mys­te­ri­ous Aus­tri­an pass­port expired in 1987. It was­n’t issued in 1987. So spec­u­la­tion that Laud­er facil­i­tat­ed the issuance of this pass­port after being appoint­ed ambas­sador to Aus­tria in 1986 appears to be mis­tak­en:

    ...
    Laud­er, then-ambas­sador to Aus­tria for the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion, would have been well-posi­tioned to acquire such a pass­port, par­tic­u­lar­ly for the rea­son cit­ed by Epstein’s attor­neys that Jew­ish-Amer­i­cans could be tar­get­ed dur­ing trav­el, and in light of Lauder’s very pub­lic con­cerns over threats Jews face from cer­tain ter­ror groups. Fur­ther­more, the pass­port had been issued in 1987, when Laud­er was still serv­ing as an ambas­sador.
    ...

    So did Epstein actu­al­ly speak Aus­tri­an? That seems likes a rel­e­vant ques­tion.

    High­light­ing how this net­work has ties to US intel­li­gence in addi­tion to Israeli intel­li­gence, note how Laud­er co-found­ed the
    the East­ern Euro­pean broad­cast­ing net­work CETV with Mark Palmer, a for­mer U.S. diplo­mat, Kissinger aide and Rea­gan speech­writer known for co-found­ing the Nation­al Endow­ment for Democ­ra­cy. Plus, Epstein him­self once claimed to work for the CIA in the 80’s:

    ...
    Fur­ther­more, Laud­er co-found­ed the East­ern Euro­pean broad­cast­ing net­work CETV with Mark Palmer, a for­mer U.S. diplo­mat, Kissinger aide and Rea­gan speech­writer. Palmer is bet­ter known for co-found­ing the Nation­al Endow­ment for Democ­ra­cy (NED), an orga­ni­za­tion often described as an acces­so­ry to U.S. intel­li­gence, and one whose first pres­i­dent con­fessed to the Wash­ing­ton Post that “a lot of what we do today was done covert­ly 25 years ago by the CIA.” A 2001 report in the Evening Stan­dard not­ed that Epstein once claimed that dur­ing the 1980s he worked for the CIA, but Epstein lat­er backed away from that asser­tion.
    ...

    But while Ronald Laud­er has a num­ber of tan­gen­tial ties to Epstein’s net­work of impor­tant asso­ciates that makes Laud­er appear to be an impor­tant fig­ure in Epstein’s back­ground, Robert Maxwell has a far more sub­stan­tive sin­gle tan­gen­tial tie to Epstein: he was father of Epstein’s key part­ner in his sex-traf­fick­ing ring, Ghis­laine Maxwell. And as the arti­cle notes, among Robert Maxwell’s many spy exploits as a long-time Mossad asset includes his role in the sell­ing of the Promis soft­ware sys­tem:

    ...
    The mys­te­ri­ous Maxwells

    The Maxwell fam­i­ly has become a source of renewed media inter­est fol­low­ing Jef­frey Epstein’s arrest, as Ghis­laine Maxwell, long described in the media as a British “socialite,” was pub­licly cit­ed as Epstein’s long-time “on and off” girl­friend, and Epstein’s vic­tims, as well as for­mer wives of Epstein’s friends, have claimed that she was Epstein’s “pimp” and pro­cured under­age girls for his sex­u­al black­mail oper­a­tion. Ghis­laine Maxwell is also alleged to have engaged in the rape of the girls she pro­cured for Epstein and to have used them to pro­duce child pornog­ra­phy.

    ...

    Maxwell was also a close asso­ciate and friend of Israeli “super­spy” Rafi Eitan, who, as pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned, was Jonathan Pollard’s han­dler and who had pre­vi­ous­ly worked direct­ly with Mey­er Lan­sky. Eitan had learned of a rev­o­lu­tion­ary new soft­ware being used by the U.S. gov­ern­ment known as “Promis” from Earl Bri­an, a long-time asso­ciate and aide to Ronald Rea­gan. Promis is often con­sid­ered the fore­run­ner to the “Prism” soft­ware used by spy agen­cies today and was devel­oped by William Hamil­ton, who leased the soft­ware to the U.S. gov­ern­ment through his com­pa­ny, Inslaw, in 1982.

    ...

    A plan was hatched to install a “trap­door” into the soft­ware and then mar­ket Promis through­out the world, pro­vid­ing the Mossad with invalu­able intel­li­gence on the oper­a­tions of its ene­mies and allies while also pro­vid­ing Eitan and Bri­an with copi­ous amounts of cash. Accord­ing to the tes­ti­mo­ny of ex-Mossad offi­cial Ari Ben-Menashe, Bri­an pro­vid­ed a copy of Promis to Israel’s mil­i­tary intel­li­gence, which con­tact­ed an Israeli Amer­i­can pro­gram­mer liv­ing in Cal­i­for­nia who then plant­ed the “trap­door” in the soft­ware. The CIA was lat­er said to have installed its own trap­door in the soft­ware but it is unknown if they did so with a ver­sion of the already bugged soft­ware and how wide­ly it was adopt­ed rel­a­tive to the ver­sion bugged by Israeli intel­li­gence.

    After the trap­door was insert­ed, the prob­lem became sell­ing the bugged ver­sion of the soft­ware to gov­ern­ments as well as pri­vate com­pa­nies around the world, par­tic­u­lar­ly in areas of inter­est. Bri­an first attempt­ed to buy out Inslaw and Promis and then use that same com­pa­ny to sell the bugged ver­sion.

    Unsuc­cess­ful, Bri­an turned to his close friend, then-Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ed Meese whose Jus­tice Depart­ment then abrupt­ly refused to make the pay­ments to Inslaw that were stip­u­lat­ed by the con­tract, essen­tial­ly using the soft­ware for free, which Inslaw claimed to be theft. Some have spec­u­lat­ed that Meese’s role in that deci­sion was shaped, not only by his friend­ship with Bri­an, but the fact that his wife was a major investor in Brian’s busi­ness ven­tures. Meese would lat­er become an advis­er to Don­ald Trump when he was pres­i­dent-elect.

    Inslaw was forced to declare bank­rupt­cy as a result of Meese’s actions and sued the Jus­tice Depart­ment. The court lat­er found that the Meese-led depart­ment “took, con­vert­ed, stole” the soft­ware through “trick­ery, fraud and deceit.”

    With Inslaw out of the way, Bri­an sold the soft­ware all over the world. Eitan lat­er recruit­ed Robert Maxwell to become anoth­er Promis sales­man, which he did remark­ably well, even suc­ceed­ing in sell­ing the soft­ware to Sovi­et intel­li­gence and con­spir­ing with Repub­li­can Texas Sen­a­tor John Tow­er to have the soft­ware adopt­ed by the U.S. gov­ern­ment lab­o­ra­to­ry at Los Alam­os. Dozens of coun­tries used the soft­ware on their most care­ful­ly guard­ed com­put­er sys­tems, unaware that Mossad now had access to every­thing Promis touched.

    Where­as the Mossad’s past reliance on gath­er­ing intel­li­gence had relied on the same tac­tics used by its equiv­a­lents in the U.S. and else­where, the wide­spread adop­tion of the Promis soft­ware, large­ly through the actions of Earl Bri­an and Robert Maxwell, gave the Mossad a way to gath­er not just troves of coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence data, but also black­mail on oth­er intel­li­gence agen­cies and pow­er­ful fig­ures.

    Indeed, Promis’ back­door and adop­tion by intel­li­gence agen­cies all over the world essen­tial­ly pro­vid­ed the Mossad with access to troves of black­mail that the CIA and FBI had acquired on their friends and foes for over half a cen­tu­ry. Strange­ly, in recent years, the FBI has sought to hide infor­ma­tion relat­ed to Robert Maxwell’s con­nec­tion to the Promis scan­dal.
    ...

    And it’s Robert Maxwell’s his­to­ry with the whole Promis affair — a sto­ry that appeared to involve the US gov­ern­ment know­ing­ly facil­i­tat­ing the sale of pow­er­ful data­base inte­gra­tion soft­ware sold to gov­ern­ments with spy­ware implant­ed by both the Mossad and the CIA — that makes the reports about Epstein’s rela­tion­ship with Ehud Barak’s com­pa­ny Reporty so fas­ci­nat­ing. Epstein qui­et­ly financed Barack­’s invest­ment in start­ing Reporty back in 2014, which was only revealed last month. So Epstein was a secret investor in a com­pa­ny that was inte­grat­ed civil­ian telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions with a nation’s emer­gency tele­com infra­struc­ture. It’s not exact­ly like Promis. And it’s unclear how much sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion Reporty has access to as a part of pro­vid­ing its ser­vice. But if being con­nect­ed to a nation’s emer­gency tele­com infra­struc­ture has intel­li­gence appli­ca­tions it seems like Reporty would be very well placed to sur­rep­ti­tious­ly gath­er intel­li­gence. Like Promis. And like Promis, Reporty appears to have the endorse­ment of the US nation­al secu­ri­ty estab­lish­ment:

    Geek­wire

    Ehud Barak leads $5.15 mil­lion Series A for Israeli safe city app Reporty

    From mass shoot­ings to traf­fic acci­dents, this app is help­ing first respon­ders act faster and more effi­cient­ly

    Gabriel Avn­er
    Sep 27, 2016

    Israeli-based safe city app Reporty announced on Tues­day the close of their Series A round of fund­ing, bring­ing in $5.15 mil­lion in new cap­i­tal.

    The round was led by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of Defense Ehud Barak, who also took charge for the company’s seed round last year. Com­bined with the $1.8 mil­lion from their seed financ­ing in April 2015 that came pri­mar­i­ly from Barak with par­tic­i­pa­tion from the Chief Scientist’s Office, this new fund­ing brings them to a total of $7 mil­lion raised over­all. The remain­der of the cap­i­tal has been attrib­uted to pri­vate investors.

    Reporty’s team is no stranger to the world of oper­a­tional secu­ri­ty and tech­nol­o­gy. The company’s founder and CEO Amir Elichai for­mer­ly led an elite unit in the Israel Defense Forces and comes with a back­ground in ven­ture cap­i­tal projects. He brings with him Pin­chas Buchris, who has served in the past at the Min­istry of Defense as its direc­tor. Bucharis also com­mand­ed the IDF’s sig­nals intel­li­gence unit 8200. Their VP for busi­ness devel­op­ment Lital Leshem joins the team with expe­ri­ence in the IDF’s oper­a­tions branch. The com­pa­ny also has a strong set of tech minds, with VP for tech­nol­o­gy Alex Dizen­goff com­ing from the Secu­ri­ty Ser­vices’ Cyber unit and Yoni Yat­sun, a vet­er­an of the start­up scene who is respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing the nav­i­ga­tion algo­rithms that are at the heart of the apps.

    The app works through the instant com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the user and the author­i­ties. When the user acti­vates the app with the press of a but­ton, a two-way video and audio link is auto­mat­i­cal­ly made with the dis­patch­er. By speak­ing with the caller while view­ing the sit­u­a­tion in real-time, the dis­patch­er can quick­ly assess the nature of the emer­gency as well as its cred­i­bil­i­ty, and advise the caller with poten­tial­ly life sav­ing instruc­tions. At the same time, the app uses the phone’s loca­tion ser­vices to track the user and send the response team, even if the user is inside a build­ing.

    “Reporty’s plat­form has reduced the aver­age dura­tion of call for our clients by 67% to less than 45 sec­onds,” Elichai tells Geek­time, empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of speed and accu­ra­cy for con­vey­ing infor­ma­tion in emer­gency sit­u­a­tions. “The rea­son is the instant and auto­mat­ic amount of infor­ma­tion trans­ferred which allows the dis­patch­er to under­stand the full pic­ture.”

    Updates since their launch

    In the year since Geek­time first cov­ered Reporty, the com­pa­ny has been work­ing on improv­ing their sys­tem and expand­ing to new loca­tions.

    Elichai tells Geek­time that they have used the time to devel­op a full com­mu­ni­ca­tion ecosys­tem for nation­al emer­gency ser­vices which includes mobile apps, an API for seam­less inte­gra­tion to an exist­ing sys­tem, and an emer­gency infra­struc­ture. He says that this infra­struc­ture includes tech­nol­o­gy for rout­ing, an indoor posi­tion­ing plat­form, dis­patch sys­tems, and mon­i­tor­ing.

    One of the most inter­est­ing and per­haps impor­tant aspects of their tech­nol­o­gy is in how they have designed their rout­ing sys­tem that ensures that the caller can con­nect with the dis­patch­er.

    “Our patent­ed router sys­tem has a bench­mark algo­rithm that tests (less than 2 sec­onds) the avail­able com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels around the per­son and makes a deci­sion on how to stream the info,” Elichai explains to Geek­time. “It can be through any chan­nel IP/ umts / 2G / 3G /4G / LTE etc. The inno­va­tion is that it’s the sep­a­ra­tion of the chan­nels and how to con­nect them back at the dispatch/command sys­tem in real time.”

    This is essen­tial for emer­gency sit­u­a­tions where the most cru­cial ele­ment is mak­ing sure that all of the infor­ma­tion makes it to the dis­patch­er.

    Users can now reach emer­gency ser­vice call cen­ters in 160 coun­tries, with the app work­ing to route calls to the rel­e­vant num­bers accord­ing to their loca­tion.

    Mak­ing the most out of mobile for first respon­ders

    The con­ver­gence of the rise of smart cities, fears of ter­ror-relat­ed vio­lence, and over­all mobile con­nec­tiv­i­ty has made way for a spike in inter­est for apps that make the jobs of first respon­ders just a lit­tle bit eas­i­er.

    Over the past year, the U.S. gov­ern­ment in par­tic­u­lar has made moves through dif­fer­ent projects to col­lab­o­rate with Israeli com­pa­nies on devel­op­ing these types of apps and ser­vices. In July, Geek­time report­ed on how the new U.S. Depart­ment of Home­land Security’s Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Direc­torate (DHS S&T)-backed NextGen First Respon­der Tech­nolo­gies pro­gram gave a $1.9 mil­lion grant to star­tups work­ing on these kinds of solu­tions through the joint Israel‑U.S. Bina­tion­al Indus­tri­al R&D (BIRD) Foun­da­tion.

    One of the com­pa­nies that received fund­ing is the Tel Aviv-based SayVU Tech­nolo­gies Ltd, led by CEO Amotz Koskas. Sim­i­lar to Reporty, their prod­uct lis­tens to audio, with­out need­ing to open the app, to help pro­vide dis­patch­ers with infor­ma­tion on the sit­u­a­tion and their loca­tion.

    The pre­vi­ous month in June, the Unit­ed States Defense Department’s Com­bat­ing Ter­ror­ism Tech­ni­cal Sup­port Office (CTTSO) was in Tel Aviv for their now annu­al com­pe­ti­tion for new tech­nolo­gies and apps that can help secu­ri­ty forces and emer­gency per­son­nel. This year they includ­ed an app cat­e­go­ry, pass­ing out $100,000 to the most promis­ing devel­op­ers.

    ...

    Plans post fund­ing

    Mov­ing for­ward from this round, the com­pa­ny tells Geek­time that they intend to use the fresh­ly raised cap­i­tal to con­tin­ue devel­op­ing new tech­nolo­gies, grow their mar­ket­ing oper­a­tions, and open a U.S. branch.

    ————

    “Ehud Barak leads $5.15 mil­lion Series A for Israeli safe city app Reporty” by Gabriel Avn­er, Geek­wire, 09/27/2016

    “Reporty’s team is no stranger to the world of oper­a­tional secu­ri­ty and tech­nol­o­gy. The company’s founder and CEO Amir Elichai for­mer­ly led an elite unit in the Israel Defense Forces and comes with a back­ground in ven­ture cap­i­tal projects. He brings with him Pin­chas Buchris, who has served in the past at the Min­istry of Defense as its direc­tor. Bucharis also com­mand­ed the IDF’s sig­nals intel­li­gence unit 8200. Their VP for busi­ness devel­op­ment Lital Leshem joins the team with expe­ri­ence in the IDF’s oper­a­tions branch. The com­pa­ny also has a strong set of tech minds, with VP for tech­nol­o­gy Alex Dizen­goff com­ing from the Secu­ri­ty Ser­vices’ Cyber unit and Yoni Yat­sun, a vet­er­an of the start­up scene who is respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing the nav­i­ga­tion algo­rithms that are at the heart of the apps.”

    The for­mer Israeli Min­istry of Defense direc­tor and the com­man­der of the IDF’s sig­nals intel­li­gence unit 8200. That’s quite a series of resumes for a com­pa­ny that pro­vides instant com­mu­ni­ca­tions between users and author­i­ties and sends audio, video, and loca­tion ser­vices. And emer­gency infra­struc­ture it con­nects to include tech­nol­o­gy for mon­i­tor­ing and as of 2016 it was func­tion in 160 coun­tries. That sounds like the kind of tech­nol­o­gy that has plen­ty of dual use appli­ca­tions:

    ...
    The app works through the instant com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the user and the author­i­ties. When the user acti­vates the app with the press of a but­ton, a two-way video and audio link is auto­mat­i­cal­ly made with the dis­patch­er. By speak­ing with the caller while view­ing the sit­u­a­tion in real-time, the dis­patch­er can quick­ly assess the nature of the emer­gency as well as its cred­i­bil­i­ty, and advise the caller with poten­tial­ly life sav­ing instruc­tions. At the same time, the app uses the phone’s loca­tion ser­vices to track the user and send the response team, even if the user is inside a build­ing.

    ...

    Elichai tells Geek­time that they have used the time to devel­op a full com­mu­ni­ca­tion ecosys­tem for nation­al emer­gency ser­vices which includes mobile apps, an API for seam­less inte­gra­tion to an exist­ing sys­tem, and an emer­gency infra­struc­ture. He says that this infra­struc­ture includes tech­nol­o­gy for rout­ing, an indoor posi­tion­ing plat­form, dis­patch sys­tems, and mon­i­tor­ing.

    One of the most inter­est­ing and per­haps impor­tant aspects of their tech­nol­o­gy is in how they have designed their rout­ing sys­tem that ensures that the caller can con­nect with the dis­patch­er.

    “Our patent­ed router sys­tem has a bench­mark algo­rithm that tests (less than 2 sec­onds) the avail­able com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels around the per­son and makes a deci­sion on how to stream the info,” Elichai explains to Geek­time. “It can be through any chan­nel IP/ umts / 2G / 3G /4G / LTE etc. The inno­va­tion is that it’s the sep­a­ra­tion of the chan­nels and how to con­nect them back at the dispatch/command sys­tem in real time.”

    This is essen­tial for emer­gency sit­u­a­tions where the most cru­cial ele­ment is mak­ing sure that all of the infor­ma­tion makes it to the dis­patch­er.

    Users can now reach emer­gency ser­vice call cen­ters in 160 coun­tries, with the app work­ing to route calls to the rel­e­vant num­bers accord­ing to their loca­tion.
    ...

    But there’s one gov­ern­ment that appears to be par­tic­u­lar­ly excit­ed about this tech­nol­o­gy: the US gov­ern­ment. And not just Reporty’s tech­nol­o­gy. The U.S. Depart­ment of Home­land Security’s Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Direc­torate (DHS S&T)-backed NextGen First Respon­der Tech­nolo­gies pro­gram also gave a grant to Tel Aviv-based SayVU Tech­nolo­gies Ltd which is devel­op­ing a sim­i­lar app that would have the capac­i­ty of send­ing audio back to author­i­ties with­out even acti­vat­ing the app. Again, it seems like there’s a lot of dual use capa­bil­i­ty here:

    ...
    Over the past year, the U.S. gov­ern­ment in par­tic­u­lar has made moves through dif­fer­ent projects to col­lab­o­rate with Israeli com­pa­nies on devel­op­ing these types of apps and ser­vices. In July, Geek­time report­ed on how the new U.S. Depart­ment of Home­land Security’s Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Direc­torate (DHS S&T)-backed NextGen First Respon­der Tech­nolo­gies pro­gram gave a $1.9 mil­lion grant to star­tups work­ing on these kinds of solu­tions through the joint Israel‑U.S. Bina­tion­al Indus­tri­al R&D (BIRD) Foun­da­tion.

    One of the com­pa­nies that received fund­ing is the Tel Aviv-based SayVU Tech­nolo­gies Ltd, led by CEO Amotz Koskas. Sim­i­lar to Reporty, their prod­uct lis­tens to audio, with­out need­ing to open the app, to help pro­vide dis­patch­ers with infor­ma­tion on the sit­u­a­tion and their loca­tion.

    The pre­vi­ous month in June, the Unit­ed States Defense Department’s Com­bat­ing Ter­ror­ism Tech­ni­cal Sup­port Office (CTTSO) was in Tel Aviv for their now annu­al com­pe­ti­tion for new tech­nolo­gies and apps that can help secu­ri­ty forces and emer­gency per­son­nel. This year they includ­ed an app cat­e­go­ry, pass­ing out $100,000 to the most promis­ing devel­op­ers.
    ...

    That’s all part of why so many are notic­ing par­al­lels between the Epstein saga and the Promis affair. Epstein clear­ly has deep ties to the Israeli polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment and fig­ures with close ties to Israeli intel­li­gence. He also clear­ly has deep ties to the US polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment and fig­ures with close ties to US intel­li­gence. Along with asso­ci­a­tions with pow­er­ful peo­ple across the world. Pow­er­ful peo­ple he was appar­ent­ly tasked with putting in com­pro­mis­ing sit­u­a­tions for black­mail pur­pos­es. So who, of all those asso­ciates, were the peo­ple Epstein was work­ing for vs the peo­ple he was hus­tling for the black­mail mate­ri­als? That’s still unclear, but it’s look­ing more and more like the peo­ple he was ulti­mate­ly work­ing for in both the US and Israel hailed from the right-wing. So was he work­ing for a gov­ern­ment? Mul­ti­ple gov­ern­ments? Or a pri­vate net­work of (large­ly right-wing) peo­ple with deep gov­ern­ment con­nec­tions?

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | August 17, 2019, 4:34 pm
  19. The FBI just released a trove of old doc­u­ments relat­ed to child sex-traf­fick­ing case with pos­si­ble intel­li­gence con­nec­tions. But it’s not about the Jef­frey Epstein case. Instead, it’s a cache of old doc­u­ments that were post­ed yes­ter­day online on the FBI’s “The Vault” web­site about “The Find­ers” case. That’s the case involv­ing a group of chil­dren, aged 2–6, dis­cov­ered by police in Feb­ru­ary of 1987 under the care of two adults. The chil­dren were cov­ered in insect bites and showed signs of being kept in con­di­tions con­sid­ered child abuse. It was then dis­cov­ered the adults were mem­bers of a com­mune, the Find­ers, and the moth­ers of these chil­dren were mem­bers of the com­mune. Inves­ti­ga­tors ini­tial­ly found signs of child sex­u­al abuse and sus­pi­cions grew that the Find­ers were involved with Satanism and child pornog­ra­phy. But with­in a cou­ple of weeks the inves­ti­ga­tion was wound down and no charges were pressed.

    It was a dis­turb­ing sto­ry out of the gate. But in 1993 it got extreme­ly dis­turb­ing. In Decem­ber of 1993, the Wash­ing­ton Times (owned by anoth­er cult, the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church) pub­lished a sto­ry about alleged ties between the Find­ers has ties to the CIA. Poten­tial­ly very close ties. Accord­ing to the report, in April of 1987, a US Cus­toms agent who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the ini­tial raids on The Find­ers’ prop­er­ties dis­cov­ered that the CIA had sent employ­ees to a com­pa­ny called Future Enter­pris­es for com­put­er train­ing in the 80s. A lat­er Cus­toms report says the CIA “admit­ted to own­ing the Find­ers orga­ni­za­tion as a front for a domes­tic com­put­er train­ing oper­a­tion but that it had ’gone bad.” That agent sent those doc­u­ments to mem­bers of Con­gress and urged an inves­ti­ga­tion. As we’ll see in the sec­ond arti­cle excerpt below, the CIA vocif­er­ous­ly denied that Future Enter­pris­es was a CIA front, while acknowl­edg­ing that, yes, the CIA had been send­ing employ­ees to Future Enter­pris­es Inc. for com­put­er train­ing in the 1980s. Even more dis­turb­ing is that the vice pres­i­dent of Future Enter­pris­es con­firmed that the com­pa­ny trained CIA employ­ees in com­put­er use and con­tin­ued to do so to that day. To this day, the case of the Find­ers, why the inves­ti­ga­tion was so rapid­ly closed with­out charges, and what exact­ly its rela­tion­ship was with the CIA remains unre­solved, mak­ing it a case eeri­ly famil­iar to the Epstein child sex-traf­fick­ing net­work.

    So the FBI just data dumped 324 pages of doc­u­ments relat­ed to that case. Why now? That’s unclear, but it’s worth not­ing that the first doc­u­ment has a stamp indi­cat­ing it’s from ear­ly Novem­ber of 1993 and a num­ber of oth­er doc­u­ments appear to be from around that time. That’s inter­est­ing not only because it was about a month before the Wash­ing­ton Times made that explo­sive Decem­ber 1993 report about the CIA ties to the Find­ers, but also because the date of this data dump (10/25/2019) is almost exact­ly 25 years (a week away from 26 years) after that ear­ly Novem­ber 1993 peri­od. So if these are the kinds of doc­u­ments that were legal­ly required to be pub­licly dis­closed 25 years lat­er, this would be the last week to release them because it will be 26 years lat­er next week. So per­haps that explains the tim­ing. Although not all of the doc­u­ments are from Novem­ber 1993. Some are from 1987, some from lat­er in the 90s. And quite a few that make ref­er­ences to the CIA’s ties to var­i­ous com­pa­nies asso­ci­at­ed with the Find­ers (take a look at page 307 on Gen­er­al Sci­en­tif­ic Cor­po­ra­tion, a com­pa­ny the Find­ers appar­ent­ly tried to infil­trate). The FBI has giv­en no expla­na­tion or con­text for this dump so we’re left to guess.

    But since this case is now back in the news, and dis­turbing­ly top­i­cal giv­en the ongo­ing Epstein ‘sui­cide’ mys­tery, here’s a cou­ple of arti­cle that high­light how dis­turb­ing this case was as it unfold­ed. First, here’s a Feb­ru­ary 13th, 1987, arti­cle about the FBI drop­ping the inves­ti­ga­tion into the Find­ers just one week after six chil­dren in the cult were dis­cov­ered in con­di­tions that sug­gest­ed child abuse:

    Chica­go Tri­bune

    FBI DROPPING INVESTIGATION OF WASHINGTON COMMUNE

    Janet Caw­ley, Chica­go Tri­bune
    Feb­ru­ary 13, 1987 | Wash­ing­ton

    The FBI said Thurs­day it was ”wind­ing down” its inves­ti­ga­tion of a Wash­ing­ton-based com­mune after find­ing no evi­dence of ille­gal activ­i­ty in con­nec­tion with the dis­cov­ery of six rag­tag young­sters in a Flori­da park last week.

    And a spokes­woman for the com­mu­nal group known as the Find­ers said five mem­bers who are the children‘s moth­ers were on their way to Tal­la­has­see to try to reclaim the young­sters, who are aged 2–6.

    ”Because some­one leads an alter­na­tive lifestyle doesn‘t mean they‘re not a fit moth­er,” said Diane Sher­wood, the group‘s spokes­woman.

    Sher­wood, 50, who said she was a native of Chica­go and had attend­ed Mundelein Col­lege and Loy­ola Uni­ver­si­ty, said the five women were trav­el­ing togeth­er to Tal­la­has­see but had stopped to rest at an unspec­i­fied loca­tion.

    ”They‘re tired,” she said. ”They‘re con­sid­er­ing whether to get an attor­ney. They don‘t want to be per­ceived as women who don‘t want their kids back.”

    The case of the Finders–and the miss­ing mothers–made head­lines last week when the young­sters were found in a Tal­la­has­see park in the cus­tody of two men. Police said the chil­dren were dirty, hun­gry and cov­ered with insect bites. They charged the men with child abuse. Lat­er, they said a doctor‘s report indi­cat­ed more than one young­ster showed signs of sex­u­al abuse.

    When it became known that the men belonged to the Find­ers, and that the chil­dren were off­spring of Find­ers mem­bers, an avalanche of pub­lic­i­ty ensued that sug­gest­ed the Find­ers was a mys­te­ri­ous cult that may have been involved in satan­ic rit­u­als and child pornog­ra­phy.

    Adding to the mys­tery was the fact that none of the moth­ers had come for­ward to claim her child.

    But with­in a week, as author­i­ties com­plet­ed their inves­ti­ga­tions, things began to shift. On Mon­day, the Wash­ing­ton met­ro­pol­i­tan police depart­ment held a press con­fer­ence to say it had found no evi­dence of wrong­do­ing or satan­ic activ­i­ty by the Find­ers. Health offi­cials in Flori­da then said they found no evi­dence of sex­u­al abuse of the chil­dren.

    And on Thurs­day, Gary Shep­pard, spokesman for the FBI‘s Wash­ing­ton field office, said the FBI inves­ti­ga­tion was ”pret­ty well wind­ing down . . . At this point we have not uncov­ered any evi­dence of fed­er­al vio­la­tions.”

    He said this includ­ed no evi­dence of kid­nap­ing or using the chil­dren for porno­graph­ic pur­pos­es.

    At the Find­ers‘ home, two adjoin­ing red-brick town­hous­es in a mid­dle-class neigh­bor­hood on the fringes of trendy George­town, Sher­wood said the FBI had inter­viewed all five moth­ers before they left for Tal­la­has­see.

    Sher­wood, who said she had been a group mem­ber since 1971, said the six women in the group–herself and the five mothers–had gone to San Fran­cis­co sev­er­al weeks ago ”to write arti­cles, edit and net­work” while sev­er­al of the men in the group took the chil­dren camp­ing.

    She said she was not cer­tain about the exact num­ber of men in the com­mune, but thought an esti­mate of 14 was about right and said the oth­ers were out ”work­ing, trav­el­ing and earn­ing mon­ey.”

    When the women learned their chil­dren had been tak­en into cus­tody, she said, ”the imme­di­ate reac­tion was to go to Flori­da. But we didn‘t know what to expect. It was going into the teeth of the drag­on.”

    Con­trary to ear­li­er reports, she said, the women had, in fact, phoned Tal­la­has­see police but ”they had 500 calls from peo­ple say­ing they were the moth­ers so they (the police) just said, ‘Uh huh, uh huh.‘ ”

    Sher­wood said the women flew back from San Fran­cis­co at the request of the FBI and, ”the minute their inter­views were fin­ished, they jumped in a car and left for Tal­la­has­see.”

    ...

    John Awad, dis­trict admin­is­tra­tor for the Flori­da Depart­ment of Health and Reha­bil­i­ta­tive Ser­vices, said the young­sters remained in his department‘s cus­tody and were ”doing well.” He said they would not be released ”until we find a suit­able home for them to return to.”

    An eval­u­a­tion of the Find­ers‘ home would have to be done by the prop­er Wash­ing­ton agency, he said, and ”we‘re going to do it delib­er­ate­ly and not be rushed. It‘s going to be a while.”

    The two men found with the chil­dren, Dou­glas Edward Ammer­man, 27, and Michael James Houli­han, 28, who also uses the name Hol­well, appeared in a Tal­la­has­see court Wednes­day on child abuse charges, based on the con­di­tion of the young­sters when they were found. The judge entered inno­cent pleas for both. No tri­al date was set.

    ———–

    “FBI DROPPING INVESTIGATION OF WASHINGTON COMMUNE” by Janet Caw­ley; Chica­go Tri­bune; 02/13/1987

    “The case of the Finders–and the miss­ing mothers–made head­lines last week when the young­sters were found in a Tal­la­has­see park in the cus­tody of two men. Police said the chil­dren were dirty, hun­gry and cov­ered with insect bites. They charged the men with child abuse. Lat­er, they said a doctor‘s report indi­cat­ed more than one young­ster showed signs of sex­u­al abuse.

    Dirty and hun­gry chil­dren cov­ered in insect bites and show­ing signs of sex­u­al abuse. That was the ini­tial dis­cov­ery. This imme­di­ate­ly turned into an avalanche of spec­u­la­tion about satanism and child pornog­ra­phy. Note this was dur­ing Amer­i­ca’s ‘Satan­ic Pan­ic’ peri­od, which prob­a­bly part­ly explains the Satanism alle­ga­tions. But there was still an abun­dance of imme­di­ate evi­dence that these kids were being held in abu­sive con­di­tions and grow­ing up in a cult, and yet a week lat­er the inves­ti­ga­tion was close and the group was absolved of all sex­u­al abuse claims. It’s that extreme­ly atten­u­at­ed inves­ti­ga­tion that fueled spec­u­la­tion this group was some­one being pro­tect­ed:

    ...
    When it became known that the men belonged to the Find­ers, and that the chil­dren were off­spring of Find­ers mem­bers, an avalanche of pub­lic­i­ty ensued that sug­gest­ed the Find­ers was a mys­te­ri­ous cult that may have been involved in satan­ic rit­u­als and child pornog­ra­phy.

    Adding to the mys­tery was the fact that none of the moth­ers had come for­ward to claim her child.

    But with­in a week, as author­i­ties com­plet­ed their inves­ti­ga­tions, things began to shift. On Mon­day, the Wash­ing­ton met­ro­pol­i­tan police depart­ment held a press con­fer­ence to say it had found no evi­dence of wrong­do­ing or satan­ic activ­i­ty by the Find­ers. Health offi­cials in Flori­da then said they found no evi­dence of sex­u­al abuse of the chil­dren.

    And on Thurs­day, Gary Shep­pard, spokesman for the FBI‘s Wash­ing­ton field office, said the FBI inves­ti­ga­tion was ”pret­ty well wind­ing down . . . At this point we have not uncov­ered any evi­dence of fed­er­al vio­la­tions.”

    He said this includ­ed no evi­dence of kid­nap­ing or using the chil­dren for porno­graph­ic pur­pos­es.
    ...

    And note how the spokes­woman for the group, Diane Sher­wood, claimed to have been a group mem­ber since 1971. It gives us an idea of when the group start­ed:

    ...
    ”Because some­one leads an alter­na­tive lifestyle doesn‘t mean they‘re not a fit moth­er,” said Diane Sher­wood, the group‘s spokes­woman.

    ...

    At the Find­ers‘ home, two adjoin­ing red-brick town­hous­es in a mid­dle-class neigh­bor­hood on the fringes of trendy George­town, Sher­wood said the FBI had inter­viewed all five moth­ers before they left for Tal­la­has­see.

    Sher­wood, who said she had been a group mem­ber since 1971, said the six women in the group–herself and the five mothers–had gone to San Fran­cis­co sev­er­al weeks ago ”to write arti­cles, edit and net­work” while sev­er­al of the men in the group took the chil­dren camp­ing.
    ...

    It’s worth not­ing that Sher­wood is ref­er­enced in the new FBI data dump. For exam­ple, on page 309 of the dump, there’s a num­ber of notes going back to the ear­ly 80’s about Sher­wood and anoth­er indi­vid­ual con­tact­ing peo­ple in Pana­ma back in 1980. Some­one in Mia­mi appears to have asked the legal attache for Pana­ma (Legat, Pana­ma, in the doc­u­ments) that year, although the con­text is unclear because so much is redact­ed. But there are a num­ber of redact­ed ref­er­ences involv­ing the CIA in that sec­tion of the data dump.

    Ok, now here’s a Decem­ber 17, 1993, Asso­ci­at­ed Press report that gives the CIA’s response to the explo­sive Wash­ing­ton Times report a week ear­li­er alleg­ing that the Find­ers’ com­pa­ny that the CIA was send­ing employ­ees to for com­put­er train­ing was a CIA front com­pa­ny. The CIA does­n’t deny send­ing employ­ees to the com­pa­ny, Future Enter­pris­es, but it does deny­ing it was a CIA front com­pa­ny. And the vice pres­i­dent of Future Enter­pris­es claims the CIA is was still send­ing employ­ees there to be trained. But accord­ing to police reports and Cus­toms agent doc­u­ments from 1987, the CIA admit­ted it was an agency front com­pa­ny at the time:

    Asso­ci­at­ed Press

    Jus­tice Depart­ment Look­ing At Alleged CIA Ties To Com­mune

    CAROLYN SKORNECK
    Decem­ber 17, 1993

    WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Jus­tice Depart­ment said Fri­day it is inves­ti­gat­ing alle­ga­tions the CIA used a “front com­pa­ny” run by a com­mune to train agency employ­ees and that the CIA blocked inves­ti­ga­tion of the group.

    The CIA denied any ties to the com­mune, called the Find­ers.

    Jus­tice Depart­ment spokesman John Rus­sell said the depart­ment is look­ing into the alle­ga­tions, con­tained in Cus­toms Ser­vice doc­u­ments sent to some mem­bers of Con­gress.

    CIA spokesman David Chris­t­ian called the charges “ridicu­lous.” He said, “The alleged facts are wrong, and any impli­ca­tion the CIA obstruct­ed jus­tice is out­ra­geous. Con­spir­a­cy sto­ries abound, and they often grab head­lines in the tabloid press, but this is one of the weird­est we’ve heard.”

    The Wash­ing­ton Times report­ed Fri­day that the CIA had ties to the Find­ers, a Wash­ing­ton-based group once accused of engag­ing in Satan­ic rit­u­als, child abuse and pornog­ra­phy.

    The charges were raised in the 1980s by law enforce­ment offi­cials, but none result­ed in pros­e­cu­tion.

    Chris­t­ian said Fri­day the CIA sent some employ­ees to a com­pa­ny called Future Enter­pris­es Inc. for com­put­er train­ing in the 1980s. But the spokesman said the CIA did not know about any con­nec­tions between the com­pa­ny and the Find­ers and added the com­pa­ny “was in no sense a CIA front or ever owned or oper­at­ed by any­one for the CIA.”

    Joseph Marinich, vice pres­i­dent of Future Enter­pris­es, said the com­pa­ny has trained CIA employ­ees in com­put­er use and con­tin­ues to do so, but that it has nev­er been a front for any­one.

    “I’m shocked and appalled” at the alle­ga­tions, he said. “This is stuff that I could nev­er have imag­ined.”

    Marinich said one Find­ers mem­ber, for­mer Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice employ­ee Robert Garder Ter­rell, worked for the com­pa­ny before he was let go in Feb­ru­ary 1987.

    That month the Find­ers gained noto­ri­ety when two mem­bers were accused of child abuse in Tal­la­has­see, Fla. The men spent six weeks in jail before a judge dis­missed the charges.

    Police at one time had called the Find­ers a cult that might be prac­tic­ing Satan­ic rit­u­als, child abuse and pornog­ra­phy. But for­mer Dis­trict of Colum­bia Police Chief Mau­rice Turn­er said the depart­ment found no evi­dence of crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing.

    ...

    The Cus­toms Ser­vice doc­u­ments that have prompt­ed atten­tion to the alleged CIA-Find­ers tie include an April 13, 1987, report by a Cus­toms agent who par­tic­i­pat­ed in raids on Find­ers’ prop­er­ties in Wash­ing­ton and Vir­ginia.

    The agent sent the doc­u­ments to mem­bers of Con­gress and has pushed for an inves­ti­ga­tion, offi­cials said Fri­day.

    The Wash­ing­ton Times report­ed that the agent pro­vid­ed doc­u­ments sug­gest­ing the CIA was block­ing inves­ti­ga­tions of the Find­ers by the FBI and Dis­trict of Colum­bia police.

    The news­pa­per also said a police doc­u­ment of Feb. 19, 1987, quotes a CIA agent as con­firm­ing that his agency was send­ing its peo­ple to “a Find­ers Corp., Future Enter­pris­es, for train­ing in com­put­er oper­a­tions.”

    A lat­er Cus­toms report says the CIA “admit­ted to own­ing the Find­ers orga­ni­za­tion as a front for a domes­tic com­put­er train­ing oper­a­tion but that it had ’gone bad,” the news­pa­per said.

    Cus­toms spokesman Bill Antho­ny said Tal­la­has­see police con­tact­ed Cus­toms about the group dur­ing an anti-pornog­ra­phy crack­down led by then-Attor­ney Gen­er­al Edwin Meese III.

    “We were total­ly tan­gen­tial to all of this” and Cus­toms dropped the mat­ter when it found no Cus­toms vio­la­tions, Antho­ny said. “Nobody asked us to shut down the case.”

    ———-

    “Jus­tice Depart­ment Look­ing At Alleged CIA Ties To Com­mune” by CAROLYN SKORNECK; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 12/17/1993

    Chris­t­ian said Fri­day the CIA sent some employ­ees to a com­pa­ny called Future Enter­pris­es Inc. for com­put­er train­ing in the 1980s. But the spokesman said the CIA did not know about any con­nec­tions between the com­pa­ny and the Find­ers and added the com­pa­ny “was in no sense a CIA front or ever owned or oper­at­ed by any­one for the CIA.””

    So the CIA def­i­nite­ly did send its employ­ees to a com­pa­ny asso­ci­at­ed with the Find­ers in the 80s. No one denies that. What is denied by the agency is that the com­pa­ny was a CIA front com­pa­ny or that the agency knew about any con­nec­tion between the Find­ers and the com­pa­ny at all. Inter­est­ing­ly, the vice pres­i­dent of the com­pa­ny also indi­cat­ed the CIA was still send­ing its employ­ees there for ‘com­put­er train­ing’ in 1993:

    ...
    Joseph Marinich, vice pres­i­dent of Future Enter­pris­es, said the com­pa­ny has trained CIA employ­ees in com­put­er use and con­tin­ues to do so, but that it has nev­er been a front for any­one.

    “I’m shocked and appalled” at the alle­ga­tions, he said. “This is stuff that I could nev­er have imag­ined.”

    Marinich said one Find­ers mem­ber, for­mer Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice employ­ee Robert Garder Ter­rell, worked for the com­pa­ny before he was let go in Feb­ru­ary 1987.

    That month the Find­ers gained noto­ri­ety when two mem­bers were accused of child abuse in Tal­la­has­see, Fla. The men spent six weeks in jail before a judge dis­missed the charges.
    ...

    But accord­ing to police doc­u­ments from the ini­tial 1987 inves­ti­ga­tion into the child abuse case, the CIA con­firmed to them at the time that it was send­ing its peo­ple to “a Find­ers Corp., Future Enter­pris­es, for train­ing in com­put­er oper­a­tions.” But the most explo­sive claim was that the CIA admit­ted to a Cus­toms agent that the agency owned “the Find­ers orga­ni­za­tion as a front for a domes­tic com­put­er train­ing oper­a­tion but that it had ’gone bad.”. The agent sent these doc­u­ments to mem­bers of Con­gress and pushed for an inves­ti­ga­tion:

    ...
    The Cus­toms Ser­vice doc­u­ments that have prompt­ed atten­tion to the alleged CIA-Find­ers tie include an April 13, 1987, report by a Cus­toms agent who par­tic­i­pat­ed in raids on Find­ers’ prop­er­ties in Wash­ing­ton and Vir­ginia.

    The agent sent the doc­u­ments to mem­bers of Con­gress and has pushed for an inves­ti­ga­tion, offi­cials said Fri­day.

    The Wash­ing­ton Times report­ed that the agent pro­vid­ed doc­u­ments sug­gest­ing the CIA was block­ing inves­ti­ga­tions of the Find­ers by the FBI and Dis­trict of Colum­bia police.

    The news­pa­per also said a police doc­u­ment of Feb. 19, 1987, quotes a CIA agent as con­firm­ing that his agency was send­ing its peo­ple to “a Find­ers Corp., Future Enter­pris­es, for train­ing in com­put­er oper­a­tions.”

    A lat­er Cus­toms report says the CIA “admit­ted to own­ing the Find­ers orga­ni­za­tion as a front for a domes­tic com­put­er train­ing oper­a­tion but that it had ’gone bad,” the news­pa­per said.
    ...

    So that whole poten­tial mega-scan­dal is what the FBI’s qui­et Fri­day data dump was all about. Was the tim­ing of the dump done out of an oblig­a­tion to make the doc­u­ments pub­lic after 25 years or was there some oth­er basis? At this point we have no idea. We just know that we nev­er actu­al­ly learned, decades lat­er, what the case of the Find­ers was all about. Much like the ‘Franklin coverup’ and the Epstein case. Which, tak­en togeth­er, is a pret­ty pow­er­ful les­son about how eas­i­ly even mega scan­dals can fall down the mem­o­ry hole.

    In relat­ed news, the Mia­mi Her­ald, which led the way towards the reopen­ing of the Epstein inves­ti­ga­tion due to its dogged inves­tiga­tive report­ing on the sto­ry, is try­ing to raise $1.5 mil­lion over the next three years to dou­ble its inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism team. Keep in mind that the Find­ers case start­ed in Flori­da so hope­ful­ly this FBI data dump gives that expand­ed inves­tiga­tive team the kinds of leads that could pull this sto­ry out of the mem­o­ry hole.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | October 26, 2019, 3:00 pm
  20. Here’s an inter­est­ing update on the inves­ti­ga­tion of the mys­te­ri­ous ‘sui­cide’ of Jef­frey Epstein in his jail cell despite being on sui­cide watch at the time: crim­i­nal charges are now being filed against the two guards who were tasked with watch­ing Epstein on the night of his death. The offi­cers, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, are fac­ing charges of mak­ing false records and con­spir­ing to inter­fere with the func­tions of the fed­er­al prison. The charges were unsealed on the same day the Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee held an over­sight hear­ing on the fed­er­al Bureau of Pris­ons, so this case unsur­pris­ing­ly came up dur­ing that hear­ing. When asked by Sen­a­tor Lind­sey Gra­ham whether or not inves­ti­ga­tors are look­ing into whether or not a crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy was behind Epstein’s death, the top pris­on­er admin­is­tra­tor in the US, Kath­leen Hawk Sawyer, answered that, “the FBI is involved and they are look­ing at crim­i­nal enter­prise, yes.” So, while it’s hard to have much con­fi­dence in fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tions involv­ing any­thing relat­ed to Epstein at this point, it sounds like there’s at least an inves­ti­ga­tion into whether or not Epstein had ‘help’ with his ‘sui­cide’:

    Mia­mi Her­ald

    Feds file crim­i­nal charges against jail guards respon­si­ble for watch­ing Jef­frey Epstein

    BY JULIE K. BROWN AND DANIEL CHANG
    NOVEMBER 19, 2019 12:24 PM

    Two cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers respon­si­ble for guard­ing Jef­frey Epstein when he died in his jail cell in August were charged on Tues­day with fal­si­fy­ing prison records to make it appear they were doing their jobs.

    Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter in Man­hat­tan, were charged with mak­ing false records and con­spir­ing to inter­fere with the func­tions of the fed­er­al prison.

    Noel and Thomas are accused of fail­ing to check on Epstein every half hour, as required, and of fal­si­fy­ing prison logs to make it appear that they had been mon­i­tor­ing the Palm Beach mul­ti­mil­lion­aire and sex offend­er on Aug. 9 and 10.

    Instead of check­ing on Epstein reg­u­lar­ly, accord­ing to the indict­ment unsealed Tues­day, Noel and Thomas “sat at their desk, browsed the inter­net, and moved around the com­mon area of the SHU (Spe­cial Hous­ing Unit).”

    To cov­er up their fail­ure, the indict­ment charges, Noel and Thomas “repeat­ed­ly signed false cer­ti­fi­ca­tions attest­ing to hav­ing con­duct­ed mul­ti­ple counts of inmates when, in truth and in fact, they nev­er con­duct­ed such counts.”

    ...

    The New York City coro­ner ruled Epstein’s death a sui­cide by hang­ing — a find­ing that has since been chal­lenged by a not­ed pathol­o­gist hired by Epstein’s broth­er to mon­i­tor the autop­sy.

    The charges were unsealed on the same day that the Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee held an over­sight hear­ing on the fed­er­al Bureau of Pris­ons.

    The nation’s top prison admin­is­tra­tor, Kath­leen Hawk Sawyer, told the com­mit­tee that FBI agents inves­ti­gat­ing Jef­frey Epstein’s death are look­ing at the pos­si­bil­i­ty that a “crim­i­nal enter­prise” played a role in his sui­cide.

    Sawyer, direc­tor of the fed­er­al Bureau of Pris­ons, was tak­ing ques­tions when Sen. Lind­sey Gra­ham, a South Car­oli­na Repub­li­can and chair­man of the Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee, asked about the FBI inves­ti­ga­tion.

    “With a case this high pro­file, there has got to be either a major mal­func­tion of the sys­tem or a crim­i­nal enter­prise afoot to allow this to hap­pen,” Gra­ham said. “So are you look­ing at both? Is the FBI look­ing at both?”

    “The FBI is involved and they are look­ing at crim­i­nal enter­prise, yes,” Sawyer replied.

    Lat­er dur­ing Tuesday’s Sen­ate hear­ing, Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Repub­li­can, lam­bast­ed the fed­er­al prison sys­tem and laid out his own the­o­ry on what may have hap­pened to Epstein.

    “What hap­pened to Jef­frey Epstein is an enor­mous black eye for the BOP,” Cruz said, using the acronym for the Bureau of Pris­ons, “and yet he died in fed­er­al cus­tody. He died in fed­er­al cus­tody before he had a chance to tes­ti­fy about his crimes, about his wrong­do­ings, and about the oth­er pow­er­ful men who were com­plic­it in that sex­u­al abuse. ... There were pow­er­ful men who want­ed Jef­frey Epstein silenced.”

    Cruz float­ed “two pos­si­bil­i­ties” for what hap­pened to Epstein. The first was “gross neg­li­gence and total fail­ure of BOP to do its job.” The sec­ond, he said, was “some­thing far worse ... that it was not sui­cide but rather a homi­cide car­ried out by per­son or per­sons who want­ed Epstein silenced.”.

    The Texas sen­a­tor then asked Sawyer whether she saw “any indi­ca­tion” that Epstein was mur­dered.

    Sawyer replied: “There’s no indi­ca­tion, from any­thing I know, that it as any­thing oth­er than a sui­cide.”

    ———–

    “Feds file crim­i­nal charges against jail guards respon­si­ble for watch­ing Jef­frey Epstein” by JULIE K. BROWN AND DANIEL CHANG; Mia­mi Her­ald; 11/19/2019

    “The nation’s top prison admin­is­tra­tor, Kath­leen Hawk Sawyer, told the com­mit­tee that FBI agents inves­ti­gat­ing Jef­frey Epstein’s death are look­ing at the pos­si­bil­i­ty that a “crim­i­nal enter­prise” played a role in his sui­cide.”

    Well, at least there’s an inves­ti­ga­tion, although we don’t real­ly know how seri­ous the inves­ti­ga­tion is and if it ends with these two guards it’s hard to imag­ine it was a very seri­ous inves­ti­ga­tion.

    And note how the Repub­li­cans on the Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee appeared to be aggres­sive­ly rais­ing the prospect of a con­spir­a­cy to kill Epstein, with Ted Cruz also rais­ing the prospects of a planned mur­der to silence Epstein. On the one hand, it’s good to see aggres­sive ques­tion of this case giv­en the absur­di­ty of the events that led up to Epstein’s death and the body of evi­dence that that he was an intel­li­gence-con­nect­ed/pro­tect­ed indi­vid­ual. But on the oth­er hand, we can’t for­get that in the mod­ern polit­i­cal and social era for the Unit­ed States, where move­ments like QAnon thrive on spec­u­la­tive non­sense, it’s not like we can expect hon­est aggres­sive inves­ti­ga­tions from the Repub­li­cans. And it’s not like we’re going to need a con­clu­sion to this inves­ti­ga­tion for the right-wing to arrive at the con­clu­sion that Bill and Hillary Clin­ton were behind it all. For exam­ple...:

    Rolling Stone

    Trump Push­es Con­spir­a­cy The­o­ry That Clin­ton Was Involved in Epstein Death

    But this is far from the president’s first time ped­dling false infor­ma­tion

    By Peter Wade
    August 10, 2019 7:29PM ET

    Don­ald Trump, pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, retweet­ed two tweets pro­mot­ing the base­less con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry that for­mer sec­re­tary of state Hillary Clin­ton was involved in the appar­ent sui­cide of bil­lion­aire and alleged sex traf­fick­er Jef­frey Epstein on Sat­ur­day.

    US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has retweet­ed the com­plete­ly base­less con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry imply­ing Epstein was killed by the Clin­tons. He also boost­ed an account that spread a false­hood about today’s events ear­li­er in the day. pic.twitter.com/5l6dmVGLIK— Jane Lytvy­nenko ????????????????????? (@JaneLytv) August 10, 2019

    Trump’s tweets came after a Trump HUD employ­ee post­ed on Insta­gram the same accu­sa­tion of Clin­ton.

    ...

    Oth­er base­less con­spir­a­cies Trump has engaged with include that for­mer Supreme Court jus­tice Antonin Scalia was mur­dered and that Twit­ter is inten­tion­al­ly and secret­ly lim­it­ing the reach of Repub­li­cans’ accounts. And just this week his cam­paign released an ad that sig­naled the pres­i­dent sup­port­ed QAnon con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries that claim with­out evi­dence that there is a “deep state” plot of gov­ern­ment employ­ees con­spir­ing against Trump and his sup­port­ers.

    Recent­ly, Yahoo News obtained an inter­nal FBI memo that stat­ed con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries are a “domes­tic ter­ror threat” and specif­i­cal­ly men­tioned QAnon. Accord­ing to the FBI, the spread of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries will “occa­sion­al­ly [dri­ve] both groups and indi­vid­ual extrem­ists to car­ry out crim­i­nal or vio­lent acts.” And here the pres­i­dent is, pro­mot­ing them out in the open.

    ———-

    “Trump Push­es Con­spir­a­cy The­o­ry That Clin­ton Was Involved in Epstein Death” by Peter Wade; Rolling Stone; 08/10/2019

    “Don­ald Trump, pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, retweet­ed two tweets pro­mot­ing the base­less con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry that for­mer sec­re­tary of state Hillary Clin­ton was involved in the appar­ent sui­cide of bil­lion­aire and alleged sex traf­fick­er Jef­frey Epstein on Sat­ur­day.”

    That was Pres­i­dent Trump him­self on the day of Epstein’s death. He was­n’t wast­ing any time try­ing to solid­i­fy that nar­ra­tive. Of course this is exact­ly what we should have expect­ed from Trump, espe­cial­ly giv­en that Trump him­self would actu­al­ly be one of the prime sus­pects in any sort of crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy to silence Epstein. He’s poten­tial­ly got the motive and the cer­tain­ly has the means. But it’s also what we should have expect­ed even if Trump was­n’t a sus­pect. It’s what he does.

    So we’ll see what, if any­thing, comes from the inves­ti­ga­tion of these guards. But it’s worth not­ing that these two guards were report­ed­ly offered a plea deal last week and reject­ed it:

    Asso­ci­at­ed Press

    AP sources: Jail guards at time of Epstein death reject deal

    By MICHAEL BALSAMO and MICHAEL R. SISAK
    Novem­ber 16, 2019

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors offered a plea deal to two cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers respon­si­ble for guard­ing Jef­frey Epstein on the night of his death, but the offi­cers have declined the offer, peo­ple famil­iar with the mat­ter told The Asso­ci­at­ed Press.

    The exis­tence of the plea offer sig­nals the Jus­tice Depart­ment is con­sid­er­ing crim­i­nal charges in con­nec­tion with the wealthy financier’s death at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter in New York in August. The city’s med­ical exam­in­er ruled Epstein’s death a sui­cide.

    The guards on Epstein’s unit are sus­pect­ed of fail­ing to check on him every half hour, as required, and of fab­ri­cat­ing log entries to show they had. As part of the pro­posed plea deal, pros­e­cu­tors want­ed the guards to admit they fal­si­fied the prison records, accord­ing to the peo­ple famil­iar with the mat­ter. They spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty because they were not per­mit­ted to pub­licly dis­cuss the inves­ti­ga­tion.

    ...

    Both guards were work­ing over­time because of staffing short­ages. They have been placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave while the FBI and the Jus­tice Department’s inspec­tor gen­er­al inves­ti­gate the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Epstein’s death. The 66-year-old had been await­ing tri­al on charges of sex­u­al­ly abus­ing teenage girls.

    Epstein was placed on sui­cide watch after he was found on his cell floor July 23 with bruis­es on his neck. Mul­ti­ple peo­ple famil­iar with oper­a­tions at the jail have said Epstein was then tak­en off sui­cide watch about a week before his death, mean­ing he was less close­ly mon­i­tored but still sup­posed to be checked on every 30 min­utes.

    Epstein’s death exposed mount­ing evi­dence that the chron­i­cal­ly under­staffed Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter may have bun­gled its respon­si­bil­i­ty to keep him alive. Guards often work over­time day after day, and oth­er employ­ees are pressed into ser­vice as cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers.

    Fal­si­fi­ca­tion of records has been a prob­lem through­out the fed­er­al prison sys­tem. Kath­leen Hawk Sawyer, who was named direc­tor of the Bureau of Pris­ons after Epstein’s death, dis­closed in a Nov. 4 inter­nal memo that a review of oper­a­tions across the agency found some staff mem­bers failed to per­form required rounds and inmate counts but logged that they had done so any­way.

    “Fal­si­fi­ca­tion of infor­ma­tion in gov­ern­ment sys­tems and doc­u­ments is also a vio­la­tion of pol­i­cy, and may be sub­ject to crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion as well,” Hawk Sawyer wrote in the memo to top prison offi­cials, a copy of which was obtained by the AP.

    The memo also not­ed that staff mem­bers who are indict­ed by a grand jury will be placed on an indef­i­nite, unpaid sus­pen­sion until the res­o­lu­tion of the crim­i­nal case.

    Epstein’s abil­i­ty to take his own life while incar­cer­at­ed at one of the most secure jails in Amer­i­ca end­ed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a tri­al that would have involved promi­nent fig­ures. And it sparked wide­spread anger that he wouldn’t have to answer for the alle­ga­tions. He had plead­ed not guilty and was prepar­ing to argue that he could not be charged because of a 2008 deal he made to avoid fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tion on sim­i­lar alle­ga­tions.

    The Jus­tice Depart­ment has vowed to aggres­sive­ly inves­ti­gate and bring charges against any­one who may have helped Epstein. Fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors inves­ti­gat­ing the financier’s death sub­poe­naed up to 20 staff mem­bers at the jail in August.

    Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Barr — who has said inves­ti­ga­tors found “seri­ous irreg­u­lar­i­ties” at the jail — said the FBI’s inves­ti­ga­tion had been slowed because some wit­ness­es had been unco­op­er­a­tive.

    In addi­tion to the shake­up at the top of the Bureau of Pris­ons, the war­den at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter had also been reas­signed to a desk post at a region­al office.

    ———-
    “AP sources: Jail guards at time of Epstein death reject deal” by MICHAEL BALSAMO and MICHAEL R. SISAK; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 11/16/2019

    “Fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors offered a plea deal to two cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers respon­si­ble for guard­ing Jef­frey Epstein on the night of his death, but the offi­cers have declined the offer, peo­ple famil­iar with the mat­ter told The Asso­ci­at­ed Press.”

    Is that a sign of con­fi­dence in their upcom­ing defense? Or a sign that these guards real­ly don’t want to piss off their co-con­spir­a­tors? We don’t know. Although it’s worth not­ing that one of the two guards was­n’t a reg­u­lar cor­rec­tions offi­cer and was appar­ent­ly pressed into ser­vice that night to deal with staffing short­falls:

    Asso­ci­at­ed Press

    Ques­tions swirl around Epstein’s mon­i­tor­ing before sui­cide

    By JIM MUSTIAN, MICHAEL R. SISAK and MICHAEL BALSAMO
    August 12, 2019

    NEW YORK (AP) — One of Jef­frey Epstein’s two guards the night he hanged him­self in his fed­er­al jail cell wasn’t a reg­u­lar cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer, accord­ing to peo­ple famil­iar with the deten­tion cen­ter, which is now under scruti­ny for what Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Barr on Mon­day called “seri­ous irreg­u­lar­i­ties.”

    Epstein, 66, was found Sat­ur­day morn­ing in his cell at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter, a jail pre­vi­ous­ly renowned for its abil­i­ty to hold noto­ri­ous pris­on­ers under extreme­ly tight secu­ri­ty.

    “I was appalled, and indeed the whole depart­ment was, and frankly angry to learn of the MCC’s fail­ure to ade­quate­ly secure this pris­on­er,” Barr said at a police con­fer­ence in New Orleans. “We are now learn­ing of seri­ous irreg­u­lar­i­ties at this facil­i­ty that are deeply con­cern­ing and demand a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion. The FBI and the office of inspec­tor gen­er­al are doing just that.”

    He added: “We will get to the bot­tom of what hap­pened and there will be account­abil­i­ty.”

    In the days since Epstein’s death while await­ing charges that he sex­u­al­ly abused under­age girls, a por­trait has begun to emerge of Manhattan’s fed­er­al deten­tion cen­ter as a chron­i­cal­ly under­staffed facil­i­ty that pos­si­bly made a series of mis­steps in han­dling its most high-pro­file inmate.

    Epstein had been placed on sui­cide watch after he was found in his cell a lit­tle over two weeks ago with bruis­es on his neck. But he had been tak­en off that watch at the end of July and returned to the jail’s spe­cial hous­ing unit.

    There, Epstein was sup­posed to have been checked on by a guard about every 30 min­utes. But inves­ti­ga­tors have learned those checks weren’t done for sev­er­al hours before Epstein was found unre­spon­sive, accord­ing to a per­son famil­iar with the episode. That per­son was not autho­rized to dis­cuss the mat­ter pub­licly and also spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty.

    A sec­ond per­son famil­iar with oper­a­tions at the jail said Epstein was found with a bed­sheet around his neck Sat­ur­day morn­ing. That per­son also wasn’t autho­rized to dis­close infor­ma­tion about the inves­ti­ga­tion and spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty.

    Serene Gregg, pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Gov­ern­ment Employ­ees Local 3148, told The Wash­ing­ton Post that one of the peo­ple assigned to Epstein’s unit wasn’t a cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer, but a fill-in who had been pressed into ser­vice because of staffing short­falls.

    It wasn’t clear what the substitute’s reg­u­lar job was, but fed­er­al pris­ons fac­ing short­ages of ful­ly trained guards have resort­ed to hav­ing oth­er types of sup­port staff fill in for cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers, includ­ing cler­i­cal work­ers and teach­ers.

    The man­ner in which Epstein killed him­self has not been announced pub­licly by gov­ern­ment offi­cials. An autop­sy was per­formed Sun­day, but New York City Chief Med­ical Exam­in­er Dr. Bar­bara Samp­son said inves­ti­ga­tors were await­ing fur­ther infor­ma­tion. A pri­vate pathol­o­gist, Dr. Michael Baden, observed the autop­sy at the request of Epstein’s lawyers.

    ...

    The House Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee demand­ed answers from the Bureau of Pris­ons about Epstein’s death. Com­mit­tee chair­man Jer­rold Nadler, a Demo­c­rat, and the panel’s top Repub­li­can, Geor­gia Rep. Doug Collins, wrote the bureau’s act­ing direc­tor Mon­day with sev­er­al ques­tions about the con­di­tions in the prison, includ­ing details on the bureau’s sui­cide pre­ven­tion pro­gram.

    Inmates on sui­cide watch in fed­er­al jails are sub­ject­ed to 24 hours per day of “direct, con­tin­u­ous obser­va­tion,” accord­ing to U.S. Bureau of Pris­ons pol­i­cy. They are also issued tear-resis­tant cloth­ing to thwart attempts to fash­ion noos­es and are placed in cells that are stripped of fur­ni­ture or fix­tures they could use to kill them­selves.

    Those watch­es, though, gen­er­al­ly last only 72 hours before some­one is either moved into a med­ical facil­i­ty or put back into less inten­sive mon­i­tor­ing.

    The jail does have a video sur­veil­lance sys­tem, but fed­er­al stan­dards don’t allow the use of cam­eras to mon­i­tor areas where pris­on­ers are like­ly to be undressed unless those cam­eras are mon­i­tored only by staff mem­bers of the same gen­der as the inmates. As a prac­ti­cal mat­ter, that means most fed­er­al jails nation­wide focus cam­eras on com­mon areas, rather than cell bunks.

    Lind­say Hayes, a nation­al­ly rec­og­nized expert on sui­cide pre­ven­tion behind bars, said that cam­eras are often inef­fec­tive because they require a staff mem­ber to be ded­i­cat­ed full time to mon­i­tor­ing the video feed 24 hours a day.

    “It only takes three to five min­utes for some­one to hang them­selves,” said Hayes, a project direc­tor for the Nation­al Cen­ter on Insti­tu­tions and Alter­na­tives. “If no one is watch­ing the screen, then the cam­era is use­less. There are a lot of sui­cides that just end up being record­ed.”

    On the morn­ing of Epstein’s appar­ent sui­cide, guards on his unit were work­ing over­time shifts to make up for staffing short­ages, one per­son famil­iar with the mat­ter said. The per­son said one guard was work­ing a fifth straight day of over­time and anoth­er was work­ing manda­to­ry over­time.

    Epstein’s death cut short a pros­e­cu­tion that could have pulled back the cur­tain on his activ­i­ties and his con­nec­tions to celebri­ties and pres­i­dents, though Barr vowed Mon­day that the case will con­tin­ue “against any­one who was com­plic­it with Epstein.”

    “Any co-con­spir­a­tors should not rest easy. The vic­tims deserve jus­tice and they will get it,” he said.

    Accord­ing to police reports obtained by the AP, inves­ti­ga­tors believed Epstein had a team of recruiters and employ­ees who lined up under­age girls for him.

    ...

    Staffing short­ages wors­ened by a par­tial gov­ern­ment shut­down prompt­ed inmates at the New York City jail to stage a hunger strike in Jan­u­ary after they were denied fam­i­ly and lawyer vis­its.

    Eight months lat­er, the jail remains so short-staffed that the Bureau of Pris­ons is offer­ing guards a $10,000 bonus to trans­fer there from oth­er fed­er­al lock­ups.

    In the wake of Epstein’s sui­cide, union pres­i­dent Eric Young of the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Gov­ern­ment Employ­ees Coun­cil of Prison Locals said a Trump admin­is­tra­tion hir­ing freeze at the Bureau of Pris­ons has led to thou­sands of vacan­cies and cre­at­ed “dan­ger­ous con­di­tions” for prison work­ers and inmates.

    In a state­ment, Young said that teach­ers, cler­i­cal work­ers and oth­er sup­port staff are reg­u­lar­ly used to fill in for guards, and many guards are reg­u­lar­ly forced to work 70- and 80-hour weeks.

    Sui­cide has long been the lead­ing cause of death in U.S. jails over­all. In the fed­er­al sys­tem, sui­cides are rar­er. At least 124 inmates killed them­selves while in fed­er­al cus­tody between fis­cal years 2010 and 2016, accord­ing to the most recent sta­tis­tics avail­able from the Bureau of Pris­ons.

    ———-

    “Ques­tions swirl around Epstein’s mon­i­tor­ing before sui­cide” by JIM MUSTIAN, MICHAEL R. SISAK and MICHAEL BALSAMO; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 08/12/2019

    “Serene Gregg, pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Gov­ern­ment Employ­ees Local 3148, told The Wash­ing­ton Post that one of the peo­ple assigned to Epstein’s unit wasn’t a cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer, but a fill-in who had been pressed into ser­vice because of staffing short­falls.”

    So one of these two guards was a fill-in who had been pressed into ser­vice due to staffing short­falls. Was that part of their rea­son­ing for not tak­ing the plea deal? A con­fi­dence that their best defense that these are the kinds of mis­takes that should be expect­ed from a mas­sive staff short­age? It’s the kind of expla­na­tion that would be con­sis­tent with this real­ly being an unforced egre­gious staffing error. Of course, hav­ing a fill-in on the night of Epstein’s death is also con­sis­tent with this being a con­spir­a­cy to ensure he died and a desire to get just the ‘right’ per­son in there to man­age it.

    It’s also worth not­ing the com­ments about the video cam­eras like­ly only being in com­mon areas and not show­ing what was hap­pen­ing in Epstein’s cell:

    ...
    The jail does have a video sur­veil­lance sys­tem, but fed­er­al stan­dards don’t allow the use of cam­eras to mon­i­tor areas where pris­on­ers are like­ly to be undressed unless those cam­eras are mon­i­tored only by staff mem­bers of the same gen­der as the inmates. As a prac­ti­cal mat­ter, that means most fed­er­al jails nation­wide focus cam­eras on com­mon areas, rather than cell bunks.

    Lind­say Hayes, a nation­al­ly rec­og­nized expert on sui­cide pre­ven­tion behind bars, said that cam­eras are often inef­fec­tive because they require a staff mem­ber to be ded­i­cat­ed full time to mon­i­tor­ing the video feed 24 hours a day.

    “It only takes three to five min­utes for some­one to hang them­selves,” said Hayes, a project direc­tor for the Nation­al Cen­ter on Insti­tu­tions and Alter­na­tives. “If no one is watch­ing the screen, then the cam­era is use­less. There are a lot of sui­cides that just end up being record­ed.
    ...

    It is true that cam­eras point­ing into cells can’t nec­es­sar­i­ly pre­vent sui­cides and will just end up record­ing them. But that brings us to one of the oth­er major anom­alies in this case: the cam­eras that showed who came and went from Epstein’s cell hap­pened to be bro­ken:

    Reuters

    FBI stud­ies two bro­ken cam­eras out­side cell where Epstein died: source

    Mark Hosen­ball
    August 28, 2019 / 4:51 PM

    (Reuters) — Two cam­eras that mal­func­tioned out­side the jail cell where financier Jef­frey Epstein died as he await­ed tri­al on sex-traf­fick­ing charges have been sent to an FBI crime lab for exam­i­na­tion, a law enforce­ment source told Reuters.

    Epstein’s lawyers Reid Wein­garten and Mar­tin Wein­berg told U.S. Dis­trict Judge Richard Berman in Man­hat­tan on Tues­day they had doubts about the New York City chief med­ical examiner’s con­clu­sion that their client killed him­self.

    The two cam­eras were with­in view of the Man­hat­tan jail cell where he was found dead on Aug. 10. A source ear­li­er told Reuters two jail guards failed to fol­low a pro­ce­dure overnight to make sep­a­rate checks on all pris­on­ers every 30 min­utes.

    He had been tak­en off sui­cide watch pri­or to his death.

    The cam­eras were sent to Quan­ti­co, Vir­ginia, site of a major FBI crime lab where agents and foren­sic sci­en­tists ana­lyze evi­dence.

    The Wash­ing­ton Post report­ed on Mon­day that at least one cam­era in the hall­way out­side Epstein’s cell had footage that was unus­able. The news­pa­per said there was oth­er usable footage cap­tured in the area.

    The U.S. Jus­tice Depart­ment declined com­ment. The FBI and Fed­er­al Bureau of Pris­ons did not respond to requests for com­ment. All are inves­ti­gat­ing his death. Lawyers for Epstein also did not respond to requests for com­ment.

    Epstein, a wealthy 66-year-old mon­ey man­ag­er who once count­ed U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, for­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton and Britain’s Prince Andrew as friends, was arrest­ed on July 6 and plead­ed not guilty to sex traf­fick­ing charges involv­ing dozens of girls as young as 14.

    ...

    ———–

    “FBI stud­ies two bro­ken cam­eras out­side cell where Epstein died: source” by Mark Hosen­ball; Reuters; 08/28/2019

    “The two cam­eras were with­in view of the Man­hat­tan jail cell where he was found dead on Aug. 10. A source ear­li­er told Reuters two jail guards failed to fol­low a pro­ce­dure overnight to make sep­a­rate checks on all pris­on­ers every 30 min­utes.”

    The two cam­eras with­in view of Epstein’s cell just hap­pened to be mal­func­tion­ing that night. What a coin­ci­dence. One of so very many coin­ci­dences in this case. So we’ll see if the FBI man­ages to dis­cov­er a broad­er crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy behind Epstein’s death or if the trail ends with the two low-lev­el guards who hap­pened to enable the one thing so very many pow­er­ful peo­ple des­per­ate­ly want­ed to hap­pen.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | November 19, 2019, 5:10 pm
  21. I could­n’t help but notice that a Michael Baden has been hired by the Epstein fam­i­ly to inves­ti­gate the cir­cum­stances of Epstein’s ‘sui­cide’. Could this be any­one but THE Michael Baden who has been involved in any num­ber of shenani­gans not­ed on these pro­grams over the years? See the AP report from Novem­ber 19th for more details.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-homicide-autopsy-michael-baden.html

    Posted by Brad | November 21, 2019, 4:17 am
  22. It hap­pened: Ghis­laine Maxwell is under under arrest by US author­i­ties near­ly one the one year anniver­sary of Jef­frey Epstein’s 2019 arrest fol­low­ing a Grand Jury indict­ment. She was appre­hend­ed by the FBI in Brad­ford, New Hamp­shire, so either Maxwell — who was hid­ing out in France accord­ing to some reports — felt safe trav­el­ing to the US for what­ev­er rea­son or there was some sort of agree­ment reached that brought her back to the US but it sounds like pros­e­cu­tors have been keep­ing a close eye on her where­abouts since Epstein’s arrest.

    So that was a major devel­op­ment in the Jef­frey Epstein case, but it’s the par­tic­u­lar US Attor­ney’s Office unit that’s going to be cov­er­ing this case that’s been rais­ing the most eye­brows: South­ern Dis­trict of New York (SDNY) is going to have unop­posed juris­dic­tion, which isn’t unex­pect­ed. It’s the fact that it’s the SDNY’s Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion Unit han­dling the case that has so many won­der­ing about the direc­tion the case could go because it’s a hint at pos­si­ble high-pro­file indict­ments of politi­cians or oth­er pub­lic fig­ures. High-pro­file fig­ures that could hypo­thet­i­cal­ly includ­ed peo­ple like Pres­i­dent Trump or for­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton.

    Adding to the intrigue is the fact that this indict­ment was signed by act­ing US Attor­ney Audrey Strauss, the replace­ment for Geof­frey Berman who was recent­ly fired by Pres­i­dent Trump after Bill Barr asked him to resign and he ini­tial­ly refused to do so. As we’ll see, Strauss has insist­ed that Berman’s fir­ing had noth­ing to do with the Epstein case, which sounds more plau­si­ble when you fac­tor in the myr­i­ad of oth­er Trump-relat­ed inves­ti­ga­tions Berman was over­see­ing. In oth­er words, there could be all sorts of dif­fer­ent rea­sons Trump want­ed Berman fired, so if the Epstein inves­ti­ga­tion was a fac­tor in the fir­ing of Berman it was prob­a­bly just one of many fac­tors. Still, with this case unfold­ing in the mid­dle of an elec­tion year and Pres­i­dent Trump’s elec­toral prospects look­ing increas­ing­ly ten­u­ous there’s no short­age of rea­sons to spec­u­late about what the Trump admin­is­tra­tion has in mind for this inves­ti­ga­tion:

    Law & Crime

    Ghis­laine Maxwell’s Case Being Han­dled by SDNY Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion Unit Could Spell Trou­ble for U.S. Elites

    Col­in Kalm­bach­er
    Jul 2nd, 2020, 6:52 pm

    Jef­frey Epstein’s for­mer girl­friend and alleged groomer was final­ly locat­ed and arrest­ed by fed­er­al author­i­ties near­ly a year to the day that Epstein him­self was caught last sum­mer.

    While Maxwell was appre­hend­ed by agents with the Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion (FBI) ear­ly Thurs­day in the small town of Brad­ford, New Hamp­shire, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the South­ern Dis­trict of New York (SDNY) is han­dling the inquiry. As the result of a brief hear­ing on Thurs­day after­noon between Maxwell and the gov­ern­ment, the SDNY will have unop­posed juris­dic­tion.

    That result was hard­ly a sur­prise. But the spe­cif­ic SDNY unit tak­ing charge of the Maxwell case imme­di­ate­ly raised some eye­brows.

    Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence, Act­ing U.S. Attor­ney Audrey Strauss not­ed that the SDNY’s Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion Unit would—like the Epstein case before—be tasked with over­see­ing the pros­e­cu­tion.

    “I worked at SDNY and did sex traf­fick­ing cas­es,” not­ed for­mer fed­er­al and state pros­e­cu­tor and cur­rent CNN legal ana­lyst Elie Honig via Twit­ter. “They do NOT run out of Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion – unless there is some poten­tial angle against a pub­lic offi­cial.”

    The Depart­ment of Jus­tice (DOJ) describes the unit b:

    The Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion Unit works, in close part­ner­ship with the FBI and oth­er fed­er­al, state and city inves­tiga­tive agen­cies to main­tain and pro­tect the integri­ty of all lev­els of gov­ern­ment. The unit over­sees the inves­ti­ga­tion and pros­e­cu­tion of cor­rup­tion crimes com­mit­ted by elect­ed and appoint­ed offi­cials, gov­ern­ment employ­ees, and indi­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies doing busi­ness with the city, state, and fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. Cor­rup­tion crimes inves­ti­gat­ed by the unit include bribery, embez­zle­ment, and frauds com­mit­ted against local, state, and fed­er­al gov­ern­ment agen­cies.

    “A case like this ordi­nar­i­ly would not be staffed out of Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion,” Honig told Law&Crime. “It would ordi­nar­i­ly be staffed out of what’s now known as the Vio­lent and Orga­nized Crime Unit.”

    The Vio­lent and Orga­nized Crime Unit is where the SDNY’s human and sex traf­fick­ing coor­di­na­tors are locat­ed.

    “The fact that it is staffed out of Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion tells me that a pub­lic official–past or present–is involved in at least some capac­i­ty,” Honig con­tin­ued. “Could mean a poten­tial tar­get, wit­ness, or a poten­tial co-con­spir­a­tor. It could mean a lot of dif­fer­ent things.”

    The Maxwell case is nec­es­sar­i­ly rife with spec­u­la­tion as part of the gen­er­al Epstein sto­ry about a mys­te­ri­ous­ly wealthy entre­pre­neur who alleged­ly ran a glob­al child sex traf­fick­ing enter­prise for years. Gen­er­al­ly untouched by law enforce­ment, Epstein—when final­ly caught—was giv­en a sweet­heart plea deal where he admit­ted to charges of solic­it­ing pros­ti­tu­tion from a minor. Dur­ing his sen­tence, he was allowed to work from home and enter­tain female guests while many of his unnamed co-con­spir­a­tors were gift­ed an unprece­dent­ed and high­ly crit­i­cized non-pros­e­cu­tion agree­ment.

    The U.S. Attor­ney who ran that ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tion and wide­ly believed sham of a pros­e­cu­tion lat­er threw up his hands–complaining that he couldn’t real­ly pun­ish Epstein because of the ser­i­al sex offender’s appar­ent cachet with an unnamed “intel­li­gence” agency. All the while, Bill Clin­ton, Chelsea Clin­ton, Don­ald Trump, Ehud Barak, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Prince Andrew and oth­er glob­al elites were known asso­ciates of Epstein and/or Maxwell–or at least appeared with them in photographs—many main­tain­ing their rela­tion­ships with the duo even after Epstein’s 2009 sen­tenc­ing.

    The involve­ment of the SDNY’s Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion Unit may sug­gest that some of the more high-pro­file gov­ern­ment fig­ures asso­ci­at­ed with Epstein and Maxwell may some­how be involved with the case. Or, it may have some­thing to do with the orig­i­nal deal Epstein received in Flori­da.

    “The Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion Unit was the unit that brought the orig­i­nal Epstein charges and thus these addi­tion­al Maxwell charges, like­ly because of the involve­ment of pub­lic offi­cials in Flori­da in giv­ing Epstein the sweet­heart plea deal a num­ber of years ago,” not­ed for­mer SDNY deputy chief and cur­rent CNN legal ana­lyst Jen­nifer Rodgers. “My edu­cat­ed guess is that part of this inves­ti­ga­tion has involved whether any of those offi­cials had done any­thing wrong (like accept­ing bribes) in con­nec­tion with that mat­ter.”

    In an email to Law&Crime, Rodgers said the new charges were “poten­tial­ly bad news for any­one who may have been involved” but said it was unclear whether or not Maxwell her­self would actu­al­ly coop­er­ate with the pros­e­cu­tion.

    “[I]f she did pre­sum­ably she would have infor­ma­tion to share about oth­er par­tic­i­pants,” Rodgers said.

    ...

    Mimi Roc­ah, anoth­er for­mer SDNY pros­e­cu­tor and cur­rent Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee for Westch­ester Coun­ty Dis­trict Attor­ney, acknowl­edged the strange cir­cum­stances but cau­tioned not to read too much into the sit­u­a­tion based on the facts avail­able at present.

    “I agree that it’s very unusu­al to have a human traf­fick­ing case in [the] PC Unit,” she said in an email. “But once the case was there orig­i­nal­ly they wouldn’t switch it now even if there are not pub­lic fig­ure tar­gets. So I don’t know that we can read that much into it stand­ing alone.”

    Accord­ing to a DOJ press release, Assis­tant U.S. Attor­neys Alex Ross­miller, Ali­son Moe, and Mau­rene Comey (James Comey’s daugh­ter) are the per­son­nel in charge of the pros­e­cu­tion.

    ———–

    “Ghis­laine Maxwell’s Case Being Han­dled by SDNY Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion Unit Could Spell Trou­ble for U.S. Elites” by Col­in Kalm­bach­er; Law & Crime; 07/02/2020

    ““I worked at SDNY and did sex traf­fick­ing cas­es,” not­ed for­mer fed­er­al and state pros­e­cu­tor and cur­rent CNN legal ana­lyst Elie Honig via Twit­ter. “They do NOT run out of Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion – unless there is some poten­tial angle against a pub­lic offi­cial.””

    Might there a poten­tial angle against a pub­lic offi­cial in a case involv­ing a sex traf­fick­ing ring cater­ing to the rich and pow­er­ful? Let’s hope so. But even if politi­cians or oth­er pow­er­ful fig­ures do end up fac­ing indict­ments this case, with Bill Bar­r’s Jus­tice Depart­ment run­ning the case it’s hard to imag­ine it’s not going to be high­ly par­ti­san selec­tive jus­tice:

    ...
    “A case like this ordi­nar­i­ly would not be staffed out of Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion,” Honig told Law&Crime. “It would ordi­nar­i­ly be staffed out of what’s now known as the Vio­lent and Orga­nized Crime Unit.”

    The Vio­lent and Orga­nized Crime Unit is where the SDNY’s human and sex traf­fick­ing coor­di­na­tors are locat­ed.

    “The fact that it is staffed out of Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion tells me that a pub­lic official–past or present–is involved in at least some capac­i­ty,” Honig con­tin­ued. “Could mean a poten­tial tar­get, wit­ness, or a poten­tial co-con­spir­a­tor. It could mean a lot of dif­fer­ent things.”
    ...

    Although there anoth­er pos­si­bil­i­ty: there’s an inves­ti­ga­tion into the orig­i­nal now noto­ri­ous sweet­heart 2008 plea deal for Epstein:

    ...
    The involve­ment of the SDNY’s Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion Unit may sug­gest that some of the more high-pro­file gov­ern­ment fig­ures asso­ci­at­ed with Epstein and Maxwell may some­how be involved with the case. Or, it may have some­thing to do with the orig­i­nal deal Epstein received in Flori­da.

    “The Pub­lic Cor­rup­tion Unit was the unit that brought the orig­i­nal Epstein charges and thus these addi­tion­al Maxwell charges, like­ly because of the involve­ment of pub­lic offi­cials in Flori­da in giv­ing Epstein the sweet­heart plea deal a num­ber of years ago,” not­ed for­mer SDNY deputy chief and cur­rent CNN legal ana­lyst Jen­nifer Rodgers. “My edu­cat­ed guess is that part of this inves­ti­ga­tion has involved whether any of those offi­cials had done any­thing wrong (like accept­ing bribes) in con­nec­tion with that mat­ter.”
    ...

    Part of what makes that sce­nario seem plau­si­ble is the fact that an inves­ti­ga­tion into the orig­i­nal Epstein inves­ti­ga­tion rep­re­sents an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the Jus­tice Depart­ment to address the long-stand­ing stench of cor­rup­tion in this case with­out per­su­ing any of the rich and pow­er­ful per­pe­tra­tors.

    So we’ll see who else is fac­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion. But giv­en that this all hap­pened short­ly after the scan­dalous fir­ing of Geof­frey Berman — the fig­ure over­see­ing this and many oth­er cas­es involv­ing Trump — it’s no sur­prise that Berman’s replace­ment, Act­ing U.S. Attor­ney Audrey Strauss, felt the need to repeat­ed­ly stress that thee two events are com­plete­ly unre­lat­ed:

    Insid­er

    Pros­e­cu­tors say the tim­ing of charges against Jef­frey Epstein asso­ciate Ghis­laine Maxwell is ‘not at all’ relat­ed to Trump fir­ing Geof­frey Berman

    Jul 2, 2020, 4:55 PM

    * Last month, Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Barr asked Geof­frey Berman, the top fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor in New York, to step down.
    * When he did­n’t, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump fired him.
    * Berman, who Trump nom­i­nat­ed for the job in the first place, has over­seen mul­ti­ple fed­er­al cas­es against Trump’s asso­ciates, as well as sex traf­fick­ing charges against Jef­frey Epstein.
    * On Thurs­day, Berman’s suc­ces­sor, Audrey Strauss, announced the arrest of Epstein’s long­time girl­friend, Ghis­laine Maxwell, on charges relat­ed to the abuse of young girls.
    * When asked, the pros­e­cu­tor said the tim­ing of the arrest of Maxwell — who had trav­eled in Trump’s social cir­cles — was “not at all” relat­ed to Berman’s fir­ing.
    * A lawyer rep­re­sent­ing sev­er­al Epstein accusers said Grand Jury activ­i­ty could give clues about the tim­ing, but records from it are sealed.

    In June, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump fired New York’s top fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor, Geof­frey Berman.

    Berman, who Trump nom­i­nat­ed as the US Attor­ney for the South­ern Dis­trict Attor­ney job in the first place, had over­seen mul­ti­ple pros­e­cu­tions of Trump’s asso­ciates. He had also pros­e­cut­ed Jef­frey Epstein, a one-time Trump friend, on sex-traf­fick­ing charges.

    Less than two weeks after Trump boot­ed Berman from his office, his replace­ment, Audrey Strauss, announced the arrest of Ghis­laine Maxwell.

    Maxwell is the long­time girl­friend of Epstein, a con­vict­ed sex offend­er who was fac­ing charges from Berman’s office before his death last year. She, Epstein, and Trump were friends in the 1990s and ear­ly 2000s. Accusers say Maxwell recruit­ed girls at Trump’s Flori­da Mar-a-Lago resort for groom­ing in her and Epstein’s sex abuse ring.

    On Thurs­day, Strauss said the tim­ing of Maxwell’s arrest was “not at all” relat­ed to Trump fir­ing Berman.

    And in Thurs­day’s press con­fer­ence and court fil­ings, pros­e­cu­tors said they kept a close eye on Maxwell’s where­abouts in the year since Epstein was arrest­ed and killed him­self in jail, and that they only arrest­ed her once the indict­ment was “ready.”

    Geof­frey Berman brought charges against Jef­frey Epstein last sum­mer

    It’s been almost a year since Berman brought sex traf­fick­ing charges against Epstein, who has been accused of sex­u­al­ly abus­ing dozens of under­age girls. Maxwell was charged Thurs­day with groom­ing some of those young girls, by befriend­ing them and get­ting them accus­tomed to sex, before the abuse would begin.

    The fed­er­al indict­ment accus­es Maxwell of hav­ing minors watch her give mas­sages, includ­ing sex­u­al mas­sages, to Epstein and then have them join in. Some­times they would be nude or par­tial­ly nude dur­ing the mas­sage, the doc­u­ments say.

    ...

    Attor­ney Spencer T. Kuvin, who rep­re­sents near­ly a dozen of Epstein’s accusers — but not the three involved in Maxwell’s case — told Insid­er Thurs­day that there are a num­ber of fac­tors that could have played into the tim­ing of the socialite’s arrest.

    He not­ed that the indict­ment came from a Grand Jury, where a group of cit­i­zens was pre­sent­ed with the case, and pros­e­cu­tors brought wit­ness­es before the charges were brought.

    “We don’t know the tim­ing of that, and obvi­ous­ly Grand Jury min­utes are sealed, but they had to wait for that to fin­ish,” Kuvin said. “Sec­ond, as I men­tioned, it’s the one year anniver­sary of Mr. Epstein’s arrest, so I’m sure that that’s not an insignif­i­cant date to the US attor­ney’s office.”

    Berman’s depar­ture also could have been a fac­tor, in the sense that the office might have want­ed to prove that it was con­tin­u­ing on with his work despite his fir­ing.

    “With the fir­ing of Mr. Berman, the US Attor­ney’s office prob­a­bly want­ed to rein­vig­o­rate itself by step­ping for­ward by say­ing ‘We’re going to con­tin­ue with doing every­thing Mr. Berman was doing regard­less of the fact he was fired,’ ” Kuvin said. “So they brought some of the largest charges they could against one of the most notable peo­ple in the world.”

    ———–

    “Pros­e­cu­tors say the tim­ing of charges against Jef­frey Epstein asso­ciate Ghis­laine Maxwell is ‘not at all’ relat­ed to Trump fir­ing Geof­frey Berman”; Insid­er; 07/02/2020

    “On Thurs­day, Strauss said the tim­ing of Maxwell’s arrest was “not at all” relat­ed to Trump fir­ing Berman.”

    Not all relat­ed. It’s com­plete­ly a coin­ci­dence that Berman was scan­dalous­ly fired less than two weeks before the ini­ti­a­tion of a his­tor­i­cal­ly polit­i­cal­ly potent legal pre­ced­ing that rep­re­sents both enor­mous per­il and pow­er for Trump. And maybe the fir­ing of Berman was com­plete­ly unre­lat­ed to this case. There were plen­ty of oth­er cas­es he was work­ing on that Trump would have been freaked out about.

    But as the next arti­cle reminds us, the temp­ta­tion to use this case for polit­i­cal gain is going to be increas­ing­ly irre­sistible for Trump sim­ply because the Repub­li­can vot­ing base is now almost entire­ly con­sumed by far right con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries that have Satan­ic net­works of elite pedophiles at the heart of their nar­ra­tive which is why QAnon fig­ures keep win­ning Repub­li­can pri­maries this year even when Trump endors­es their oppo­nent:

    CBS News

    Gun rights activist who sup­ports QAnon defeats five-term con­gress­man endorsed by Trump

    By Jason Sil­ver­stein

    July 1, 2020 / 5:20 PM

    A restau­rant own­er and polit­i­cal new­com­er in Col­orado scored an upset Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry vic­to­ry Tues­day over a five-term con­gress­man endorsed by Pres­i­dent Trump. Lau­ren Boe­bert has made head­lines for defy­ing coro­n­avirus restric­tions, boost­ing the QAnon con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry and staunch­ly sup­port­ing guns — and now she’s head­ed to the gen­er­al elec­tion in Novem­ber.

    Boe­bert, 33, owns the Shoot­ers Grill in Rifle, Col­orado, where work­ers open­ly car­ry guns while serv­ing cus­tomers. “CBS This Morn­ing” asked Boe­bert in a 2014 pro­file about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a wait­ress shoot­ing a cus­tomer. She replied, “We would go through extreme cir­cum­stances before that was our final option.”

    Boe­bert defeat­ed incum­bent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Scott Tip­ton in the GOP pri­ma­ry for Col­orado’s mas­sive third con­gres­sion­al dis­trict, which cov­ers the west­ern por­tion of the state, includ­ing the cities of Pueblo, Aspen and Grand Junc­tion.

    Tip­ton has rep­re­sent­ed the dis­trict since 2011 and received an endorse­ment from Mr. Trump, who said on Twit­ter that Tip­ton is “a great sup­port­er of the #MAGA Agen­da.” Mr. Trump once boast­ed about his per­fect record of endors­ing win­ning con­gres­sion­al can­di­dates, but Tip­ton is now the third Repub­li­can in three weeks to lose despite get­ting sup­port from the pres­i­dent.

    After Boe­bert’s win, Mr. Trump retweet­ed one of her cam­paign videos from May and wrote, “Con­grat­u­la­tions on a real­ly great win!”

    Boe­bert gained wider recog­ni­tion in 2019 when she con­front­ed then-pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Beto O’Rourke on gun con­trol while he was cam­paign­ing in Auro­ra. O’Rourke had said in a Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry debate, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.” Boe­bert was seen on cam­era telling O’Rourke, “Hell, no, you’re not.”

    More recent­ly, Boe­bert defied Col­orado’s coro­n­avirus restric­tions and kept her restau­rant open to dine-in cus­tomers. CBS Den­ver reports a judge issued a cease-and-desist let­ter to shut the estab­lish­ment down.

    Boe­bert has also shown sup­port for QAnon, a broad and base­less con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry involv­ing a sup­posed “deep state” plot to take down Mr. Trump and entan­gling a wide-rang­ing list of nation­al and world lead­ers and celebri­ties in unfound­ed claims of child sex traf­fick­ing and oth­er malfea­sance.

    “Every­thing I’ve heard of Q — I hope this is real, because it only means Amer­i­ca is get­ting stronger and bet­ter, and peo­ple are return­ing to con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues, and that’s what I am for,” Boe­bert said in a June inter­view with Steel Truth, a pod­cast that sup­ports QAnon. “And so every­thing that I have heard of this move­ment is only moti­vat­ing and encour­ag­ing and bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er stronger, and if this is real, then it could be real­ly great for our coun­try.”

    Boe­bert is one of sev­er­al recent Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry win­ners to endorse the QAnon con­spir­a­cy. Ore­gon GOP Sen­ate can­di­date Joe Rae Perkins said in his vic­to­ry speech, “I stand with Q and the team.” And Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene, a con­gres­sion­al can­di­date in Geor­gia, post­ed a video in 2017 say­ing she sup­port­ed QAnon and want­ed to “take this glob­al cabal of Satan-wor­ship­ping pedophiles out,” ref­er­enc­ing some of the the­o­ry’s fringe and unfound­ed beliefs.

    ...

    ———–

    “Gun rights activist who sup­ports QAnon defeats five-term con­gress­man endorsed by Trump” by Jason Sil­ver­stein; CBS News; 07/01/2020

    “Boe­bert is one of sev­er­al recent Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry win­ners to endorse the QAnon con­spir­a­cy. Ore­gon GOP Sen­ate can­di­date Joe Rae Perkins said in his vic­to­ry speech, “I stand with Q and the team.” And Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene, a con­gres­sion­al can­di­date in Geor­gia, post­ed a video in 2017 say­ing she sup­port­ed QAnon and want­ed to “take this glob­al cabal of Satan-wor­ship­ping pedophiles out,” ref­er­enc­ing some of the the­o­ry’s fringe and unfound­ed beliefs.”

    And that’s the polit­i­cal dynam­ic that the pros­e­cu­tion of Ghis­laine Maxwell is going to be tak­ing place in: the lead pros­e­cu­tor on the case was just pushed out and Trump and the GOP are fac­ing a pri­ma­ry revolt by a vot­ing base that is enthralled with visions of dia­bol­i­cal lib­er­al Satan­ic elites con­spir­ing to destroy them and clam­or­ing for Trump to unleash ‘the Storm’, mass arrest all of the non-Trumpian politi­cians, and send them off to Git­mo.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | July 3, 2020, 4:01 pm
  23. One of the more grim­ly inter­est­ing things to watch over the last cou­ple of months has been see­ing who ends up fill­ing the chaos void left by Don­ald Trump’s depar­ture from office. The dai­ly guar­an­tee that some sort of insane sto­ry was going to erupt, or a pre­vi­ous insane sto­ry was going to get more insane, was no longer a guar­an­tee. Then again, it’s not like there was a short­age of left-over crazy for the par­ty to work with. And, sure enough, the GOP dis­ap­point the chaos gods:

    There’s a grow­ing inves­ti­ga­tion into a new pos­si­ble GOP sex ring. An under­age GOP sex ring. We don’t actu­al­ly know it’s a ring yet. What we do know is that the Trump Jus­tice Depart­ment opened up an inves­ti­ga­tion into Flori­da Repub­li­can Con­gress­man Matt Gaetz in 2020 and it’s an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion. And it’s not just about Gaetz. The sex-traf­fick­ing charges appear to be focused on Gaet­z’s long-time close friend Joel Green­berg. Green­berg was recent­ly elect­ed to the office of Semi­nole coun­ty tax col­lec­tor and part of the inves­ti­ga­tion involves Green­berg alleged­ly using state dri­ver license data­bas­es to look up records on the under­age girls Green­berg and Gaetz had “sug­ar-dad­dy” (sex for money/gifts) rela­tion­ships with.

    Cru­cial­ly, the more details we learn about this inves­ti­ga­tion, the more hints was get that Green­berg and Gaetz may have been run­ning a much larg­er oper­a­tion involv­ing oth­er polit­i­cal clients. So it’s not just an under­age sex-traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion for Gaetz and Green­berg but an under­age sex-traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion tar­get­ing politi­cians, with all of the black­mail lever­age that would come from such an oper­a­tion. In oth­er words, anoth­er Jef­frey Epstein-style oper­a­tion.

    And that brings us to anoth­er inter­est­ing aspect about this sto­ry: the sex-traf­fick­ing the fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tors are look­ing at report­ed­ly took place in 2017, in Flori­da. And that brings us to two inter­est­ing Epstein-relat­ed fun facts about this case: Flori­da was one of Epstein’s pri­ma­ry bases of oper­a­tion, with Epstein own­ing a large man­sion in Palm Beach. It was also Flori­da where Epstein received the now-noto­ri­ous kid glove treat­ment by author­i­ties back in 2009 fol­low­ing his ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tion. As we’ll see in the third excerpt below, it was Palm Beach Sher­iff Ric Brad­shaw who over­saw the enforce­ment of the Epstein’s pun­ish­ment (or lack there­of), and in 2019 a Flori­da Sen. Lau­ren Book claimed she was receiv­ing harass­ment from Brad­shaw’s polit­i­cal sup­port­ers after she wrote a let­ter ask­ing gov­er­nor Ron DeSan­tis to autho­rize a probe into how Epstein was per­mit­ted to leave the Palm Beach Coun­ty Jail and spend much of his 2008–2009 incar­cer­a­tion in an office in West Palm Beach.

    So while we don’t yet have any direct con­nec­tions to Jef­frey Epstein’s doc­u­ment­ed polit­i­cal espi­onage sex-traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion. But boy are there a lot of cir­cum­stan­tial con­nec­tions. Which is why we have to ask: was Matt Gaet­z’s an aspir­ing Jef­frey Epstein? If so, how big was this oper­a­tion and who are the extortable clients?:

    Talk­ing Points Memo
    Muck­rak­er

    Gaetz, Green­berg, And The Pos­si­bil­i­ty Of A Flori­da Polit­i­cal Sex Ring

    By Josh Koven­sky
    April 5, 2021 2:47 p.m.

    For near­ly a week now, the coun­try has been con­front­ed with the sick­en­ing prospect of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R‑FL)’s sex life.

    What’s more is that it may be illic­it.

    Gaetz, who grew up in the house where The Tru­man Show was filmed and rep­re­sents the uncan­ny val­ley as much as he does Florida’s First Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict, has been increas­ing­ly ensnared in a scan­dal that began with the rev­e­la­tion, report­ed in the New York Times last week, that he faces a fed­er­al crim­i­nal sex traf­fick­ing probe focus­ing on alle­ga­tions that he had sex with a 17-year old.

    And some­how, it’s got­ten more com­pli­cat­ed and sor­did since then.

    The Flori­da Trump-thumper report­ed­ly bragged about the women he could access thanks to a friend of his — a Semi­nole coun­ty tax collector-slash-buddy-of-Gaetz’s who has him­self been charged with sex traf­fick­ing.

    This all rais­es a series of ques­tions at once tan­ta­liz­ing, blind­ing­ly obvi­ous, and sear­ing­ly emet­ic: Was Matt Gaetz get­ting sex­u­al ben­e­fits from a man who is now being pros­e­cut­ed for sex traf­fick­ing? Does that mean the Flori­da con­gress­man was par­tic­i­pat­ing in a sex ring? And, if so, who else might have par­tic­i­pat­ed? How deep does this thing go?

    Just ask­ing ques­tions here.

    After all, sex in pol­i­tics is noth­ing new. Think of the litany of mem­bers of Con­gress caught in embar­rass­ing liaisons. But what’s sug­gest­ed here takes off the rel­a­tive­ly dumb plane of nor­mal indis­cre­tions and sug­gests some­thing that may be dark­er, yet more intrigu­ing: Gaetz not only ben­e­fit­ting from a sex traf­fick­ing scheme, but hav­ing a poten­tial role in one that reached fur­ther into the world of Flori­da pol­i­tics.

    So let’s go down the list of where we’re at with Con­gress­man Gaetz and the report­ed fed­er­al crim­i­nal probe into alle­ga­tions that he had sex with a 17-year old.

    Joel Green­berg, the Semi­nole coun­ty offi­cial cur­rent­ly on his fourth indict­ment, would alleged­ly use the var­i­ous pow­ers of his office to fur­ther his pur­suit of women.

    Some of the alle­ga­tions sug­gest that Green­berg took this to a near-indus­tri­al scale. For exam­ple, pros­e­cu­tors alleged in the for­mer tax official’s sec­ond indict­ment that Green­berg would take dri­vers licens­es sur­ren­dered to his office and use infor­ma­tion on them to cre­ate fake IDs for him­self.

    A third indict­ment height­ens the sense that Green­berg had turned the pow­ers of his elect­ed office towards the same activ­i­ties that end­ed in him being charged with sex traf­fick­ing.

    Pros­e­cu­tors said that Green­berg used state data­bas­es to which he had access to mon­i­tor women with whom he was a “sug­ar dad­dy” — mak­ing lav­ish pay­ments for meals and hotel rooms in exchange for sex. That includ­ed, pros­e­cu­tors alleged, obtain­ing and dis­clos­ing the pho­to ID and dri­ver ID infor­ma­tion for a vic­tim between 14 and 17 years old at the time of the scheme.

    ...

    CNN, the Dai­ly Beast and the Orlan­do Sen­tinel also report­ed that video exists of the Flori­da con­gress­man enter­ing the tax office and look­ing through driver’s licens­es with Green­berg. The out­lets obtained texts between Green­berg and oth­er tax office staff in which Green­berg explains that he had been show­ing Gaetz “what our oper­a­tion looked like.”

    But where does that leave us?

    It’s not clear. But what it may sug­gest is that Greenberg’s alleged sex traf­fick­ing wasn’t just in ser­vice of two over­grown ado­les­cents high on the pow­ers of minor pub­lic office, but some­thing much more akin to a sex ring.

    And ques­tions remain over who else may have tak­en part.

    The New York Times report­ed that the FBI is inves­ti­gat­ing whether oth­er men “are con­nect­ed” to Gaetz and Green­berg hav­ing sex with the 17-year old, and that anoth­er Flori­da politi­co took part. Gaetz also report­ed­ly would ask the women he had sex with via the arrange­ment to ask their friends if oth­ers would be will­ing to par­tic­i­pate.

    JC Planas, a for­mer Repub­li­can mem­ber of the Flori­da House who served with Gaetz, told TPM last week that he sus­pects the scan­dal goes wider and deep­er into Tal­la­has­see than cur­rent­ly known.

    “There are a lot of peo­ple who are run­ning for cov­er because there may have been more folks involved with it,” Planas told TPM. “Tal­la­has­see, espe­cial­ly dur­ing ses­sion, is gos­sip haven, so nev­er know what’s true or not, but in my expe­ri­ence, 80 per­cent of the rumors there are true.”

    ————

    “Gaetz, Green­berg, And The Pos­si­bil­i­ty Of A Flori­da Polit­i­cal Sex Ring” by Josh Koven­sky; Talk­ing Points Memo; 04/05/2021

    ““There are a lot of peo­ple who are run­ning for cov­er because there may have been more folks involved with it,” Planas told TPM. “Tal­la­has­see, espe­cial­ly dur­ing ses­sion, is gos­sip haven, so nev­er know what’s true or not, but in my expe­ri­ence, 80 per­cent of the rumors there are true.””

    If peo­ple are run­ning for cov­er in Flori­da. Are they cyn­i­cal­ly run­ning for cov­er over sus­pi­cions that the sex-track­ing goes beyond Gaetz and Green­berg? Or do they know it goes beyond Gaetz and Green­berg? Green­berg was cre­at­ing fake IDs of these girls and Gaetz would report­ed­ly ask the girl he had sex with to ask their friends if oth­ers would be will­ing to par­tic­i­pate. That sure sounds like a pos­si­ble sex ring:

    ...
    The Flori­da Trump-thumper report­ed­ly bragged about the women he could access thanks to a friend of his — a Semi­nole coun­ty tax collector-slash-buddy-of-Gaetz’s who has him­self been charged with sex traf­fick­ing.

    This all rais­es a series of ques­tions at once tan­ta­liz­ing, blind­ing­ly obvi­ous, and sear­ing­ly emet­ic: Was Matt Gaetz get­ting sex­u­al ben­e­fits from a man who is now being pros­e­cut­ed for sex traf­fick­ing? Does that mean the Flori­da con­gress­man was par­tic­i­pat­ing in a sex ring? And, if so, who else might have par­tic­i­pat­ed? How deep does this thing go?

    ...

    After all, sex in pol­i­tics is noth­ing new. Think of the litany of mem­bers of Con­gress caught in embar­rass­ing liaisons. But what’s sug­gest­ed here takes off the rel­a­tive­ly dumb plane of nor­mal indis­cre­tions and sug­gests some­thing that may be dark­er, yet more intrigu­ing: Gaetz not only ben­e­fit­ting from a sex traf­fick­ing scheme, but hav­ing a poten­tial role in one that reached fur­ther into the world of Flori­da pol­i­tics.

    ...

    Some of the alle­ga­tions sug­gest that Green­berg took this to a near-indus­tri­al scale. For exam­ple, pros­e­cu­tors alleged in the for­mer tax official’s sec­ond indict­ment that Green­berg would take dri­vers licens­es sur­ren­dered to his office and use infor­ma­tion on them to cre­ate fake IDs for him­self.

    ...

    Pros­e­cu­tors said that Green­berg used state data­bas­es to which he had access to mon­i­tor women with whom he was a “sug­ar dad­dy” — mak­ing lav­ish pay­ments for meals and hotel rooms in exchange for sex. That includ­ed, pros­e­cu­tors alleged, obtain­ing and dis­clos­ing the pho­to ID and dri­ver ID infor­ma­tion for a vic­tim between 14 and 17 years old at the time of the scheme.

    ...

    The New York Times report­ed that the FBI is inves­ti­gat­ing whether oth­er men “are con­nect­ed” to Gaetz and Green­berg hav­ing sex with the 17-year old, and that anoth­er Flori­da politi­co took part. Gaetz also report­ed­ly would ask the women he had sex with via the arrange­ment to ask their friends if oth­ers would be will­ing to par­tic­i­pate.
    ...

    The estab­lished fact aren’t a great look for Gaetz and Green­berg. At best they can claim they had inno­cent sug­ar-dad­dy rela­tion­ships with what appears to be a large num­ber of ‘sug­ar-babies’. That’s kind of the best excuse they have: Gaetz and Green­berg both amassed what amount­ed to large per­son­al sug­ar-baby harems. Is that the sit­u­a­tion we’re look­ing at here? A tale of out of con­trol sex-addic­tions fueled by Gaet­z’s and Green­berg’s co-depen­den­cy? Again, that’s the best case sce­nario here.

    And then there’s the worst-case sce­nario. The ‘Epstein’ sce­nario. So let’s hope inves­ti­ga­tors are look­ing into what, if any, rela­tion­ship Gaetz and Green­berg may have had with Epstein in recent years. Because it’s not like Gaetz and Epstein would­n’t have had plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to cross paths. Again, the traf­fick­ing under inves­ti­ga­tion took place in 2017 and the Epstein inves­ti­ga­tion was­n’t reopened until Decem­ber of 2018.

    Also note the “cryp­tocur­ren­cy busi­ness” Green­berg was work­ing on. A busi­ness that involved pur­chas­ing cryp­tocur­ren­cy but also pur­chas­ing servers to ‘mine’ more cryp­tocur­ren­cy. Keep in mind that Bit­coin min­ing — not pur­chas­ing bit­coins but actu­al­ly min­ing them — is one of the meth­ods or obtain­ing bit­coins with­out ever hav­ing to give up our ID or exchange cash. You get to obtain ‘clean’ high­ly anony­mous coins gen­er­at­ed by the sys­tem. If you’re going to run a polit­i­cal sex-traf­fick­ing (and pos­si­ble black­mail) oper­a­tion, have a steady sup­ply of bit­coins would prob­a­bly be handy. Espe­cial­ly bit­coins ‘mined’ by Green­berg’s own com­pa­ny.

    It’s this con­stel­la­tion of data points that forces us to not only ask whether or not Gaetz and Greengerg were try­ing to cre­ate their own Epstein-style oper­a­tion, but also ask if Epstein actu­al­ly gave them advice:

    Talk­ing Points Memo
    News

    How An Indict­ed Semi­nole Coun­ty Tax Col­lec­tor Land­ed Matt Gaetz In Hot Water

    By Matt Shuham
    March 31, 2021 12:26 p.m.

    Joel Greenberg’s court record looks like a CVS receipt.

    The for­mer Semi­nole Coun­ty, Flori­da tax col­lec­tor is in trou­ble — big trou­ble. Mul­ti­ple-super­sed­ing-indict­ments trou­ble. And, as the world learned yes­ter­day, he’s man­aged to drag his friend, the die-hard Trump sup­port­ing con­gress­man Rep. Matt Gaetz (R‑FL) into the spot­light with him.

    The New York Times report­ed Tues­day that Gaetz was under fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion — a report­ed out­growth of the Green­berg probe — to deter­mine whether he had sex with a 17-year-old around two years ago, and whether he paid for her expens­es includ­ing trav­el.

    Gaetz claims… well, he claims a lot of things: That he’s inno­cent, of course, but also that he and his fam­i­ly are the vic­tims of a mas­sive extor­tion plot per­pe­trat­ed by bad actors, includ­ing one who was once a fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor. Also, Gaetz informed Fox News view­ers in an inter­view last night, any­thing you hear about pho­tos of him with child pros­ti­tutes is false. Obvi­ous­ly false!

    We’re already see­ing some push­back: The now-for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor Gaetz fin­gered as a extor­tion­ist, David McGee, told the Dai­ly Beast that “this is a bla­tant attempt to dis­tract from the fact that Matt Gaetz is appar­ent­ly about to be indict­ed for sex traf­fick­ing under­age girls.”

    The Semi­nole Coun­ty, Flori­da Tax Collector’s Office

    Behind the Gaetz uproar, the court record for Green­berg, who has also con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence, tells a fuller but equal­ly bizarre sto­ry.

    There’s the typ­i­cal Flori­da Man busi­ness: As tax col­lec­tor, Green­berg allowed his employ­ees — many his per­son­al friends — to car­ry guns. He wore a badge and once pulled a woman over for speed­ing. He spent $1 mil­lion of tax­pay­er funds on body armor, weapons, ammu­ni­tion and oth­er toys. He start­ed a fire with some com­put­ers he was using to start a blockchain com­pa­ny based in his office. He’s an open big­ot. Yes of course he got COVID.

    But things ramped up with his first grand jury indict­ment, in mid-June, accus­ing the then-tax col­lec­tor of pos­ing as a stu­dent and accus­ing a school employ­ee, a polit­i­cal oppo­nent of his, of sex­u­al mis­con­duct with a stu­dent. Green­berg also alleged­ly made a fake Twit­ter account that imper­son­at­ed his oppo­nent and that, accord­ing to the indict­ment, “rep­re­sent­ed that the school employ­ee was a seg­re­ga­tion­ist and in favor of white suprema­cy.”

    That indict­ment opened the door: The gov­ern­ment arrest­ed Green­berg and exe­cut­ed a search war­rant on June 23, prompt­ing him to resign from his office.

    Then, in mid-July, a sec­ond indict­ment dropped, accus­ing Green­berg not only of stalk­ing, but also of pro­duc­ing false doc­u­ments and iden­ti­ty theft. Green­berg alleged­ly used the infor­ma­tion from licens­es sur­ren­dered to the tax collector’s office to cre­ate fake IDs using his own pho­to.

    Then, in mid-August, a third indict­ment, this time alleg­ing the sex traf­fick­ing of a child — in this case, a minor between 14 and 17 years old — as well as the use of a state data­base to look up indi­vid­u­als with whom he was engaged in “sug­ar dad­dy” rela­tion­ships. The indict­ment specif­i­cal­ly alleged that Green­berg know­ing­ly obtained and dis­closed the pho­to­graph and dri­ver iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber of the minor vic­tim in the sex traf­fick­ing charge.

    Between May and Novem­ber 2017, the sec­ond super­sed­ing indict­ment alleged, Green­berg did know­ing­ly “recruit, entice, obtain, main­tain, patron­ize and solic­it by any means the Minor Vic­tim,” know­ing both that the vic­tim wasn’t 18 and that she would be caused to engage in a com­mer­cial sex act.

    Green­berg awaits tri­al. He was arrest­ed ear­li­er this month for vio­lat­ing the con­di­tions of his pre­tri­al release. Accord­ing to a police report, he drove to South Flori­da look­ing for his wife, prompt­ing his moth­er-in-law to call the police when he showed up at the mother-in-law’s home. Greenberg’s wife told police that she believed he tracked her using a SnapChat account.

    The for­mer tax collector’s legal prob­lems con­tin­ue to stack up. On Tues­day, a fed­er­al grand jury signed off on yet anoth­er fed­er­al indict­ment against Green­berg, one that was entered into his online court dock­et after this article’s pub­li­ca­tion. Accord­ing to the indict­ment, after his arrest, and while he was on con­di­tions of release, Green­berg “con­spired with an employ­ee of the Small Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion (SBA) and anoth­er indi­vid­ual to sub­mit false claims for Eco­nom­ic Injury Dis­as­ter Loans and to bribe the SBA employ­ee.”

    The indict­ment is exten­sive, adding up to 33 counts against him includ­ing the 12 charges pre­vi­ous­ly filed. Ten of the new vio­la­tions are alleged wire fraud. Green­berg is accused of defraud­ing Semi­nole Coun­ty when he was tax col­lec­tor, in part through a block chain busi­ness he set up.

    Among oth­er things, Green­berg alleged­ly used coun­ty funds to buy per­son­al items, includ­ing auto­graphed Michael Jor­dan and Kobe Bryant mem­o­ra­bil­ia, as well as cryp­tocur­ren­cy. Green­berg alleged­ly rep­re­sent­ed that he was going to use $200,000 in Tax Collector’s Office funds for an invest­ment for the office, when in fact he used it to buy cryp­tocur­ren­cy, accord­ing to the indict­ment.

    Three more counts per­tain to alleged ille­gal mon­e­tary trans­ac­tions, and two more cov­er bribery and con­spir­a­cy to bribe, relat­ed to his alleged effort to fraud­u­lent­ly obtain an Eco­nom­ic Injury Dis­as­ter Loan from the Small Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion. That alleged crime also accounts for three more charges of theft of gov­ern­ment prop­er­ty and three false claims charges.

    The Gaetz Con­nec­tion

    The Gaetz probe, the Times report­ed, stemmed from the inves­ti­ga­tion into Green­berg. But out­side the Jus­tice Depart­ment, the two men go back years.

    And The Orlan­do Sen­tinel report­ed that sev­er­al for­mer employ­ees said that Green­berg often spoke about his close friend­ship with Gaetz, and claimed that Gaetz would vis­it Green­berg at his Lake Mary home.

    And in July 2017 — right around when Green­berg is accused of sex traf­fick­ing — he post­ed a pho­to on Twit­ter with Gaetz and Roger Stone.

    Great catch­ing up with @mattgaetz and @RogerJStoneJr pic.twitter.com/46SjAsiL42— Joel Green­berg (@JoelGreenbergTC) July 9, 2017

    Two years lat­er, he post­ed anoth­er pho­to with Gaetz at the White House.

    @mattgaetz and @ChrisDorworth duck­face and all. #White­House pic.twitter.com/oIAzfXgkCh— Joel Green­berg (@JoelGreenbergTC) June 22, 2019

    ...

    ————

    “How An Indict­ed Semi­nole Coun­ty Tax Col­lec­tor Land­ed Matt Gaetz In Hot Water” by Matt Shuham; Talk­ing Points Memo; 03/31/2021

    “But things ramped up with his first grand jury indict­ment, in mid-June, accus­ing the then-tax col­lec­tor of pos­ing as a stu­dent and accus­ing a school employ­ee, a polit­i­cal oppo­nent of his, of sex­u­al mis­con­duct with a stu­dent. Green­berg also alleged­ly made a fake Twit­ter account that imper­son­at­ed his oppo­nent and that, accord­ing to the indict­ment, “rep­re­sent­ed that the school employ­ee was a seg­re­ga­tion­ist and in favor of white suprema­cy.””

    Note the spe­cif­ic inci­dent that led to this inves­ti­ga­tion: in mid-June of 2020, Green­berg was indict­ed for pos­ing as a stu­dent and accus­ing a school employ­ee, a polit­i­cal oppo­nent of his, of sex­u­al mis­con­duct with a stu­dent and white suprema­cy. The white suprema­cy charge is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing giv­en the obvi­ous pro­jec­tion at work with Green­berg’s sex­u­al mis­con­duct alle­ga­tion.

    So if Green­berg had­n’t done that, this sex-traf­fick­ing ring might still be oper­at­ing:

    ...
    That indict­ment opened the door: The gov­ern­ment arrest­ed Green­berg and exe­cut­ed a search war­rant on June 23, prompt­ing him to resign from his office.
    ...

    Soon after, we get new indict­ments against Green­berg that basi­cal­ly amount to con­struct­ing false iden­ti­ties for the under­age teens he’s accused of traf­fick­ing. This was tak­ing place between May and Novem­ber of 2017, accord­ing to the indictment...when Epstein would have been avail­able for any tips on how to set up an under­age sex-traf­fick­ing ring:

    ....
    Then, in mid-July, a sec­ond indict­ment dropped, accus­ing Green­berg not only of stalk­ing, but also of pro­duc­ing false doc­u­ments and iden­ti­ty theft. Green­berg alleged­ly used the infor­ma­tion from licens­es sur­ren­dered to the tax collector’s office to cre­ate fake IDs using his own pho­to.

    Then, in mid-August, a third indict­ment, this time alleg­ing the sex traf­fick­ing of a child — in this case, a minor between 14 and 17 years old — as well as the use of a state data­base to look up indi­vid­u­als with whom he was engaged in “sug­ar dad­dy” rela­tion­ships. The indict­ment specif­i­cal­ly alleged that Green­berg know­ing­ly obtained and dis­closed the pho­to­graph and dri­ver iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber of the minor vic­tim in the sex traf­fick­ing charge.

    Between May and Novem­ber 2017, the sec­ond super­sed­ing indict­ment alleged, Green­berg did know­ing­ly “recruit, entice, obtain, main­tain, patron­ize and solic­it by any means the Minor Vic­tim,” know­ing both that the vic­tim wasn’t 18 and that she would be caused to engage in a com­mer­cial sex act.
    ...

    The large cryp­tocur­ren­cy pur­chas­es, as well as ‘min­ing’ servers to ‘mine more cryp­tocur­ren­cy, only add to the cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence that Green­berg was inter­est­ing in a seri­ous oper­a­tion. An oper­a­tion that could oper­ate at scale. We don’t know that this was the intend­ed use of the cryp­tocur­ren­cy busi­ness but it’s hard to ignore the obvi­ous appli­ca­tions a large pool of cryp­tocur­ren­cy would have for a sex-traf­fick­ing/black­mail ring:

    ...
    Among oth­er things, Green­berg alleged­ly used coun­ty funds to buy per­son­al items, includ­ing auto­graphed Michael Jor­dan and Kobe Bryant mem­o­ra­bil­ia, as well as cryp­tocur­ren­cy. Green­berg alleged­ly rep­re­sent­ed that he was going to use $200,000 in Tax Collector’s Office funds for an invest­ment for the office, when in fact he used it to buy cryp­tocur­ren­cy, accord­ing to the indict­ment.
    ...

    Final­ly, note the Roger Stone tie in to this: In July of 2017, right when the traf­fick­ing was alleged to be tak­ing place, Green­berg posts of pho­to on Twit­ter with Gaetz and Roger Stone. How close was the Flori­da-based Stone to this oper­a­tion? We don’t know at this point, but we do know they were at least chum­my enough with each oth­er for that pho­to to be tak­en:

    ...
    The Gaetz probe, the Times report­ed, stemmed from the inves­ti­ga­tion into Green­berg. But out­side the Jus­tice Depart­ment, the two men go back years.

    And The Orlan­do Sen­tinel report­ed that sev­er­al for­mer employ­ees said that Green­berg often spoke about his close friend­ship with Gaetz, and claimed that Gaetz would vis­it Green­berg at his Lake Mary home.

    And in July 2017 — right around when Green­berg is accused of sex traf­fick­ing — he post­ed a pho­to on Twit­ter with Gaetz and Roger Stone.

    ...

    Two years lat­er, he post­ed anoth­er pho­to with Gaetz at the White House.
    ...

    And when we start ask­ing about the rela­tion­ship between fig­ures like Stone with Gaetz and Green­berg, that rais­es the much larg­er ques­tion of the rela­tion­ship between traf­fick­ing net­works of this nature — with polit­i­cal clients — and real polit­i­cal pow­er. Like the ques­tions about the rela­tion­ship between the Epstein oper­a­tion and real polit­i­cal pow­er. Ques­tions that were once again raised in 2019 after Flori­da sen­a­tor Lau­ren Book claims she faced harass­ment for sim­ply ask­ing for a probe into why Epstein received such a sweet­heart deal. Not only from the fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors but also the Palm Beach police task with watch­ing him:

    Mia­mi Her­ald

    Law­mak­er says she’s been told to back off call for probe of Jef­frey Epstein’s work release

    BY JULIE K. BROWN AND NICHOLAS NEHAMAS
    JULY 25, 2019 11:36 AM

    Flori­da Sen. Lau­ren Book has reached out to Capi­tol police after receiv­ing an anony­mous warn­ing con­nect­ed to her demand for a state inquiry into Palm Beach Sher­iff Ric Bradshaw’s han­dling of accused sex traf­fick­er Jef­frey Epstein’s lenient work release pro­gram, the Mia­mi Her­ald has learned.

    Book, a vocal advo­cate for child sex­u­al assault sur­vivors, said she also received more than a dozen calls from Bradshaw’s polit­i­cal sup­port­ers ask­ing her to back off on her call for an inves­ti­ga­tion by the Flori­da Depart­ment of Law Enforce­ment into Brad­shaw.

    On Mon­day, Book, a Demo­c­rat, wrote a let­ter to Repub­li­can Gov. Ron DeSan­tis ask­ing him to autho­rize a probe into how Epstein, accused of molest­ing dozens of under­age girls and a reg­is­tered sex offend­er, was per­mit­ted to leave the Palm Beach Coun­ty Jail and spend much of his 2008–2009 incar­cer­a­tion in an office in West Palm Beach.

    DeSan­tis said Thurs­day after a Cab­i­net meet­ing that he would “cer­tain­ly con­sid­er” an inves­ti­ga­tion but that he has yet to decide how the state should respond.

    “I saw some­one sent me a let­ter. I looked at it,” he said. “I’ve got to fig­ure out what the prop­er role of FDLE [is]. I know they are inves­ti­gat­ing it down in Palm Beach. ... Clear­ly when you look at how that hap­pened, if even like 10 per­cent of the things about him are true, then that whole agree­ment was obvi­ous­ly sus­pect and will­ful­ly below what he should have faced.”

    While the gov­er­nor was still weigh­ing the mer­its of the senator’s request, the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office issued a new state­ment that its pre­vi­ous­ly announced inter­nal affairs inves­ti­ga­tion of the deputies who guard­ed and super­vised Epstein dur­ing his work release had become a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion as well. No fur­ther elab­o­ra­tion was pro­vid­ed.

    Mean­while, Book, in an inter­view with the Her­ald, said she had asked the Capi­tol police, who han­dle secu­ri­ty for state law­mak­ers, to look into claims made on a Russ­ian web­site alleg­ing that Brad­shaw was behind an effort to access her phone and emails by using the pre­text of “immi­nent dan­ger’’ to obtain her per­son­al infor­ma­tion.

    “I’ve received count­less phone calls say­ing ‘Lit­tle girl you don’t know what you’re get­ting into,’ and telling me that I should just stop,’’ said Book, a child sex­u­al abuse sur­vivor her­self who has worked to pass strict sex offend­er laws in Flori­da.

    In a state­ment, PBSO said it had no knowl­edge of any­one try­ing to threat­en or pres­sure Book.

    “Nor has PBSO made any effort to access her phone or emails as alleged on a sala­cious web­site run by a dis­grun­tled for­mer employ­ee,’’ the state­ment said.

    Pbsotalk.org, the web­site in ques­tion, is a blog tied to a for­mer Palm Beach sheriff’s deputy who moved to Rus­sia after start­ing the site, which claims it is ded­i­cat­ed to expos­ing cor­rup­tion in the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office. The for­mer deputy, John Dougan, fled to Moscow in 2016 fol­low­ing an FBI raid on his Palm Beach home that he claims was polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed.

    The pres­sure against Book came on the same day that Epstein, 66, was found injured in his cell at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter in New York, where he is await­ing tri­al on sex traf­fick­ing charges brought ear­li­er this month by the U.S. Attor­ney for the South­ern Dis­trict of New York. His arrest stemmed from alleged behav­ior with under­age girls dat­ing back more than a decade in New York and Flori­da. Epstein was tak­en into cus­tody July 6 after arriv­ing at New Jersey’s Teter­boro Air­port from Paris on his pri­vate jet.

    ...

    Last Fri­day, Brad­shaw announced the inter­nal affairs inves­ti­ga­tion after reports emerged that Epstein — while on work release in Palm Beach — was allowed female vis­i­tors to his office, includ­ing at least one vis­it that led to a sex­u­al encounter. The terms of Epstein’s incar­cer­a­tion were detailed by the Her­ald as part of a series pub­lished last year about Epstein’s case, Per­ver­sion of Jus­tice.

    Jack Scaro­la, who rep­re­sents sev­er­al of Epstein’s vic­tims, said it is ludi­crous to think that Brad­shaw is able to inves­ti­gate his own depart­ment.

    “The alle­ga­tions are against the sher­iff and there’s no way a cred­i­ble inves­ti­ga­tion can be con­duct­ed by the sheriff’s office when the alle­ga­tions extend to the very top of the orga­ni­za­tion,’’ Scaro­la said.

    Book, whose father, Ron Book, is per­haps the most pow­er­ful lob­by­ist in Flori­da, said she intends to pres­sure the gov­er­nor for a full and thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion.

    “The priv­i­leges that Epstein received in Palm Beach Coun­ty were out­side the scope of what any­one else would receive. We need an inde­pen­dent body to iden­ti­fy whether this was an issue of indi­vid­ual fail­ures or sys­temic fail­ures. And if it was an indi­vid­ual fail­ure, we need to hold those indi­vid­u­als account­able,’’ she said.

    Brad­shaw, who is run­ning for his fifth term, wields tremen­dous pow­er in Palm Beach, where the agency has also been the lead law enforce­ment detail assist­ing the Secret Ser­vice dur­ing Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s vis­its to Mar-a-Lago. The PBSO spent $5.6 mil­lion for Trump’s 2017–2018 trips, the Palm Beach Post report­ed in April. The depart­ment is reim­bursed for the work.

    Epstein was found on the floor of his jail cell with injuries to his neck, accord­ing to a report from NBC New York late Wednes­day.

    The tele­vi­sion sta­tion said anoth­er inmate had been ques­tioned and that Epstein is on sui­cide watch. A source told CBS News the injuries were not life threat­en­ing. The New York Post report­ed that Epstein was tak­en to a near­by hos­pi­tal and may have inten­tion­al­ly hurt him­self in order to win a trans­fer out of the fed­er­al facil­i­ty.

    Quot­ing unnamed law enforce­ment offi­cials, The New York Times said prison offi­cials were treat­ing the inci­dent, which left Epstein with “bruis­ing around the neck,” as a pos­si­ble sui­cide attempt.

    The jet-set­ting financier was denied bail last week after a fed­er­al judge said he posed a dan­ger to young women. His lawyers have filed their intent to appeal, say­ing he should be released to his pala­tial Upper East Side Man­hat­tan town­house.

    Epstein, who has plead­ed not guilty, roamed the halls of pow­er before dozens of under­age girls accused him of sex­u­al assaults. After prepar­ing a 50-plus-page indict­ment on sex traf­fick­ing charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the South­ern Dis­trict of Flori­da shelved the charges and allowed Epstein to plead guilty to minor charges in state court. That’s how Epstein end­ed up in the Palm Beach Coun­ty Jail — and then on work release approved by Sher­iff Brad­shaw.

    A fix­ture on the high-soci­ety social cir­cuit, he was known to asso­ciate with fig­ures such as Bill Clin­ton, Don­ald Trump and Prince Andrew of Britain. He owns homes around the world, includ­ing a man­sion in Palm Beach. His lawyers pegged his wealth at $559 mil­lion in court doc­u­ments.

    ...

    ———-

    “Law­mak­er says she’s been told to back off call for probe of Jef­frey Epstein’s work release” by JULIE K. BROWN AND NICHOLAS NEHAMAS; Mia­mi Her­ald; 07/25/2019

    “Epstein, who has plead­ed not guilty, roamed the halls of pow­er before dozens of under­age girls accused him of sex­u­al assaults. After prepar­ing a 50-plus-page indict­ment on sex traf­fick­ing charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the South­ern Dis­trict of Flori­da shelved the charges and allowed Epstein to plead guilty to minor charges in state court. That’s how Epstein end­ed up in the Palm Beach Coun­ty Jail — and then on work release approved by Sher­iff Brad­shaw.

    Why did the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the South­ern Dis­trict of Flori­da shelve the ear­li­er charges and allow Epstein to plead guilty to minor charges in Flori­da state court back in 2009? It’s still a mys­tery. With the relat­ed mys­tery of was Epstein was giv­en such incred­i­bly lax treat­ment by the Palm Beach police dur­ing this peri­od. Note that this is the same police depart­ment that leads the law enforce­ment detail assist­ing the Secret Ser­vice dur­ing Trump’s vis­its to Mar-a-Lago. It was a polit­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive inves­ti­ga­tion for a lot of rea­sons:

    ...
    Last Fri­day, Brad­shaw announced the inter­nal affairs inves­ti­ga­tion after reports emerged that Epstein — while on work release in Palm Beach — was allowed female vis­i­tors to his office, includ­ing at least one vis­it that led to a sex­u­al encounter. The terms of Epstein’s incar­cer­a­tion were detailed by the Her­ald as part of a series pub­lished last year about Epstein’s case, Per­ver­sion of Jus­tice.

    Jack Scaro­la, who rep­re­sents sev­er­al of Epstein’s vic­tims, said it is ludi­crous to think that Brad­shaw is able to inves­ti­gate his own depart­ment.

    “The alle­ga­tions are against the sher­iff and there’s no way a cred­i­ble inves­ti­ga­tion can be con­duct­ed by the sheriff’s office when the alle­ga­tions extend to the very top of the orga­ni­za­tion,’’ Scaro­la said.

    ...

    Brad­shaw, who is run­ning for his fifth term, wields tremen­dous pow­er in Palm Beach, where the agency has also been the lead law enforce­ment detail assist­ing the Secret Ser­vice dur­ing Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s vis­its to Mar-a-Lago. The PBSO spent $5.6 mil­lion for Trump’s 2017–2018 trips, the Palm Beach Post report­ed in April. The depart­ment is reim­bursed for the work.
    ...

    And when Flori­da sen­a­tor Lau­ren Book asked the gov­er­nor to inves­ti­gate this lax treat­ment by the Palm Beach police, she report­ed­ly got inun­dat­ed with threats. This harass­ment report­ed­ly hap­pened on the same day Epstein was found injured in his cell:

    ...
    On Mon­day, Book, a Demo­c­rat, wrote a let­ter to Repub­li­can Gov. Ron DeSan­tis ask­ing him to autho­rize a probe into how Epstein, accused of molest­ing dozens of under­age girls and a reg­is­tered sex offend­er, was per­mit­ted to leave the Palm Beach Coun­ty Jail and spend much of his 2008–2009 incar­cer­a­tion in an office in West Palm Beach.

    ...

    Mean­while, Book, in an inter­view with the Her­ald, said she had asked the Capi­tol police, who han­dle secu­ri­ty for state law­mak­ers, to look into claims made on a Russ­ian web­site alleg­ing that Brad­shaw was behind an effort to access her phone and emails by using the pre­text of “immi­nent dan­ger’’ to obtain her per­son­al infor­ma­tion.

    “I’ve received count­less phone calls say­ing ‘Lit­tle girl you don’t know what you’re get­ting into,’ and telling me that I should just stop,’’ said Book, a child sex­u­al abuse sur­vivor her­self who has worked to pass strict sex offend­er laws in Flori­da.

    In a state­ment, PBSO said it had no knowl­edge of any­one try­ing to threat­en or pres­sure Book.

    “Nor has PBSO made any effort to access her phone or emails as alleged on a sala­cious web­site run by a dis­grun­tled for­mer employ­ee,’’ the state­ment said.

    Pbsotalk.org, the web­site in ques­tion, is a blog tied to a for­mer Palm Beach sheriff’s deputy who moved to Rus­sia after start­ing the site, which claims it is ded­i­cat­ed to expos­ing cor­rup­tion in the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office. The for­mer deputy, John Dougan, fled to Moscow in 2016 fol­low­ing an FBI raid on his Palm Beach home that he claims was polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed.

    The pres­sure against Book came on the same day that Epstein, 66, was found injured in his cell at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter in New York, where he is await­ing tri­al on sex traf­fick­ing charges brought ear­li­er this month by the U.S. Attor­ney for the South­ern Dis­trict of New York. His arrest stemmed from alleged behav­ior with under­age girls dat­ing back more than a decade in New York and Flori­da. Epstein was tak­en into cus­tody July 6 after arriv­ing at New Jersey’s Teter­boro Air­port from Paris on his pri­vate jet.
    ...

    It’s a reminder that the sto­ry of Jef­frey Epstein has nev­er even remote­ly been ade­quate­ly told. It remains a giant sor­did mys­tery. The more we learn, more we learn how lit­tle we know. Which is exact­ly the kind of his­to­ry that should raise ques­tions about whether or not the Greenberg/Gaetz oper­a­tion was an attempt to reboot what­ev­er Epstein was doing on these decades.

    It might seem hard to think of a worse look for Gaetz at this point. But it’s actu­al­ly quite easy. All we have to do is point out the fol­low­ing for the Decem­ber of 2017, which is right after the peri­od when the traf­fick­ing alleged­ly took place (and was prob­a­bly still tak­ing place): Gaetz was the lone vote in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to vote against an anti-human traf­fick­ing bill:

    Orlan­do Week­ly

    Flori­da Rep. Matt Gaetz was lit­er­al­ly the only per­son to vote against an anti-human traf­fick­ing bill

    Post­ed By Xan­der Peters on Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 5:50 PM

    One is the loneli­est num­ber — and in this case, that loneli­est num­ber is Rep. Matt Gaetz, R‑Fort Wal­ton Beach.

    On Dec. 19, Gaetz cast the lone “no” vote on a wide­ly bipar­ti­san human traf­fick­ing bill that passed unan­i­mous­ly through the U.S. Sen­ate in Sep­tem­ber before sail­ing through the House by a count of 418 to 1.

    The leg­is­la­tion — the Com­bat­ing Human Traf­fick­ing in Com­mer­cial Vehi­cles Act — is an attempt to give the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment more resources to com­bat the sex trade in the U.S., such as a human traf­fick­ing pre­ven­tion coor­di­na­tor at the U.S. Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion and a com­mit­tee in the depart­ment to help devel­op best prac­tices to fight human traf­fick­ing.

    The bill was co-spon­sored by both of Flori­da’s U.S. Sen­a­tors: Demo­c­rat Bill Nel­son and Repub­li­can Mar­co Rubio.

    Fol­low­ing Gaet­z’s ques­tion­able no vote, real estate devel­op­er Cris Dosev — Gaet­z’s chal­lenger in the 2018 Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry — raised his own doubts about the con­gress­man­’s deci­sion.

    “That Matt Gaetz could vote against a law to fight human traf­fick­ing and sex slave trade is beyond com­pre­hen­sion,” Dosev says in a release. “What was he think­ing? ... Near unan­i­mous sup­port on this should be a clear indi­ca­tion that the Amer­i­can peo­ple will not tol­er­ate human traf­fick­ing.”

    Gaet­z’s think­ing, how­ev­er, was as sim­ple as spelling G‑O-P: Less gov­ern­ment is good gov­ern­ment, even if it means — in this instance — the fur­ther pro­lif­er­a­tion of human traf­fick­ing.

    On Face­book Live, from the com­fort of his par­ents’ liv­ing room in Wal­ton Coun­ty, Gaetz fur­ther defend­ed his vote by say­ing, “Unless there is an over­whelm­ing, com­pelling rea­son that our exist­ing agen­cies in the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment can’t han­dle that prob­lem, I vote no because vot­ers in North­west Flori­da did not send me to Wash­ing­ton to go and cre­ate more fed­er­al gov­ern­ment.”

    Gaetz con­tin­ues: “If any­thing, we should be abol­ish­ing a lot of the agen­cies at the fed­er­al lev­el like the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, like the EPA and send­ing that pow­er back to our state gov­ern­ments.”

    But if you know any­thing about Gaetz, it’s the fact that he’s been the gift that keeps on giv­ing in terms of who can raise the most eye­brows in the news cycle — minus Pres­i­dent Trump.

    He’s repeat­ed­ly called for Spe­cial Coun­sel Robert Mueller to be removed from the Rus­sia inves­ti­ga­tion, and for Attor­ney Gen­er­al Jeff Ses­sions, who has recused him­self from the inves­ti­ga­tion, to get more involved.

    As if that’s not enough rea­son for skep­ti­cism, one of Gaet­z’s aides wrote a bill with help from a con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry sub­red­dit devot­ed to white nation­al­ism and Trump.

    ...

    ———-

    “Flori­da Rep. Matt Gaetz was lit­er­al­ly the only per­son to vote against an anti-human traf­fick­ing bill” by Xan­der Peters; Orlan­do Week­ly; 12/29/2017

    “On Dec. 19, Gaetz cast the lone “no” vote on a wide­ly bipar­ti­san human traf­fick­ing bill that passed unan­i­mous­ly through the U.S. Sen­ate in Sep­tem­ber before sail­ing through the House by a count of 418 to 1.”

    It was quite a brave vote: stand­ing up against the tyran­ny of big gov­ern­men­t’s heavy hand abu­sive­ly crack­ing down on sex traf­fick­ing. No one else, even in his own par­ty of repro­bates, could bring them­selves to take such a bold stand. Gaetz even went on to call for the abo­li­tion of the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion and EPA dur­ing his Face­book Live defense of his vote. Matt Gaetz clear­ly cares about the kids:

    ...
    Gaet­z’s think­ing, how­ev­er, was as sim­ple as spelling G‑O-P: Less gov­ern­ment is good gov­ern­ment, even if it means — in this instance — the fur­ther pro­lif­er­a­tion of human traf­fick­ing.

    On Face­book Live, from the com­fort of his par­ents’ liv­ing room in Wal­ton Coun­ty, Gaetz fur­ther defend­ed his vote by say­ing, “Unless there is an over­whelm­ing, com­pelling rea­son that our exist­ing agen­cies in the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment can’t han­dle that prob­lem, I vote no because vot­ers in North­west Flori­da did not send me to Wash­ing­ton to go and cre­ate more fed­er­al gov­ern­ment.”

    Gaetz con­tin­ues: “If any­thing, we should be abol­ish­ing a lot of the agen­cies at the fed­er­al lev­el like the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, like the EPA and send­ing that pow­er back to our state gov­ern­ments.”
    ...

    So as we can see, if Gaetz was­n’t prepar­ing for a secret life as an Epstein-esque sex-traf­fick­ing, he missed in call­ing. The guy was like born for this. Well, sort of. Because if we’re going to be remain true to the ‘Gaetz/Greenberg as Epstein’ anal­o­gy, Green­berg is prob­a­bly the one clos­er to Epstein in this since he appears to have tak­en a more direct role in solic­it­ing and traf­fick­ing these girls. Gaetz is clear­ly involved with not nec­es­sar­i­ly run­ning it, which would make Gaetz out to be more of a Ghis­laine Maxwell-like fig­ure. Which is obvi­ous­ly still not a great anal­o­gy for Gaetz. Or Maxwell.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | April 6, 2021, 4:28 pm
  24. Is there a polit­i­cal dark mon­ey angle to the Matt Gaetz under-age sex-traf­fick­ing ring inves­ti­ga­tion? That’s the intrigu­ing pos­si­bil­i­ty raised in the fol­low­ing TPM piece that con­nects a num­ber of dots between the Gaetz sto­ry — which almost sounds like an aspir­ing Jef­frey Epstein-like oper­a­tion — to a local Flori­da sto­ry about a fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion into the improp­er use of dark mon­ey cam­paign dona­tions to finance a num­ber of sham nui­sance can­di­dates run to help con­fuse vot­ers and strip away votes from Democ­rats. We learned that Flori­da state sen­a­tor Frank Artiles was a key fig­ure in orches­trat­ing the sham can­di­da­cies because he’s come under fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion, but we nev­er real­ly learned who else was involved with financ­ing that oper­a­tion and its implied in the charg­ing doc­u­ments that Artiles was the true ulti­mate source of the funds.

    So how does the Gaetz inves­ti­ga­tion relate to Frank Artiles’s sham can­di­da­cies? Well, it turns out the fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion into Gaetz includes a dis­cus­sion he had about run­ning a third-par­ty can­di­date in the same dis­trict of Repub­li­can state sen­a­tor Jason Brodeur, which is basi­cal­ly the same thing Artiles was doing. And an inde­pen­dent can­di­date, Jes­tine Ian­not­ti, did indeed even­tu­al­ly run Brodeur’s dis­trict. Ian­not­ti ran with­out a par­ty affil­i­a­tion but ran a well-financed ad cam­paign that por­trayed her as Demo­c­rat. One of the sham can­di­dates we know for sure was being financed by this dark mon­ey oper­a­tion was Alex­is Rodriguez. We know this because Artiles report­ed­ly bragged about being paid to run an elec­tion night par­ty in Novem­ber 2020. Jason Brodeur’s elec­tion night par­ty.

    Tak­en togeth­er, it’s cer­tain­ly enough to sus­pect that Gaetz was at least aware of the Artiles sham can­di­da­cy dark mon­ey oper­a­tion. Which rais­es the obvi­ous ques­tion of whether or not this sham can­di­da­cy oper­a­tion was ulti­mate­ly anoth­er Gaetz oper­a­tion and whether or not the sex-traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion was involved with the same pool of dark mon­ey:

    Talk­ing Points Memo
    Muck­rak­er

    Could The Gaetz Mess Real­ly Be Con­nect­ed To The Flori­da Sham Can­di­date Scan­dal?

    By Josh Koven­sky
    April 9, 2021 3:32 p.m.

    Call it a har­mon­ic con­ver­gence. Or sim­ply too good to be true.

    There are some indi­ca­tions that two scan­dals roil­ing Flori­da pol­i­tics may actu­al­ly be con­nect­ed, tying the fed­er­al probe of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R‑FL) to a slate of sham can­di­dates that cropped up across the state in 2020.

    Could that pos­si­bly be? This may not be the scan­dal we want, but is it pos­si­bly the one we deserve?

    In one, we have the rapid­ly emerg­ing degen­er­a­cy of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R‑FL), who is fac­ing a fed­er­al probe into alle­ga­tions that he paid for a 17-year-old to trav­el across state lines in exchange for sex. Mean­while, the “wing­man” who report­ed­ly got Gaetz into this mess appears poised to enter into a coop­er­a­tion agree­ment with the feds.

    And in the oth­er, there’s an equal­ly bizarre but per­haps more typ­i­cal polit­i­cal scheme: a plot to run sham can­di­dates across Flori­da to siphon votes away from the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty can­di­dates.

    It’s not clear how close­ly the two are con­nect­ed. But what may bring them togeth­er is a con­flu­ence of mon­ey, Gaetz’s polit­i­cal con­nec­tions, and a man loud­ly brag­ging at a Flori­da bar.

    Let’s rewind to the sham can­di­date scan­dal. Last month, Flori­da pros­e­cu­tors charged for­mer GOP state Sen. Frank Artiles with a scheme to hire a man with the same last name as a Demo­c­ra­t­ic state Sen­ate incum­bent to divert votes away from that incum­bent.

    The sham can­di­date — Alex­is Rodriguez — received 6,000 votes and fin­ished third, while the incum­bent — José Javier Rodriguez — fin­ished sec­ond, 32 votes behind the GOP nom­i­nee.

    But in charg­ing doc­u­ments, pros­e­cu­tors sug­gest­ed that Artiles, who is accused of pay­ing Rodriguez $44,000 to run, wasn’t the true source of those funds.

    So, what might this have to do with Gaetz?

    Rodriguez was one of sev­er­al sham can­di­dates that popped up across Flori­da in Octo­ber 2020 and were sub­se­quent­ly iden­ti­fied by Local 10 News, a Mia­mi ABC affil­i­ate, though the Rodriguez race was the only one in which the fake can­di­date affect­ed the out­come.

    But per the New York Times, fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors are inves­ti­gat­ing a con­ver­sa­tion that Gaetz alleged­ly had about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a third-par­ty can­di­date run­ning in anoth­er part of Flori­da — Semi­nole Coun­ty. A third can­di­date ulti­mate­ly ran in the dis­trict of Jason Brodeur, a Flori­da GOP state sen­a­tor.

    Accord­ing to the Times, Gaetz dis­cussed with Chris Dor­worth, a local lob­by­ist, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of run­ning a third can­di­date in Brodeur’s race. In that race, Jes­tine Ian­not­ti ran with­out par­ty affil­i­a­tion but received sup­port through a mas­sive mail­ing cam­paign which por­trayed her as a Demo­c­rat, Politi­co Flori­da report­ed.

    There’s noth­ing wrong with third-par­ty can­di­dates. And, as of yet, it’s not clear that Gaetz’s con­ver­sa­tion is con­nect­ed to Iannotti’s run.

    But there is one thing about Iannotti’s run which makes it more inter­est­ing, and rais­es the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a link to the oth­er sham races around Flori­da, includ­ing the one Artiles was alleged­ly involved in. Both her run and Rodriguez were backed by an exten­sive mail­ing and fly­er cam­paign to get the word out about the can­di­dates.

    This is where it gets stranger.

    Local 10 News found a curi­ous series of cam­paign finance trans­ac­tions.

    A Geor­gia-reg­is­tered firm called Pro­cliv­i­ty, with a UPS box address in Atlanta, made only two polit­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions last cycle in Flori­da.

    Pro­cliv­i­ty con­tributed $180,000 to a state polit­i­cal com­mit­tee called “The Truth” and $370,000 to anoth­er polit­i­cal com­mit­tee called “Our Flori­da,” accord­ing to a review of state cam­paign finance records, first con­duct­ed by both Politi­co Flori­da and Local 10 News and con­firmed by TPM.

    Nei­ther of the com­mit­tees reports any oth­er con­tri­bu­tions except one each from Pro­cliv­i­ty. Both enti­ties were cre­at­ed dur­ing the 2020 elec­tion cycle.

    What makes this odd­er, both out­lets report­ed, is that each com­mit­tee has a sin­gle expen­di­ture in exact­ly the same amount that was con­tributed to it by Pro­cliv­i­ty: $180,000 by The Truth, and $370,000 by Our Flori­da.

    Both com­mit­tees spent that mon­ey on the same ven­dor: a mail­ing com­pa­ny called Advance Impres­sion LLC, reg­is­tered to a home in sub­ur­ban Orlan­do. Advance Impres­sion has not done any oth­er polit­i­cal work apart from the two com­mit­tees, local report­ing and records show.

    ...

    Local 10 News’s report sug­gests that the two PACs — Our Flori­da and The Truth — ran the mail­er cam­paigns. And even though the finan­cial trail here is strik­ing — $370,000 in, $370,000 out — it’s not pre­cise­ly known whether that mon­ey was used for the mail­ing cam­paigns that gave Rodriguez and Ian­not­ti polit­i­cal legs.

    But the broad­er point as it relates to Gaetz is this: cam­paigns for both the Rodriguez race in which two peo­ple have been charged and the Brodeur race in which Gaetz alleged­ly dis­cussed run­ning a third-par­ty can­di­date appear to have inter­est­ing par­al­lels.

    Could there be a con­nec­tion? It’s not clear. Flori­da is a big state, and there’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly any­thing wrong about a can­di­date run­ning for office with­out intend­ing to win. Beyond that, while Gaetz report­ed­ly dis­cussed run­ning a third-par­ty can­di­date, and Ian­not­ti was the only third-par­ty can­di­date in the race, there’s lit­tle detail about the con­ver­sa­tion beyond that, or whether any plans devel­oped from it.

    That being said, part of the rea­son we know as much detail about these sham can­di­dates as we do is thanks to Frank Artiles, the man behind Rodriguez.

    It’s because of him that we have rea­son to believe Rodriguez was paid to run, in part because he loud­ly bragged about his plot at an elec­tion night par­ty in Novem­ber 2020.

    Which can­di­date was host­ing that par­ty? Jason Brodeur.

    ———–

    “Could The Gaetz Mess Real­ly Be Con­nect­ed To The Flori­da Sham Can­di­date Scan­dal?” by Josh Koven­sky; Talk­ing Points Memo; 04/094/2021

    “But in charg­ing doc­u­ments, pros­e­cu­tors sug­gest­ed that Artiles, who is accused of pay­ing Rodriguez $44,000 to run, wasn’t the true source of those funds.”

    That’s the crux of the mys­tery: we already had strong rea­sons to sus­pect some­one was pay­ing Artiles. And now we we learn Gaetz was dis­cussing exact­ly this kind of scheme for Jason Brodeur’s race and Artiles was brag­ging about his scheme at Brodeur’s elec­tion night par­ty, well, now we have strong rea­son to sus­pect that mys­tery per­son may be Gaetz. The guy was like the Ener­giz­er Bun­ny of sleazy schemes:

    ...
    So, what might this have to do with Gaetz?

    Rodriguez was one of sev­er­al sham can­di­dates that popped up across Flori­da in Octo­ber 2020 and were sub­se­quent­ly iden­ti­fied by Local 10 News, a Mia­mi ABC affil­i­ate, though the Rodriguez race was the only one in which the fake can­di­date affect­ed the out­come.

    But per the New York Times, fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors are inves­ti­gat­ing a con­ver­sa­tion that Gaetz alleged­ly had about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a third-par­ty can­di­date run­ning in anoth­er part of Flori­da — Semi­nole Coun­ty. A third can­di­date ulti­mate­ly ran in the dis­trict of Jason Brodeur, a Flori­da GOP state sen­a­tor.

    Accord­ing to the Times, Gaetz dis­cussed with Chris Dor­worth, a local lob­by­ist, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of run­ning a third can­di­date in Brodeur’s race. In that race, Jes­tine Ian­not­ti ran with­out par­ty affil­i­a­tion but received sup­port through a mas­sive mail­ing cam­paign which por­trayed her as a Demo­c­rat, Politi­co Flori­da report­ed.

    ...

    That being said, part of the rea­son we know as much detail about these sham can­di­dates as we do is thanks to Frank Artiles, the man behind Rodriguez.

    It’s because of him that we have rea­son to believe Rodriguez was paid to run, in part because he loud­ly bragged about his plot at an elec­tion night par­ty in Novem­ber 2020.

    Which can­di­date was host­ing that par­ty? Jason Brodeur.
    ...

    Final­ly, note the real­i­ty that while we know these dark mon­ey groups, Our Flori­da and The Truth, report­ed spend­ing large sums of mon­ey in 2020, we’re only assum­ing that mon­ey was spent on the mail­er cam­paigns. We tech­ni­cal­ly don’t actu­al­ly get to know how that mon­ey was spent:

    ...
    Local 10 News’s report sug­gests that the two PACs — Our Flori­da and The Truth — ran the mail­er cam­paigns. And even though the finan­cial trail here is strik­ing — $370,000 in, $370,000 out — it’s not pre­cise­ly known whether that mon­ey was used for the mail­ing cam­paigns that gave Rodriguez and Ian­not­ti polit­i­cal legs.
    ...

    So was Gaetz ulti­mate­ly behind this dark mon­ey oper­a­tion to pay off sham nui­sance can­di­dates to run and then pay for their adver­tis­ing? At the same time he was oper­at­ing some sort of polit­i­cal sex-traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion that sure looks like it could have been a Jef­frey Epstein-like oper­a­tion that involves the gen­er­a­tion of polit­i­cal black­mail mate­r­i­al? If so, were the finances of these oper­a­tions co-min­gled? It’s anoth­er aspect of this sto­ry that poten­tial­ly ties into not just the sex-traf­fick­ing alle­ga­tions but the broad­er ques­tion of just how much ‘dark mon­ey’ is actu­al­ly being spent on polit­i­cal expens­es and how much is it being used as a mon­ey laun­der­ing oper­a­tion to cov­er for com­plete­ly unre­lat­ed expens­es. Keep in mind that Gaet­z’s sex-traf­fick­ing co-con­spir­a­tor, Joel Green­berg, was also run­ning a cry­potcur­ren­cy com­pa­ny and amassed large sums of bit­coins. What kinds of new mon­ey laun­der­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties get opened up when you can start com­bin­ing the US’s dark mon­ey laws with, for exam­ple, bit­coin polit­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions? Let’s hope inves­ti­ga­tors are ask­ing these kinds of ques­tions because it sure looks like Gaetz and Green­berg have been ask­ing and answer­ing these kinds of ques­tions them­selves for a num­ber of years now.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | April 10, 2021, 4:31 pm
  25. As the House Democ­rats con­tin­ue their push to force Steve Ban­non to com­ply with a con­gres­sion­al sub­poe­na over the role Ban­non played in the lead up to the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion, Rolling Stone just came out with a rather stun­ning new report on one of Ban­non’s extra-cur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties fol­low­ing his depar­ture from the Trump White House in the fall of 2017: hang­ing out with Jef­frey Epstein. Yep, it turns out Epstein and Ban­non became remark­ably chum­my after the two were report­ed­ly intro­duced in Decem­ber of 2017.

    Recall how we’ve received hints of the close rela­tion­ship between Ban­non and Epstein before. In 2019, the New York Times pub­lished a piece on Epstein that includ­ed the detail that Epstein invit­ed the reporter, James B. Stew­art, over to have din­ner. Ban­non and author Michael Wolff would both report­ed­ly be in atten­dance. But based on this lat­est report, it sounds like the rela­tion­ship between Epstein and Ban­non went much deep­er. Epstein appar­ent­ly viewed Ban­non as his tick­et back into respectable soci­ety. Yep!

    More intrigu­ing­ly, after los­ing his posi­tion on the White House Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Ban­non was appar­ent­ly quite inter­est­ed in Epstein as a pos­si­ble source for intel­li­gence. So we have to ask? Why was access to for­eign intel­li­gence so impor­tant to Steve Ban­non at this point? Sure, it not doubt would have been quite inter­est­ing to have access to the kind of intel­li­gence stream he would have had as a mem­ber of the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil. But why would it be of such inter­est that Ban­non was will­ing to befriend some­one as pub­licly tox­ic as Epstein dur­ing a time when Ban­non was obvi­ous­ly under a high lev­el of pub­lic scruti­ny. Hang­ing out with Epstein comes with costs, but Ban­non was more than hap­py to pay those costs. Why? What was the intel­li­gence Ban­non was so inter­est­ed in?

    There’s also the basic ques­tion of whether or not Ban­non was inter­est­ed in the oth­er major intel­li­gence-relat­ed aspect of being friends with Epstein: the access to sex­u­al black­mail ser­vices. Did Ban­non have any inter­est in exploit­ing the already-sex­u­al­ly black­mailed? Is he plan­ning on set­ting up his own black­mail net­work? And how about Ban­non’s extreme­ly close rela­tion­ship with Chi­nese bil­lion­aire-in-exile Guo Wen­gui that was also being devel­oped dur­ing this peri­od. Did Guo have any inter­est in Epstein’s ser­vices? Well, as the fol­low­ing arti­cle notes, Guo alleged­ly used pros­ti­tutes and hid­den cam­eras to com­pro­mise pow­er­ful fig­ures as a means of clout and con­trol accord­ing to law­suits filed in Toron­to.

    So fol­low­ing Ban­non’s exit from the White House in the fall of 2017, he made two new best friends. Both of whom ran sex­u­al black­mail net­works. It’s the kind of rev­e­la­tion that rais­es a num­ber of ques­tion. Includ­ing major ques­tions about what sorts of Ban­non-relat­ed sex­u­al black­mail oper­a­tions are still oper­at­ing:

    Rolling Stone

    Steve Ban­non Thought Jef­frey Epstein Was a Spy

    The bil­lion­aire may have exag­ger­at­ed his con­nec­tions to the world of inter­na­tion­al espi­onage, but the tales were enough to pull in a top offi­cial in Trump­world

    By Seth Het­te­na
    Octo­ber 18, 2021 1:41PM ET

    In the run-up to the 2016 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, Jef­frey Epstein told asso­ciates some­thing they would nev­er for­get: He was advis­ing both Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats.

    “He would say things like ‘Trump’s peo­ple were here this morn­ing. Hillary’s peo­ple were here for lunch,’” a for­mer Epstein asso­ciate tells Rolling Stone. Epstein “would claim he was impact­ing the cam­paign dra­mat­i­cal­ly.” But he would nev­er name names, and these meet­ings always took place behind closed doors.

    Like many things Epstein said, it may have been a wild exag­ger­a­tion with a ker­nel of truth. Years ear­li­er, when Epstein’s influ­ence was at its peak, for­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton flew mul­ti­ple times on his pri­vate plane and future Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump famous­ly described him as a “ter­rif­ic guy.”

    There’s no evi­dence that Epstein’s con­nec­tions to either pres­i­dent had sur­vived the 2008 scan­dal that brand­ed Epstein a sex offend­er — with one notable excep­tion: Steve Ban­non, the chair­man of the Trump cam­paign and a White House strate­gist, was a fre­quent vis­i­tor to Epstein’s New York man­sion.

    A for­mer Epstein asso­ciate, who spoke to Rolling Stone anony­mous­ly for fear of pro­fes­sion­al reprisal, recalled being intro­duced to Ban­non at Epstein’s Man­hat­tan home. “He was the main per­son that [Epstein] would brag about to lit­er­al­ly every­one. It wasn’t a secret,” this per­son said. Epstein “loved hav­ing this ‘one famous per­son’ around that he would talk about and intro­duce to every­one. Almost like [he was] using Ban­non to get more peo­ple to accept him. That’s my sense.”

    Ban­non did not respond to sev­er­al mes­sages left seek­ing com­ment. His spokesper­son declined to com­ment on the record.

    Although Epstein’s rep­u­ta­tion was bad­ly dam­aged after he spent 13 months in a Flori­da jail for solic­it­ing sex from a teen, the con­vic­tion didn’t stop the flow of wealthy and famous peo­ple who flocked to his $77 mil­lion Upper East Side man­sion. Behind the 15-foot oak front doors, Epstein played host to old friends like Wall Street bil­lion­aire Leon Black, for­mer Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ehud Barak, and new ones like Steve Ban­non.

    Accord­ing to Too Famous, a new book by jour­nal­ist Michael Wolff, Epstein and Ban­non had been intro­duced in Decem­ber 2017. The two men had bond­ed, in part, “out of a shared increduli­ty about Don­ald Trump,” Wolff writes. Ban­non liked to com­pare notes with Epstein and “was often aston­ished by what Epstein knew.”

    Why would the media-savvy Ban­non run the risk of asso­ci­at­ing with a sex offend­er? Two Repub­li­can oper­a­tives who worked for Ban­non offer an expla­na­tion. While report­ing on MAGA world, and Ban­non in par­tic­u­lar, mer­its an extra degree of cau­tion as it often involves unre­li­able sources with ques­tion­able motives, these inde­pen­dent accounts line up and point to an allur­ing the­sis: Ban­non was intrigued by Epstein’s reput­ed role as mid­dle­man for intel­li­gence ser­vices in the Unit­ed States and abroad.

    One of the oper­a­tives, who spoke anony­mous­ly to dis­cuss pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions, asked Ban­non in 2018 about reports that he was spot­ted enter­ing Epstein’s man­sion. Ban­non admit­ted they had met and then said, cryp­ti­cal­ly, “Have you seen the Turk­ish cur­ren­cy?” which the employ­ee took to mean that Epstein was some­how involved in the recent col­lapse of the Turk­ish lira. “He [Ban­non] always insin­u­at­ed that he was still work­ing with the CIA, even when he was out­side the White House, which is com­plete­ly bullsh it,” the for­mer employ­ee said. The Wall Street Jour­nal and New York mag­a­zine report­ed that Epstein claimed to have a cur­ren­cy-trad­ing busi­ness that earned tens of mil­lions of dol­lars.

    Charles John­son, a con­ser­v­a­tive provo­ca­teur, worked with Ban­non at Bre­it­bart News, the right-wing web­site Ban­non led for sev­er­al years, and also got the impres­sion that Bannon’s vis­its to Epstein involved the intel­li­gence world. John­son says that Ban­non made sev­er­al vis­its to Epstein’s New York man­sion after he was oust­ed from the White House in August 2017. “He also offered to intro­duce me to him at one point,” John­son tells Rolling Stone. (John­son declined the offer.) “What I was told about that meet­ing by peo­ple close to Ban­non was that he was try­ing to replace Epstein as a source for infor­ma­tion from var­i­ous intel­li­gence net­works. He saw Epstein as a rival or a part­ner but he want­ed what Epstein had.” John­son, who says he’s now a Biden sup­port­er, said he has been coop­er­at­ing with law-enforce­ment offi­cials inves­ti­gat­ing Ban­non.

    Reports have cir­cu­lat­ed for years that Epstein had a foothold in the murky world of intel­li­gence. Jour­nal­ist Vicky Ward report­ed in Rolling Stone ear­li­er this year that Epstein had deal­ings in the arms world in the 1980s that led to his work for mul­ti­ple gov­ern­ments, includ­ing Israel’s. Epstein had been intro­duced to the Israelis by British pub­lish­er Robert Maxwell, who had done his own work for Israel. Epstein then began to gath­er com­pro­mis­ing mate­r­i­al on influ­en­tial peo­ple, Ward report­ed. Before he died, Epstein told James Stew­art, a colum­nist for The New York Times, that he col­lect­ed dirt on pow­er­ful men.

    Epstein’s ongo­ing friend­ship with Ehud Barak sug­gests that his high-lev­el rela­tion­ships with the Israeli lead­er­ship are still active. One of the places where Epstein may have been use­ful was Sau­di Ara­bia. The for­mer Epstein asso­ciate tells Rolling Stone that Epstein had close rela­tions with the Sau­di gov­ern­ment. Sau­di Ara­bia was one of the only places where Epstein would trav­el by him­self — the source says obtain­ing a visa wasn’t easy and, until recent­ly, Sau­di Ara­bia did not wel­come unmar­ried women. Epstein told the asso­ciate in 2018 that the Saud­is were will­ing to pay him, although he was vague about what work he would be doing. A pic­ture of Sau­di prince Mohammed bin Salman hung on the wall of Epstein’s home along with pho­tos of Bill Clin­ton and Woody Allen.

    What­ev­er Bannon’s pur­pose in meet­ing with Epstein, a for­mer Trump advis­er said she doubt­ed that it involved women. Ban­non, in her expe­ri­ence, was respect­ful to women, and she nev­er even heard him com­ment on a woman’s looks. In some ways, the two men had much in com­mon. Both Epstein and Ban­non grew up in blue-col­lar homes and spent time on Wall Street. They were both prodi­gious col­lec­tors of infor­ma­tion and gos­sip and had a knack for befriend­ing wealthy and pow­er­ful peo­ple and get­ting them to finance their far-flung endeav­ors. “Ban­non and Epstein, birds of a feath­er,” says Roger Stone, Trump’s long­time advi­sor (who has a long-stand­ing beef with Ban­non).

    Ban­non wasn’t the only mem­ber of Trump’s inner cir­cle who knew Epstein, but he was the only one who was will­ing to risk being seen with Epstein after his 2008 con­vic­tion.

    Not sur­pris­ing­ly, giv­en the cir­cles they trav­eled in, Trump and Epstein had been good friends for many years. “He’s 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,” Trump told New York in 2002. The two lat­er had a falling out, report­ed­ly over a Palm Beach man­sion they were vying to pur­chase. After Epstein’s arrest, Trump told the White House press corps he was “not a fan.”

    In Sep­tem­ber, Ban­non told The New York Times that he had record­ed more than 15 hours of inter­views with Epstein, and that he encour­aged Epstein to tell his sto­ry to 60 Min­utes. Ban­non told the news­pa­per he was mak­ing a doc­u­men­tary to illus­trate how Epstein’s “per­ver­sions and deprav­i­ty toward young women were part of a life that was sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly sup­port­ed, encour­aged, and reward­ed by a glob­al estab­lish­ment that dined off his mon­ey and his influ­ence.”

    But media reports sug­gest that Ban­non him­self was enjoy­ing spong­ing off Epstein’s lav­ish lifestyle. Epstein’s French but­ler claimed that Ban­non stayed at the con­vict­ed sex offender’s lux­u­ri­ous Paris apart­ment in the fall of 2018. “I was even his dri­ver in Paris,” the but­ler, iden­ti­fied only as Ger­ard, told Fran­ce­in­fo. (The for­mer Epstein asso­ciate tells Rolling Stone that Epstein loaned his Paris apart­ment to mul­ti­ple peo­ple as a favor.) The New York Post report­ed that Ban­non was spot­ted enter­ing Epstein’s New York man­sion in Sep­tem­ber 2018.

    And the claim that Ban­non was film­ing a doc­u­men­tary was news to the for­mer Epstein asso­ciate who shook the for­mer Trump White House strategist’s hand. The asso­ciate said they nev­er saw a cam­era and nev­er heard Epstein men­tion a film. “I am sur­prised how qui­et they kept it. Usu­al­ly he would brag about it,” the for­mer Epstein asso­ciate says. “That was just his nature to boast.”

    Every rela­tion­ship involves a give-and-take, and this was no excep­tion. For Epstein, Ban­non con­ferred some legit­i­ma­cy in a polit­i­cal world that want­ed to noth­ing to do with him; it was a name Epstein could drop that would show that he was still a play­er, notwith­stand­ing his sor­did past. Epstein proud­ly showed off his new friend, invit­ing James Stew­art, the New York Times colum­nist, to din­ner with Ban­non. (Stew­art declined and Ban­non says he didn’t attend.) Ban­non phoned in to a dis­cus­sion on how to reha­bil­i­tate Epstein’s image with Ehud Barak and attor­ney Reid Wein­garten, accord­ing to Michael Wolff.

    Epstein also intro­duced Ban­non to his patron Leon Black, the Wall Street bil­lion­aire who helped finance Epstein’s lifestyle and was a fre­quent guest at Epstein’s man­sion. Epstein’s for­mer asso­ciate tells Rolling Stone that Black met Ban­non dur­ing a break­fast at Epstein’s man­sion. (Black’s spokesman dis­put­ed this, call­ing reports of such a meet­ing “com­plete­ly inac­cu­rate” and declin­ing fur­ther com­ment.) How­ev­er, in his 2018 tes­ti­mo­ny to the Sen­ate intel­li­gence com­mit­tee in its volu­mi­nous inves­ti­ga­tion of Russ­ian elec­tion inter­fer­ence, Black said that he and Ban­non shared a “com­mon friend” who had intro­duced them over break­fast.

    Black, a founder of the pri­vate-equi­ty giant Apol­lo Glob­al Man­age­ment, has since joined the list of peo­ple who have paid a severe rep­u­ta­tion­al cost for asso­ci­at­ing with Epstein. Black left Apol­lo Glob­al after an inves­ti­ga­tion by the law firm Dechert revealed that he had paid Epstein a whop­ping $158 mil­lion between 2012 and 2017 for finan­cial advice. In a phrase that under­scored Black’s flawed judg­ment, the Dechert report notes that “Black viewed Epstein as a con­firmed bach­e­lor with eclec­tic tastes, who often employed attrac­tive women.”

    ...

    Oth­ers who paid a sim­i­lar price include Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whose friend­ship with Epstein report­ed­ly played a role in the col­lapse of his mar­riage. Britain’s Prince Andrew stepped back from pub­lic life after he faced ques­tions about why he vis­it­ed Epstein after his 2008 con­vic­tion. Even those whose asso­ci­a­tions were more fleet­ing have paid a price for hav­ing their names linked time with Epstein.

    As for Ban­non, arrest­ed last year (and lat­er par­doned) for defraud­ing donors out of $1 mil­lion and now fac­ing con­tempt charges for stonewalling an inves­ti­ga­tion into his role in the Jan­u­ary 6th insur­rec­tion, his rela­tion­ship with Epstein lines up with every­thing we know about his char­ac­ter and record.

    In recent years, Ban­non has become a close to Guo Wen­gui, a fugi­tive Chi­nese bil­lion­aire liv­ing in New York who has been locked in a dis­pute with his home­land. Guo has accused Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty offi­cials of cor­rup­tion; Chi­na has accused him of bribery, fraud, and black­mail. At the same time, Guo has been accused by one of his for­mer busi­ness part­ners and a Chi­nese media star of, among oth­er things, sex­u­al black­mail. Accord­ing to a law­suit filed in New York and reports in Toronto’s Globe and Mail news­pa­per, Guo alleged­ly used pros­ti­tutes and hid­den cam­eras to com­pro­mise pow­er­ful fig­ures as a means of clout and con­trol. A mes­sage sent to Guo’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive seek­ing com­ment was not returned.

    Just as he helped ele­vate Epstein’s sta­tus, Ban­non has attempt­ed to legit­imize Guo. He has served on the boards of com­pa­nies and non­prof­its linked to Guo, some of which are report­ed­ly under fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion. He had been liv­ing on Guo’s yacht when he was arrest­ed last year for defraud­ing donors to a group try­ing to build Trump’s bor­der wall.

    ...

    ————

    “Steve Ban­non Thought Jef­frey Epstein Was a Spy” by Seth Het­te­na; Rolling Stone; 10/18/2021

    “A for­mer Epstein asso­ciate, who spoke to Rolling Stone anony­mous­ly for fear of pro­fes­sion­al reprisal, recalled being intro­duced to Ban­non at Epstein’s Man­hat­tan home. “He was the main per­son that [Epstein] would brag about to lit­er­al­ly every­one. It wasn’t a secret,” this per­son said. Epstein “loved hav­ing this ‘one famous per­son’ around that he would talk about and intro­duce to every­one. Almost like [he was] using Ban­non to get more peo­ple to accept him. That’s my sense.””

    You know you’re in a rough social sit­u­a­tion when brag­ging about your new friend­ship with Steve Ban­non in order to get peo­ple to accept you. But that’s the sit­u­a­tion Jef­frey Epstein was clear­ly in when he was intro­duced to Ban­non in Decem­ber of 2017, months after Ban­non was kicked out of his posi­tion in the White House as a mem­ber of Trump’s nation­al secu­ri­ty coun­cil. Ban­non and Epstein were sud­den­ly news best friends.

    So what was in it for Ban­non? Intel­li­gence, accord­ing to these sources. Ban­non saw Epstein as a pos­si­ble source of intel­li­gence. Again, this was just months after Ban­non lost his Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil seat, mean­ing he lost his direct access to all that intel­li­gence. Epstein, as a some­one thought to act as a mid­dle­man between US intel­li­gence and for­eign ser­vices, was a poten­tial third-par­ty intel­li­gence source for Ban­non. A wild­ly scan­dalous third-par­ty intel­li­gence source. That’s part of what makes this rela­tion­ship between Ban­non and Epstein so inter­est­ing: if Epstein’s alleged intel­li­gence con­nec­tions real­ly was the pri­ma­ry force draw­ing Ban­non to Epstein, Ban­non must REALLY want access to intel­li­gence. Epstein was already plen­ty radioac­tive in Decem­ber of 2017. It’s not like there was no cost to asso­ci­at­ing with him. Yet Ban­non did it. He des­per­ate­ly want­ed access to intel­li­gence. It’s a dark hint at the scope of his ambi­tions:

    ...
    Although Epstein’s rep­u­ta­tion was bad­ly dam­aged after he spent 13 months in a Flori­da jail for solic­it­ing sex from a teen, the con­vic­tion didn’t stop the flow of wealthy and famous peo­ple who flocked to his $77 mil­lion Upper East Side man­sion. Behind the 15-foot oak front doors, Epstein played host to old friends like Wall Street bil­lion­aire Leon Black, for­mer Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ehud Barak, and new ones like Steve Ban­non.

    Accord­ing to Too Famous, a new book by jour­nal­ist Michael Wolff, Epstein and Ban­non had been intro­duced in Decem­ber 2017. The two men had bond­ed, in part, “out of a shared increduli­ty about Don­ald Trump,” Wolff writes. Ban­non liked to com­pare notes with Epstein and “was often aston­ished by what Epstein knew.”

    Why would the media-savvy Ban­non run the risk of asso­ci­at­ing with a sex offend­er? Two Repub­li­can oper­a­tives who worked for Ban­non offer an expla­na­tion. While report­ing on MAGA world, and Ban­non in par­tic­u­lar, mer­its an extra degree of cau­tion as it often involves unre­li­able sources with ques­tion­able motives, these inde­pen­dent accounts line up and point to an allur­ing the­sis: Ban­non was intrigued by Epstein’s reput­ed role as mid­dle­man for intel­li­gence ser­vices in the Unit­ed States and abroad.

    One of the oper­a­tives, who spoke anony­mous­ly to dis­cuss pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions, asked Ban­non in 2018 about reports that he was spot­ted enter­ing Epstein’s man­sion. Ban­non admit­ted they had met and then said, cryp­ti­cal­ly, “Have you seen the Turk­ish cur­ren­cy?” which the employ­ee took to mean that Epstein was some­how involved in the recent col­lapse of the Turk­ish lira. “He [Ban­non] always insin­u­at­ed that he was still work­ing with the CIA, even when he was out­side the White House, which is com­plete­ly bullsh it,” the for­mer employ­ee said. The Wall Street Jour­nal and New York mag­a­zine report­ed that Epstein claimed to have a cur­ren­cy-trad­ing busi­ness that earned tens of mil­lions of dol­lars.

    Charles John­son, a con­ser­v­a­tive provo­ca­teur, worked with Ban­non at Bre­it­bart News, the right-wing web­site Ban­non led for sev­er­al years, and also got the impres­sion that Bannon’s vis­its to Epstein involved the intel­li­gence world. John­son says that Ban­non made sev­er­al vis­its to Epstein’s New York man­sion after he was oust­ed from the White House in August 2017. “He also offered to intro­duce me to him at one point,” John­son tells Rolling Stone. (John­son declined the offer.) “What I was told about that meet­ing by peo­ple close to Ban­non was that he was try­ing to replace Epstein as a source for infor­ma­tion from var­i­ous intel­li­gence net­works. He saw Epstein as a rival or a part­ner but he want­ed what Epstein had.” John­son, who says he’s now a Biden sup­port­er, said he has been coop­er­at­ing with law-enforce­ment offi­cials inves­ti­gat­ing Ban­non.

    Reports have cir­cu­lat­ed for years that Epstein had a foothold in the murky world of intel­li­gence. Jour­nal­ist Vicky Ward report­ed in Rolling Stone ear­li­er this year that Epstein had deal­ings in the arms world in the 1980s that led to his work for mul­ti­ple gov­ern­ments, includ­ing Israel’s. Epstein had been intro­duced to the Israelis by British pub­lish­er Robert Maxwell, who had done his own work for Israel. Epstein then began to gath­er com­pro­mis­ing mate­r­i­al on influ­en­tial peo­ple, Ward report­ed. Before he died, Epstein told James Stew­art, a colum­nist for The New York Times, that he col­lect­ed dirt on pow­er­ful men.
    ...

    And then there’s the fas­ci­nat­ing ques­tions raised about a pos­si­ble rela­tion­ship between Epstein and Guo Wen­gui: Both men report­ed­ly relied on sex­u­al black­mail. Steve Ban­non just can’t stop hang­ing out with spe­cial­ists in sex­u­al black­mail:

    ...
    In recent years, Ban­non has become a close to Guo Wen­gui, a fugi­tive Chi­nese bil­lion­aire liv­ing in New York who has been locked in a dis­pute with his home­land. Guo has accused Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty offi­cials of cor­rup­tion; Chi­na has accused him of bribery, fraud, and black­mail. At the same time, Guo has been accused by one of his for­mer busi­ness part­ners and a Chi­nese media star of, among oth­er things, sex­u­al black­mail. Accord­ing to a law­suit filed in New York and reports in Toronto’s Globe and Mail news­pa­per, Guo alleged­ly used pros­ti­tutes and hid­den cam­eras to com­pro­mise pow­er­ful fig­ures as a means of clout and con­trol. A mes­sage sent to Guo’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive seek­ing com­ment was not returned.

    Just as he helped ele­vate Epstein’s sta­tus, Ban­non has attempt­ed to legit­imize Guo. He has served on the boards of com­pa­nies and non­prof­its linked to Guo, some of which are report­ed­ly under fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion. He had been liv­ing on Guo’s yacht when he was arrest­ed last year for defraud­ing donors to a group try­ing to build Trump’s bor­der wall.
    ...

    So in addi­tion to ask­ing the dark ques­tion of how much sex­u­al black­mail mate­r­i­al Steve Ban­non is sit­ting on, we also have to ask if he obtained it from Epstein or Guo. We also have the gen­er­al ques­tions of just how exten­sive is Guo’s sex­u­al black­mail oper­a­tion and did Guo and Epstein ever meet and swap notes. Because based on every­thing we know about Guo’s oper­a­tions, there’s noth­ing indi­cat­ing that any sex­u­al black­mail oper­a­tions would have come to a halt. This is pre­sum­ably an ongo­ing sex­u­al black­mail enter­prise, after all.

    So is Ban­non’s rela­tion­ship with Epstein ulti­mate­ly all about exploit­ing Epstein’s sex­u­al black­mail net­works? Or was it real­ly Epstein’s gen­er­al intel­li­gence con­nec­tions? We’re forced to spec­u­late, but it’s worth recall­ing one of the curi­ous aspects of the ini­tial deci­sion to install Ban­non on Trump’s Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil: that deci­sion came with a rule-change that gave Ban­non access to the kind of intel­li­gence usu­al­ly reserved for gen­er­als:

    The New York Times

    Ban­non Is Giv­en Secu­ri­ty Role Usu­al­ly Held for Gen­er­als

    By Glenn Thrush and Mag­gie Haber­man
    Jan. 29, 2017

    WASHINGTON — The whirl­wind first week of Don­ald J. Trump’s pres­i­den­cy had all the bravu­ra hall­marks of a Stephen K. Ban­non pro­duc­tion.

    It start­ed with the doom-hued inau­gu­ra­tion homi­ly to “Amer­i­can car­nage” in Unit­ed States cities co-writ­ten by Mr. Ban­non, fol­lowed a few days lat­er by his “shut up” mes­sage to the news media. The week cul­mi­nat­ed with a bliz­zard of exec­u­tive orders, most­ly hatched by Mr. Bannon’s team and the White House pol­i­cy advis­er, Stephen Miller, aimed at dis­ori­ent­ing the “ene­my,” ful­fill­ing cam­paign promis­es and dis­tract­ing atten­tion from Mr. Trump’s less than flaw­less debut.

    But the defin­ing moment for Mr. Ban­non came Sat­ur­day night in the form of an exec­u­tive order giv­ing the rum­pled right-wing agi­ta­tor a full seat on the “prin­ci­pals com­mit­tee” of the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil — while down­grad­ing the roles of the chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the direc­tor of nation­al intel­li­gence, who will now attend only when the coun­cil is con­sid­er­ing issues in their direct areas of respon­si­bil­i­ties. It is a star­tling ele­va­tion of a polit­i­cal advis­er, to a sta­tus along­side the sec­re­taries of state and defense, and over the president’s top mil­i­tary and intel­li­gence advis­ers.

    In the­o­ry, the move put Mr. Ban­non, a for­mer Navy sur­face war­fare offi­cer, admiral’s aide, invest­ment banker, Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­er and Bre­it­bart News fire­brand, on the same lev­el as his friend, Michael T. Fly­nn, the nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er, a for­mer Pen­ta­gon intel­li­gence chief who was Mr. Trump’s top advis­er on nation­al secu­ri­ty issues before a series of mis­steps reduced his influ­ence.

    But in terms of real influ­ence, Mr. Ban­non looms above almost every­one except the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kush­n­er, in the Trumpian peck­ing order, accord­ing to inter­views with two dozen Trump insid­ers and cur­rent and for­mer nation­al secu­ri­ty offi­cials. The move involv­ing Mr. Ban­non, as well as the boost in sta­tus to the White House home­land secu­ri­ty advis­er, Thomas P. Bossert, and Mr. Trump’s rela­tion­ships with cab­i­net appointees like Defense Sec­re­tary Jim Mat­tis, have essen­tial­ly lay­ered over Mr. Fly­nn.

    Sean Spicer, the White House press sec­re­tary, said Mr. Ban­non — whose Bre­it­bart web­site was a mag­net for white nation­al­ists, antiglob­al­ists and con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists — always planned to par­tic­i­pate in nation­al secu­ri­ty. Mr. Fly­nn wel­comed his par­tic­i­pa­tion, Mr. Spicer said, but the gen­er­al “led the reor­ga­ni­za­tion of the N.S.C.” in order to stream­line an anti­quat­ed and bloat­ed bureau­cra­cy.

    For­mer White House offi­cials in both par­ties were shocked by the move.

    “The last place you want to put some­body who wor­ries about pol­i­tics is in a room where they’re talk­ing about nation­al secu­ri­ty,” said Leon E. Panet­ta, a for­mer White House chief of staff, defense sec­re­tary and C.I.A. direc­tor in two Demo­c­ra­t­ic admin­is­tra­tions.

    “I’ve nev­er seen that hap­pen, and it shouldn’t hap­pen. It’s not like he has broad expe­ri­ence in for­eign pol­i­cy and nation­al secu­ri­ty issues. He doesn’t. His pri­ma­ry role is to con­trol or guide the president’s con­science based on his cam­paign promis­es. That’s not what the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil is sup­posed to be about.”

    That opin­ion was shared by Pres­i­dent George W. Bush’s last chief of staff, Josh Bolten, who barred Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s polit­i­cal advis­er, from N.S.C. meet­ings. A president’s deci­sions made with those advis­ers, he told a con­fer­ence audi­ence in Sep­tem­ber, “involve life and death for the peo­ple in uni­form” and should “not be taint­ed by any polit­i­cal deci­sions.”

    Susan E. Rice, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s last nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er, called the arrange­ment “stone cold crazy” in a tweet post­ed Sun­day.

    Mr. Spicer said the lan­guage the Trump White House used in its N.S.C. exec­u­tive order is, with the excep­tion of Mr. Bannon’s posi­tion — which was cre­at­ed dur­ing the tran­si­tion — almost iden­ti­cal in con­tent to one the Bush admin­is­tra­tion draft­ed in 2001. And Mr. Obama’s top polit­i­cal oper­a­tive, David Axel­rod, sat in on some N.S.C. meet­ings, he added.

    There were key dif­fer­ences. Mr. Axel­rod nev­er served as a per­ma­nent mem­ber as Mr. Ban­non will now, though he sat in on some crit­i­cal meet­ings, espe­cial­ly as Mr. Oba­ma debat­ed strat­e­gy in Afghanistan and Pak­istan. “It’s a pro­found shift,” Mr. Axel­rod said. “I don’t know what his bona fides are to be the prin­ci­pal for­eign pol­i­cy advis­er to the pres­i­dent.”

    But Mr. Bannon’s ele­va­tion does not mere­ly reflect his grow­ing influ­ence on nation­al secu­ri­ty. It is emblem­at­ic of Mr. Trump’s trust on a range of polit­i­cal and ide­o­log­i­cal issues.

    Dur­ing the cam­paign, the sly and provoca­tive Mr. Ban­non played a para­dox­i­cal role — calm­ing the eas­i­ly agi­tat­ed can­di­date dur­ing his fre­quent rough patch­es and egging him on when he felt Mr. Trump need­ed to fire up the white work­ing-class base. The pres­i­dent respects Mr. Ban­non because he is inde­pen­dent­ly wealthy and there­fore does not need the job, and both men ascribe to a shoot-the-pris­on­ers cre­do when put on the defen­sive, accord­ing to the for­mer Trump cam­paign man­ag­er Corey Lewandows­ki.

    Mr. Ban­non is a deft oper­a­tor with­in the White House, and he has been praised by Repub­li­cans who view him skep­ti­cal­ly as the most knowl­edge­able on pol­i­cy around the pres­i­dent. But his stat­ed pref­er­ence for blow­ing things up — as opposed to putting them back togeth­er — may not trans­late to his new role.

    ...

    ————-

    “Ban­non Is Giv­en Secu­ri­ty Role Usu­al­ly Held for Gen­er­als” by Glenn Thrush and Mag­gie Haber­man; The New York Times; 01/29/2017

    But the defin­ing moment for Mr. Ban­non came Sat­ur­day night in the form of an exec­u­tive order giv­ing the rum­pled right-wing agi­ta­tor a full seat on the “prin­ci­pals com­mit­tee” of the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil — while down­grad­ing the roles of the chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the direc­tor of nation­al intel­li­gence, who will now attend only when the coun­cil is con­sid­er­ing issues in their direct areas of respon­si­bil­i­ties. It is a star­tling ele­va­tion of a polit­i­cal advis­er, to a sta­tus along­side the sec­re­taries of state and defense, and over the president’s top mil­i­tary and intel­li­gence advis­ers.”

    A full seat on the “prin­ci­pals com­mit­tee”. That was sur­prise gift to Ban­non just a lit­tle over a week into the Trump admin­is­tra­tion in a move that ele­vat­ed Ban­non to the same lev­el of then-Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Advis­er Michael Fly­nn. But in real­i­ty, Ban­non was basi­cal­ly at the top of the pile in terms of Trump admin­is­tra­tion influ­ence. In oth­er words, he had access to every­thing:

    ...
    In the­o­ry, the move put Mr. Ban­non, a for­mer Navy sur­face war­fare offi­cer, admiral’s aide, invest­ment banker, Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­er and Bre­it­bart News fire­brand, on the same lev­el as his friend, Michael T. Fly­nn, the nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er, a for­mer Pen­ta­gon intel­li­gence chief who was Mr. Trump’s top advis­er on nation­al secu­ri­ty issues before a series of mis­steps reduced his influ­ence.

    But in terms of real influ­ence, Mr. Ban­non looms above almost every­one except the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kush­n­er, in the Trumpian peck­ing order, accord­ing to inter­views with two dozen Trump insid­ers and cur­rent and for­mer nation­al secu­ri­ty offi­cials. The move involv­ing Mr. Ban­non, as well as the boost in sta­tus to the White House home­land secu­ri­ty advis­er, Thomas P. Bossert, and Mr. Trump’s rela­tion­ships with cab­i­net appointees like Defense Sec­re­tary Jim Mat­tis, have essen­tial­ly lay­ered over Mr. Fly­nn.

    Sean Spicer, the White House press sec­re­tary, said Mr. Ban­non — whose Bre­it­bart web­site was a mag­net for white nation­al­ists, antiglob­al­ists and con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists — always planned to par­tic­i­pate in nation­al secu­ri­ty. Mr. Fly­nn wel­comed his par­tic­i­pa­tion, Mr. Spicer said, but the gen­er­al “led the reor­ga­ni­za­tion of the N.S.C.” in order to stream­line an anti­quat­ed and bloat­ed bureau­cra­cy.

    For­mer White House offi­cials in both par­ties were shocked by the move.
    ...

    So giv­en that Ban­non had around 10 months of direct access to the high­est lev­els of US intel­li­gence, and sud­den­ly went run­ning to Jef­frey Epstein to regain that intel­li­gence access months after los­ing it, we have to ask: just what was it that the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty was talk­ing about that Steve Ban­non was so inter­est­ed in fol­low­ing? The guy was on a mis­sion to foment a glob­al white nation­al­ist rev­o­lu­tion, so it’s not hard to imag­ine that he was have a keen inter­est in intel­li­gence. But we still have to won­der what exact­ly he was inter­est­ed in. Or to be more spe­cif­ic, just how many oth­er coups and fas­cist rev­o­lu­tions around the world was Ban­non work­ing on dur­ing his term in the White House? And now we have to also ask just how exten­sive­ly was Ban­non plan­ning on hav­ing sex­u­al black­mail play a role in these plans? Pret­ty exten­sive­ly, based on avail­able evi­dence.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | October 19, 2021, 4:24 pm
  26. We just got anoth­er shock­ing update in the ongo­ing Jef­frey Epstein saga. A shock­ing­ly pre­dictable update: days after Denise George, the attor­ney gen­er­al of the Vir­gin Islands, filed a law­suit against JPMor­gan Chase accus­ing the bank of know­ing­ly turn­ing a bind eye towards Epstein’s use of the bank to run his sex-traf­fick­ing net­work, gov­er­nor Albert Bryan fired George.

    No rea­son for the fir­ing has been pub­licly giv­en, although we’re being asked to believe that Bryan was­n’t even aware of the suit against JPMor­gan when he made the deci­sion. But as we’re going to see, it turns out that not only does Bryan have a per­son­al tie to the inves­ti­ga­tion but so did for­mer gov­er­nor John deJongh Jr. That’s because George’s suit also charges Epstein’s South­ern Trust Com­pa­ny with lying to V.I. author­i­ties about the nature of the com­pa­ny’s activ­i­ties in order to obtain high­ly favor­able tax sta­tus. Epstein’s com­pa­nies first achieved that tax sta­tus back in 1999, grant­ed him a 90% exemp­tion from V.I. income tax­es and a 100% exemp­tion from gross receipts and excise tax­es.

    That spe­cial tax sta­tus was grant­ed again to South­ern Trust Com­pa­ny, one of com­pa­nies George charges was used as a cov­er for Epstein’s ille­gal activ­i­ties, in 2014, five years after that 2009 con­vic­tion, when John deJongh Jr. was gov­er­nor. It turns out deJongh’s wife, Cecile, served as office man­ag­er for South­ern Trust for over 20 years.

    It also turns out that it was Albert Bryan who was head of the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Com­mis­sion (EDC), the tiny gov­ern­ment agency tasked with iden­ti­fy­ing firms deserv­ing of the spe­cial tax breaks, at the time of that 2014 deci­sion to grant that sta­tus to South­ern Trust. So both the cur­rent and for­mer gov­er­nor of the Vir­gin Islands could poten­tial­ly be impli­cat­ed in any inves­ti­ga­tions involv­ing Epstein’s use of his pri­vate arch­i­pel­ago as a hub for his sex-traf­fick­ing activ­i­ties.

    It’s also impor­tant to note that this case against JPMor­gan filed by George was­n’t the first inves­ti­ga­tion George con­duct­ed into Epstein’s activ­i­ties on the ter­ri­to­ry. While it is true that George did­n’t open up any inves­ti­ga­tions into Epstein until after his 2019 ‘sui­cide’, she did already man­age to extract a $105 mil­lion set­tle­ment from of Epstein estate over its crim­i­nal activ­i­ties.

    So, for what­ev­er rea­son, gov­er­nor Bryan chose now, days after the open­ing of George’s suit against JPMor­gan, to effec­tive­ly squash George’s inves­ti­ga­tions. Although, tech­ni­cal­ly, the suit against JPMor­gan is still open and could be pur­sued by George’s replace­ment. So we’ll see if that hap­pens. But for now it looks like JP Mor­gan may have once again dodged cul­pa­bil­i­ty for its crim­i­nal­i­ty.

    Now, as we’re also going to see, that does­n’t mean JPMor­gan has noth­ing to wor­ry about on the Epstein-front. In fact, there was anoth­er case file by anoth­er Epstein vic­tim back in Novem­ber accus­ing the bank of basi­cal­ly the same charges George was lev­el­ing: that the bank know­ing­ly cov­ered-up Epstein’s activ­i­ties for years.

    That case was joined by anoth­er law­suit filed back a sec­ond alleged Epstein vic­tim against Deutsche Bank mak­ing sim­i­lar accu­sa­tions. There are report­ed­ly con­sid­er­a­tions to com­bine the two law­suits into a sin­gle class action suit. Oh, and then there’s the fact that Deutsche Bank was already fined $150 mil­lion by New York state finan­cial reg­u­la­tor back in July of 2020 for its neg­li­gence in deal­ing with Epstein’s accounts.

    All in all, things aren’t look­ing great for JPMor­gan. Except, of course, it could be worse for the finan­cial giant. The cov­er-up seem­ing­ly con­tin­ues, after all:

    The Inde­pen­dent

    US Vir­gin Islands dis­trict attor­ney fired days after suing JP Mor­gan Chase over Jef­frey Epstein ties

    Vir­gin Islands Gov­er­nor Albert Bryan said he had ‘relieved’ Denise George of her duties amid reports he was unaware of a law­suit filed against JP Mor­gan Chase

    Bevan Hur­ley
    Mon, Jan­u­ary 2, 2023

    The US Vir­gin Islands’ top pros­e­cu­tor has lost her job days after fil­ing a law­suit accus­ing finan­cial giant JP Mor­gan Chase of turn­ing a “blind eye” to Jef­frey Epstein’s mul­ti-decade sex traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion.

    Attor­ney Gen­er­al Denise George filed a law­suit in Man­hat­tan last week alleg­ing that the Wall St giant “pro­vid­ed and pulled the levers through which recruiters and vic­tims” of Epstein’s offend­ing were paid in the court fil­ing, accord­ing to Bloomberg.

    On New Year’s Eve, Vir­gin Islands Gov­er­nor Albert Bryan con­firmed to sev­er­al news out­lets on the island that Ms George had been removed from her role amid reports he had been blind­sided by the law­suit.

    “I relieved Denise George of her duties as attor­ney gen­er­al this week­end,” Mr Bryan said in a state­ment to The Inde­pen­dent on Mon­day.

    “I thank her for her ser­vice to the peo­ple of the ter­ri­to­ry dur­ing the past four years as attor­ney gen­er­al and wish her the best in her future endeav­ours.”

    The governor’s spokesper­son Richard Mot­ta Jr told The Inde­pen­dent he was “not at lib­er­ty to dis­cuss details on per­son­nel mat­ters”.

    The attor­ney general’s office did not imme­di­ate­ly reply to requests for com­ment from The Inde­pen­dent.

    Assis­tant Attor­ney Gen­er­al Car­ol Thomas-Jacobs has been appoint­ed to serve as act­ing attor­ney gen­er­al, accord­ing to reports.

    In Decem­ber, Ms George announced Epstein’s estate had agreed to pay $105m to the US Vir­gin Islands gov­ern­ment to set­tle a law­suit that the late pae­dophile used his pri­vate island in the arch­i­pel­ago for sex-traf­fick­ing.

    In the law­suit filed against JP Mor­gan Chase last week, Ms George alleged JP Mor­gan “clear­ly knew it was not com­ply­ing with fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions in regard to Epstein-relat­ed accounts”.

    “Human traf­fick­ing was the prin­ci­pal busi­ness of the accounts Epstein main­tained at JPMor­gan.”

    ...

    The US Vir­gin Islands has request­ed a jury tri­al for charges includ­ing par­tic­i­pat­ing in sex traf­fick­ing.

    ...

    Epstein, who died in a Man­hat­tan jail in 2019 while await­ing tri­al on sex-traf­fick­ing and abuse charges, owned a pri­vate island Lit­tle St James in the US Vir­gin Islands.

    ...

    Mul­ti­ple vic­tims have described in court and in inter­views how they were traf­ficked to Lit­tle St James and abused by Epstein and his pow­er­ful net­work of friends.

    His for­mer girl­friend Ghis­laine Maxwell was sen­tenced to 20 years in prison in June after being con­vict­ed of sex-traf­fick­ing and abus­ing girls as young as 14.

    ———-

    “US Vir­gin Islands dis­trict attor­ney fired days after suing JP Mor­gan Chase over Jef­frey Epstein ties”” by Bevan Hur­ley; The Inde­pen­dent; 01/02/2023

    “Attor­ney Gen­er­al Denise George filed a law­suit in Man­hat­tan last week alleg­ing that the Wall St giant “pro­vid­ed and pulled the levers through which recruiters and vic­tims” of Epstein’s offend­ing were paid in the court fil­ing, accord­ing to Bloomberg

    JP Mor­gan was­n’t just one of the banks Jef­frey Epstein used. It was a key finan­cial com­po­nent of his human traf­fick­ing net­work. Those damn­ing charges were at the core of the charges brought against the bank by Attor­ney Gen­er­al Denise George just over a week ago. Until they weren’t. Just days after the suit was filed, Gov­er­nor Albert Bryan fired George with­out giv­ing an expla­na­tion. It was about as cor­rupt a look as Bryan could have achieved:

    ...
    On New Year’s Eve, Vir­gin Islands Gov­er­nor Albert Bryan con­firmed to sev­er­al news out­lets on the island that Ms George had been removed from her role amid reports he had been blind­sided by the law­suit.

    “I relieved Denise George of her duties as attor­ney gen­er­al this week­end,” Mr Bryan said in a state­ment to The Inde­pen­dent on Mon­day.

    “I thank her for her ser­vice to the peo­ple of the ter­ri­to­ry dur­ing the past four years as attor­ney gen­er­al and wish her the best in her future endeav­ours.”

    The governor’s spokesper­son Richard Mot­ta Jr told The Inde­pen­dent he was “not at lib­er­ty to dis­cuss details on per­son­nel mat­ters”.
    ...

    Adding to the cor­rupt nature of George’s fir­ing is the fact that her suit against JP Mor­gan came just weeks after George announce that Epstein’s estate agreed to pay $105 mil­lion to set­tle a law­suit over Epstein’s use of a pri­vate arch­i­pel­ago for sex-traf­fick­ing. Ms George was engag­ing in seri­ous Epstein-relat­ed pros­e­cu­tions. Appar­ent­ly too seri­ous for com­fort for some of the V.I. elites:

    ...
    In Decem­ber, Ms George announced Epstein’s estate had agreed to pay $105m to the US Vir­gin Islands gov­ern­ment to set­tle a law­suit that the late pae­dophile used his pri­vate island in the arch­i­pel­ago for sex-traf­fick­ing.

    In the law­suit filed against JP Mor­gan Chase last week, Ms George alleged JP Mor­gan “clear­ly knew it was not com­ply­ing with fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions in regard to Epstein-relat­ed accounts”.

    “Human traf­fick­ing was the prin­ci­pal busi­ness of the accounts Epstein main­tained at JPMor­gan.”

    ...

    The US Vir­gin Islands has request­ed a jury tri­al for charges includ­ing par­tic­i­pat­ing in sex traf­fick­ing.

    ...

    Epstein, who died in a Man­hat­tan jail in 2019 while await­ing tri­al on sex-traf­fick­ing and abuse charges, owned a pri­vate island Lit­tle St James in the US Vir­gin Islands.

    ...

    Mul­ti­ple vic­tims have described in court and in inter­views how they were traf­ficked to Lit­tle St James and abused by Epstein and his pow­er­ful net­work of friends.
    ...

    And as the fol­low­ing AP report points out, George isn’t just accus­ing JPMor­gan of neg­li­gence. The bank is accused of know­ing­ly turn­ing a blind eye towards the sex traf­fick­ing it knew Epstein was engaged in. Again, keep in mind that Epstein was con­vict­ed of sex traf­fick­ing in 2009 and yet much of what he’s accused of took place long after 2009. That’s part of the con­text of these accu­sa­tions about JPMor­gan know­ing­ly turn­ing a blind eye:

    Asso­ci­at­ed Press

    US Vir­gin Islands fires attor­ney gen­er­al in Epstein cas­es

    By DÁNICA COTO
    Jan­u­ary 3, 2023

    SAN JUAN, Puer­to Rico (AP) — The gov­er­nor of the U.S. Vir­gin Islands has fired the attor­ney gen­er­al of the U.S. ter­ri­to­ry who pur­sued var­i­ous cas­es against dis­graced financier Jef­frey Epstein, includ­ing a lengthy legal fight that result­ed in a $105 mil­lion set­tle­ment.

    The removal of Denise George comes just days after she filed a law­suit against JPMor­gan Chase in New York and accused the com­pa­ny of help­ing Epstein finance the ille­gal exploita­tion of women and chil­dren in the U.S. Vir­gin Islands and beyond.

    Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. did not pro­vide a rea­son for reliev­ing George of her duties in a state­ment Sun­day, say­ing only that she would be replaced by Assis­tant Attor­ney Gen­er­al Car­ol Thomas-Jacobs.

    ...

    In the law­suit filed against JPMor­gan Chase on Dec. 27, the gov­ern­ment of the U.S. Vir­gin Islands alleges the com­pa­ny “know­ing­ly facil­i­tat­ed, sus­tained, and con­cealed the human traf­fick­ing net­work oper­at­ed by Jef­frey Epstein from his home and base in the Vir­gin Islands, and finan­cial­ly ben­e­fit­ed from this par­tic­i­pa­tion, direct­ly or indi­rect­ly, by fail­ing to com­ply with fed­er­al bank­ing reg­u­la­tions.”

    It also alleges that the com­pa­ny con­cealed wire and cash trans­ac­tions.

    “Human traf­fick­ing was the prin­ci­pal busi­ness of the accounts Epstein main­tained at JP Mor­gan,” the law­suit reads. “JP Mor­gan turned a blind eye to evi­dence of human traf­fick­ing over more than a decade because of Epstein’s own finan­cial foot­print, and because of the deals and clients that Epstein brought and promised to bring to the bank.”

    ...

    On Dec. 30, JPMor­gan Chase asked that a fed­er­al judge throw out law­suits filed by two uniden­ti­fied women alleg­ing that big banks should have seen evi­dence of Epstein’s sex traf­fick­ing. The bank also said it didn’t com­mit any neg­li­gent acts.

    ...

    The Vir­gin Islands Dai­ly News, a local news­pa­per, report­ed that Epstein had made var­i­ous dona­tions to schools and orga­ni­za­tions across the U.S. ter­ri­to­ry, and that the island’s for­mer first lady was the office man­ag­er for one of his com­pa­nies, South­ern Trust. It also not­ed that Bryan, the gov­er­nor, had grant­ed Epstein’s com­pa­ny var­i­ous hefty tax exemp­tions when he served as chair­man of the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Com­mis­sion.

    In the pre­vi­ous law­suit, George, the for­mer attor­ney gen­er­al, alleged that South­ern Trust Com­pa­ny was used as a cov­er for Epstein’s ille­gal activ­i­ties.

    ...

    ———-

    “US Vir­gin Islands fires attor­ney gen­er­al in Epstein cas­es” by DÁNICA COTO; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 01/03/2023

    ““Human traf­fick­ing was the prin­ci­pal busi­ness of the accounts Epstein main­tained at JP Mor­gan,” the law­suit reads. “JP Mor­gan turned a blind eye to evi­dence of human traf­fick­ing over more than a decade because of Epstein’s own finan­cial foot­print, and because of the deals and clients that Epstein brought and promised to bring to the bank.””

    JP Mor­gan was­n’t just neg­li­gent. It turned a blind eye from sex-traf­fick­ing that it knew the bank was being used to facil­i­tate. At least that’s what Ms George charged before get­ting fired. The bank “know­ing­ly facil­i­tat­ed, sus­tained, and con­cealed the human traf­fick­ing net­work oper­at­ed by Jef­frey Epstein from his home and base in the Vir­gin Islands”:

    ...
    In the law­suit filed against JPMor­gan Chase on Dec. 27, the gov­ern­ment of the U.S. Vir­gin Islands alleges the com­pa­ny “know­ing­ly facil­i­tat­ed, sus­tained, and con­cealed the human traf­fick­ing net­work oper­at­ed by Jef­frey Epstein from his home and base in the Vir­gin Islands, and finan­cial­ly ben­e­fit­ed from this par­tic­i­pa­tion, direct­ly or indi­rect­ly, by fail­ing to com­ply with fed­er­al bank­ing reg­u­la­tions.”

    It also alleges that the com­pa­ny con­cealed wire and cash trans­ac­tions.
    ...

    And then there’s the fact that the for­mer first lady of the Vir­gin Islands was the office man­ag­er of Epstein’s South­ern Trust com­pa­ny, which Ms George alleged was a cov­er for Epstein’s ille­gal activ­i­ties. And it was none oth­er now-gov­er­nor Bryan who was the chair­man of the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Com­mis­sion (EDC), the agency that offered the spe­cial mas­sive tax breaks to com­pa­nies as an invest­ment incen­tive. It’s not a great look for Bryan or deJongh:

    ...
    The Vir­gin Islands Dai­ly News, a local news­pa­per, report­ed that Epstein had made var­i­ous dona­tions to schools and orga­ni­za­tions across the U.S. ter­ri­to­ry, and that the island’s for­mer first lady was the office man­ag­er for one of his com­pa­nies, South­ern Trust. It also not­ed that Bryan, the gov­er­nor, had grant­ed Epstein’s com­pa­ny var­i­ous hefty tax exemp­tions when he served as chair­man of the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Com­mis­sion.

    In the pre­vi­ous law­suit, George, the for­mer attor­ney gen­er­al, alleged that South­ern Trust Com­pa­ny was used as a cov­er for Epstein’s ille­gal activ­i­ties.
    ...

    And as we’ll see in the fol­low­ing Vir­gin Island Dai­ly News excerpt, part of what makes those hefty spe­cial EDC tax breaks grant­ed to Epstein’s South Trust so scan­dalous is the fact that, while Epstein’s com­pa­nies first got the spe­cial tax breaks in 1999, it was 2014 when Bryan signed off on the South­ern Trust tax breaks. This is five years after Epstein was con­vict­ed sex traf­fick­er accord­ing to US courts. And then sub­se­quent­ly giv­en a shock­ing­ly light sen­tence for that con­vic­tion.

    It also turns out For­mer first lady Cecile de Jongh served as office man­ag­er at Epstein’s South­ern Trust Com­pa­ny for 20 years. And John deJongh Jr. was gov­er­nor for Jan 2007-Jan 2015, which puts that 2014 deci­sion by the EDC to extend the spe­cial tax breaks to South­ern Trust under his watch. Tax breaks that grant­ed Epstein a 90% exemp­tion from V.I. income tax­es and a 100% exemp­tion from gross receipts and excise tax­es.

    On top of it all, the cur­rent first lady, Yolan­da Bryan, is cur­rent­ly employed by the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Agency (EDA) — the par­ent agency of the EDC — in a “Busi­ness Ambas­sador” posi­tion cre­at­ed by her hus­band in 2019 after get­ting elect­ed. It’s not a great look giv­en the sit­u­a­tion.

    Oh, and Gov­er­nor Bryan’s office is claim­ing that he had no idea George even open the law­suit against JPMor­gan when he made the deci­sion to fire her. Yep, we’re being told that he was sim­ply dis­sat­is­fied with her per­for­mance on oth­er mat­ters. It was all a coin­ci­dence.

    That’s the damn­ing con­text of the sud­den fir­ing of the Vir­gin Islands’ attor­ney gen­er­al days after she file a case against one of the most pow­er­ful finan­cial insti­tu­tions on the plan­et. The kind of con­text that makes this all look like an out-in-the-open cov­er-up. The lat­est out-in-in-open Epstein cov­er-up the will pre­sum­ably suc­ceed in keep­ing what­ev­er is under this rock nice and cov­ered

    The Vir­gin Island Dai­ly News

    Bryan ter­mi­nates Attor­ney Gen­er­al Denise George

    By SUZANNE CARLSON
    Dai­ly News Staff Jan 1, 2023

    Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. has fired V.I. Attor­ney Gen­er­al Denise George, and appoint­ed Car­ol Thomas-Jacobs to the role in an act­ing capac­i­ty, Gov­ern­ment House Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor Richard Mot­ta Jr. said Sun­day.

    Mot­ta did not respond to a request for com­ment about Bryan’s rea­sons for the deci­sion, which comes days after The Dai­ly News report­ed that George filed a law­suit in fed­er­al court in Man­hat­tan, accus­ing JPMor­gan Chase of help­ing Jef­frey Epstein exploit women and girls.

    Bryan, in a brief state­ment released late Sun­day night, also gave no rea­son for George’s ter­mi­na­tion.

    “I relieved Denise George of her duties as attor­ney gen­er­al this week­end. I thank her for her ser­vice to the peo­ple of the Ter­ri­to­ry dur­ing the past four years as Attor­ney Gen­er­al and wish her the best in her future endeav­ors. Assis­tant Attor­ney Gen­er­al Car­ol Thomas-Jacobs will serve as Act­ing Attor­ney Gen­er­al,” the gov­er­nor said in the pre­pared state­ment with the cus­tom­ary para­graph tout­ing trans­paren­cy.

    Fol­low­ing that state­ment. Mot­ta could not imme­di­ate­ly be reached for com­ment on reports cir­cu­lat­ing that the gov­er­nor was unaware of George’s law­suit against JPMor­gan Chase and was dis­pleased with her pre­vi­ous court actions against the Epstein estate.

    ...

    Bryan appoint­ed George as attor­ney gen­er­al after he took office in 2019, and since Jan­u­ary 2020, George has spent con­sid­er­able time and Jus­tice Depart­ment resources pur­su­ing anoth­er civ­il suit against Epstein’s estate, which claimed his attor­neys and asso­ciates fraud­u­lent­ly obtained tax ben­e­fits from the V.I. gov­ern­ment through the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Author­i­ty.

    That law­suit, which is cit­ed and attached as an exhib­it to the JP Mor­gan claim, was recent­ly set­tled for $105 mil­lion, plus half the pro­ceeds of the sale of Lit­tle St. James island, which is list­ed for $55 mil­lion. The estate and its co-execu­tors, Dar­ren Indyke and Richard Kahn, denied all alle­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing.

    Since he pur­chased Lit­tle St. James in 1998, Epstein and his com­pa­nies made numer­ous char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions to schools and orga­ni­za­tions through­out the ter­ri­to­ry, and had con­nec­tions to offi­cials in var­i­ous roles.

    For­mer first lady Cecile de Jongh served as office man­ag­er at Epstein’s St. Thomas-based South­ern Trust Com­pa­ny for 20 years. Bryan was serv­ing as chair­man of the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Com­mis­sion at the time under deJongh’s hus­band, for­mer Gov. John deJongh Jr., and signed off on the most recent cer­tifi­cate for South­ern Trust in 2014, grant­i­ng Epstein a 90% exemp­tion from V.I. income tax­es and a 100% exemp­tion from gross receipts and excise tax­es.

    First Lady Yolan­da Bryan is cur­rent­ly employed by the EDA and was hired to the $75,000-a-year role of “Busi­ness Ambas­sador” in 2019, a posi­tion that was cre­at­ed after her husband’s elec­tion as gov­er­nor.

    Pri­or to Stacey Plaskett’s elec­tion as V.I. del­e­gate to Con­gress in 2015, she served as EDA gen­er­al coun­sel from 2007 to 2012.

    Dur­ing that time, Epstein was con­vict­ed of child sex crimes in Flori­da, served an 18-month sen­tenced in that state, and reg­is­tered as a sex offend­er — all while receiv­ing tax exemp­tions from the V.I. gov­ern­ment.

    The V.I. Jus­tice Depart­ment is respon­si­ble for mon­i­tor­ing sex offend­ers like Epstein, but appar­ent­ly failed to uncov­er or inves­ti­gate reports that he was bring­ing vic­tims to the ter­ri­to­ry for the pur­pose of sex­u­al exploita­tion.

    Pur­su­ing Epstein

    George didn’t pur­sue any legal action relat­ed to Epstein until after he died by sui­cide in a Man­hat­tan jail cell in August 2019 while await­ing tri­al on new sex­u­al abuse charges.

    A month before his death, George told The Dai­ly News there was no rea­son for her to inves­ti­gate Epstein — despite at least one victim’s pub­lic claims that Epstein had trans­port­ed her to Lit­tle St. James and abused her.

    George said at the time that an inves­ti­ga­tion can only be launched if some­one files a crim­i­nal com­plaint or a peace offi­cer observes sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty, and “an inves­ti­ga­tion is not trig­gered because crim­i­nal activ­i­ty was occur­ring in anoth­er juris­dic­tion, or anoth­er state.”

    While at least one vic­tim said in a civ­il law­suit in New York that she was sex­u­al­ly abused at Epstein’s home on Lit­tle St. James, George said that infor­ma­tion was not suf­fi­cient to launch a local inves­ti­ga­tion.

    “It’s not based on that type of hearsay, or news reports from anoth­er juris­dic­tion,” George said at the time.

    If the indi­vid­ual in the case filed a com­plaint “then an inves­ti­ga­tion can be opened,” she added.

    George filed the civ­il law­suit against Epstein’s estate about five months after his death and cit­ed her desire to help vic­tims who were harmed in the Vir­gin Islands.

    Fol­low­ing the finan­cial set­tle­ment, George said in a press release that she had met per­son­al­ly with three of Epstein’s vic­tims, who described the abuse they suf­fered on Lit­tle St. James.

    “We owe it to those who were so pro­found­ly hurt to make changes that will help avoid the next set of vic­tims. Through this set­tle­ment, and with their help, we will turn mil­lions of dol­lars towards edu­ca­tion, vic­tim advo­ca­cy and sup­port, and law enforce­ment,” George said in the state­ment.

    EDC ben­e­fits

    Epstein received over $144 mil­lion in tax exemp­tions from the V.I. gov­ern­ment since 2013, accord­ing to the com­plaint filed by George in 2020, which was lat­er changed to $80 mil­lion in a sub­se­quent amend­ed com­plaint.

    Epstein first began receiv­ing tax ben­e­fits from the Vir­gin Islands gov­ern­ment in 1999, after the Indus­tri­al Devel­op­ment Com­mis­sion approved his com­pa­ny, Finan­cial Trust Co., as a ben­e­fi­cia­ry, grant­i­ng him a 90% exemp­tion on income tax and 100% exemp­tion on excise and oth­er tax­es.

    George’s law­suit claimed Epstein and his asso­ciates pre­sent­ed false infor­ma­tion to the Vir­gin Islands gov­ern­ment in order to obtain tax incen­tives to fund his crim­i­nal activ­i­ties, and South­ern Trust Com­pa­ny “failed to dis­close it did not and could not car­ry out its stat­ed pur­pose of pro­vid­ing con­sult­ing ser­vices in finan­cial and bio­med­ical infor­mat­ics.”

    EDA CEO Wayne Big­gs Jr. told The Dai­ly News in Feb­ru­ary 2020 that Epstein com­plied with the terms of his agree­ment, and an applicant’s crim­i­nal his­to­ry does not dis­qual­i­fy them from obtain­ing tax ben­e­fits from the gov­ern­ment.

    “We under­stand he was a sex offend­er, but his appli­ca­tion was not involved in any type of busi­ness that was relat­ed to that area, his busi­ness was more the finan­cial mar­kets,” Big­gs said at the time.

    While the V.I. gov­ern­ment grant­ed Epstein tax ben­e­fits for 20 years, George’s new law­suit claims JPMor­gan Chase should have been aware of his crim­i­nal activ­i­ties and report­ed them to law enforce­ment.

    The law­suit against JP Mor­gan, which is heav­i­ly redact­ed, cites a $150 mil­lion penal­ty the New York State Depart­ment of Finan­cial Ser­vices assessed Deutsche Bank for fail­ing to mon­i­tor Epstein’s accounts and “to scru­ti­nize the activ­i­ty in the accounts for the kinds of activ­i­ty that were obvi­ous­ly impli­cat­ed by Mr. Epstein’s past.”

    Thomas-Jacobs, now act­ing attor­ney gen­er­al, is cur­rent­ly assigned as an attor­ney on that case, accord­ing to court records.

    Bryan on AG automo­ny

    ...

    When he first appoint­ed George in 2019, Bryan said he had deter­mined the Attor­ney General’s Office required more auton­o­my.

    “In the Vir­gin Islands, due to the inher­ent struc­ture of our gov­ern­ment, the bal­ance of pow­er is some­times tipped towards the exec­u­tive branch. Over the years, this bias has allowed indi­vid­u­als to use the pow­er of the exec­u­tive branch to intim­i­date, sup­press and to exact polit­i­cal ret­ri­bu­tion on indi­vid­u­als and on oth­er branch­es of gov­ern­ment. It has also made way to grant favors for politi­cians and fam­i­ly affil­i­a­tions, while per­se­cut­ing per­ceived ene­mies and polit­i­cal oppo­nents,” Bryan said at the time.

    Inde­pen­dence for the attor­ney gen­er­al, “would help to restore the bal­ance of pow­er to the exec­u­tive branch. My team and I have giv­en con­sid­er­able thought to how we could help to ensure that this office, the Office of the Gov­er­nor, is nev­er used in this way, and every Vir­gin Islander is afford­ed the pro­tec­tion of the Unit­ed States Con­sti­tu­tion and the Organ­ic Act,” Bryan added.

    George’s daugh­ter, Kmisha-Vic­to­ria Counts, received a $70,000 sales con­tract from the V.I. Tourism Depart­ment that began on June 1, 2020. The con­tract tasked her with pro­mot­ing the ter­ri­to­ry on the main­land, and Tourism Com­mis­sion­er Joseph Boschulte exer­cised a one-year renew­al option for the con­tract in May 2021.

    George said her daughter’s con­tract was not a con­flict of inter­est.

    “The con­tract is a stan­dard gov­ern­ment tourism remote sales con­tract that is law­ful and eth­i­cal in every regard. The con­tract is with Tourism and was nego­ti­at­ed with Tourism, not the DOJ,” George said in a state­ment at the time. “I did not have any involve­ment or dis­cus­sions at all in the nego­ti­a­tions of the con­tract with Tourism, as my daugh­ter is an adult who man­ages her own busi­ness affairs.

    Dur­ing her tenure, George over­saw the 2019 pros­e­cu­tion of three for­mer Schnei­der Hos­pi­tal exec­u­tives, whose con­vic­tions were lat­er over­turned by the V.I. Supreme Court after the jus­tices found flaws in the government’s case.

    George also held a press con­fer­ence in July 2020 regard­ing 22-month-old Tamir Lake, who died on May 5, 2020 while in the cus­tody of the Depart­ment of Human Ser­vices.

    George announced that Lake’s death was due to blunt force trau­ma that had occurred in Decem­ber of 2018, before he was tak­en into gov­ern­ment cus­tody.

    Attor­neys for the child’s moth­er dis­put­ed the autop­sy find­ings, not­ing the 19 months Lake had been in gov­ern­ment cus­tody.

    George said V.I. Police would con­duct a homi­cide inves­ti­ga­tion, but it’s unclear what, if any­thing, ever came from that effort.

    ...

    ———-


    Bryan ter­mi­nates Attor­ney Gen­er­al Denise George” by SUZANNE CARLSON; The Vir­gin Island Dai­ly News; 01/01/2023

    “Bryan appoint­ed George as attor­ney gen­er­al after he took office in 2019, and since Jan­u­ary 2020, George has spent con­sid­er­able time and Jus­tice Depart­ment resources pur­su­ing anoth­er civ­il suit against Epstein’s estate, which claimed his attor­neys and asso­ciates fraud­u­lent­ly obtained tax ben­e­fits from the V.I. gov­ern­ment through the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Author­i­ty.”

    It’s not like George only sud­den­ly focused her pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al eye on Epstein-relat­ed crimes. She’s had been putting that civ­il suit against Epstein’s estate since Jan­u­ary of 2020. But it’s only now, days after fil­ing her suit against JPMor­gan Chase, that she gets fired. It’s a remark­able turn of events, made all the more remark­able by the claims by Gov­er­nor Bryan’s spokesper­son claim­ing that Bryan was entire­ly unaware of that suit against the bank when he made the deci­sion to fire her:

    ...
    Fol­low­ing that state­ment. Mot­ta could not imme­di­ate­ly be reached for com­ment on reports cir­cu­lat­ing that the gov­er­nor was unaware of George’s law­suit against JPMor­gan Chase and was dis­pleased with her pre­vi­ous court actions against the Epstein estate.
    ...

    But it’s the rela­tion­ship between both Bryan and for­mer gov­er­nor John deJongh Jr with the Vir­gin Island’s eco­nom­ic reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies that make Bryan’s fir­ing of George scan­dalous­ly remark­able. Because as George’s inves­ti­ga­tions have revealed, the Vir­gin Islands was­n’t just the site of exten­sive sex traf­fick­ing by Epstein. It was also a wild­ly gen­er­ous ter­ri­to­ry to Epstein, hand­ing his com­pa­nies pre­ferred tax sta­tus for years that gave Epstein a 90% exemp­tion from the Vir­gin Islands income tax­es and a 100% exemp­tion from gross receipts and excise tax­es.

    It was the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Com­mis­sion (EDC) that grant­ed Epstein’s com­pa­nies that sta­tus. It turns out Gov­er­nor Bryan was serv­ing as chair­man of the EDC in 2014 when the agency signed off on giv­ing Epstein’s South­ern Trust that sta­tus in 2014. Don’t for­get that Epstein was already a con­vict­ed sex traf­fick­er at their point.

    It also hap­pens to be the case that then-Gov­er­nor John deJongh Jr.‘s wife, first lady Cecil de Jongh, served as office man­ag­er for South­ern Trust for 20 years. And on top of it all, First lady First Lady Yolan­da Bryan is cur­rent­ly employed by the EDA as a “Busi­ness Ambas­sador”, a role cre­at­ed by her hus­band after he became gov­er­nor.

    So when we read about Bryan’s fir­ing of George just days after she opened up an inves­ti­ga­tion of JPMor­gan, it’s impor­tant to keep in mind that Bryan, his pre­de­ces­sor John deJongh, and both their wives are poten­tial­ly impli­cat­ed in the sor­did sto­ry of how Epstein man­aged to main­tain his favored tax sta­tus for decades, even after his ini­tial sex traf­fick­ing con­vic­tion:

    ...
    Since he pur­chased Lit­tle St. James in 1998, Epstein and his com­pa­nies made numer­ous char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions to schools and orga­ni­za­tions through­out the ter­ri­to­ry, and had con­nec­tions to offi­cials in var­i­ous roles.

    For­mer first lady Cecile de Jongh served as office man­ag­er at Epstein’s St. Thomas-based South­ern Trust Com­pa­ny for 20 years. Bryan was serv­ing as chair­man of the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Com­mis­sion at the time under deJongh’s hus­band, for­mer Gov. John deJongh Jr., and signed off on the most recent cer­tifi­cate for South­ern Trust in 2014, grant­i­ng Epstein a 90% exemp­tion from V.I. income tax­es and a 100% exemp­tion from gross receipts and excise tax­es.

    First Lady Yolan­da Bryan is cur­rent­ly employed by the EDA and was hired to the $75,000-a-year role of “Busi­ness Ambas­sador” in 2019, a posi­tion that was cre­at­ed after her husband’s elec­tion as gov­er­nor.

    Pri­or to Stacey Plaskett’s elec­tion as V.I. del­e­gate to Con­gress in 2015, she served as EDA gen­er­al coun­sel from 2007 to 2012.

    Dur­ing that time, Epstein was con­vict­ed of child sex crimes in Flori­da, served an 18-month sen­tenced in that state, and reg­is­tered as a sex offend­er — all while receiv­ing tax exemp­tions from the V.I. gov­ern­ment.

    ...

    Epstein received over $144 mil­lion in tax exemp­tions from the V.I. gov­ern­ment since 2013, accord­ing to the com­plaint filed by George in 2020, which was lat­er changed to $80 mil­lion in a sub­se­quent amend­ed com­plaint.

    ...

    EDA CEO Wayne Big­gs Jr. told The Dai­ly News in Feb­ru­ary 2020 that Epstein com­plied with the terms of his agree­ment, and an applicant’s crim­i­nal his­to­ry does not dis­qual­i­fy them from obtain­ing tax ben­e­fits from the gov­ern­ment.

    “We under­stand he was a sex offend­er, but his appli­ca­tion was not involved in any type of busi­ness that was relat­ed to that area, his busi­ness was more the finan­cial mar­kets,” Big­gs said at the time.
    ...

    Also note that when we read about how Epstein was first grant­ed this tax sta­tus back in 1999 from the Indus­tri­al Devel­op­ment Com­mis­sion, that’s the old name for the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Com­mis­sion. That’s how long Epstein received spe­cial tax sta­tus: since 1999. And accord­ing to George’s law­suit, that sta­tus was achieved by pre­sent­ing false infor­ma­tion about the nature of the com­pa­nies’ activ­i­ties. Like the claim South Trust Com­pa­ny was involved with finan­cial con­sult­ing ser­vices and bio­med­ical infor­mat­ics. Recall how South­ern Trust was describ­ing in fil­ings as of 2019 as “a DNA data­base and data min­ing” com­pa­ny. Also recall Epstein’s dis­turb­ing inter­est both eugen­ics and impreg­nat­ing large num­bers of women to seed the future of human­i­ty with his DNA. So when we see these charges about Epstein lying to the Vir­gin Island author­i­ties about the bioin­for­mat­ic nature of South­ern Trust’s busi­ness activ­i­ties, it’s worth keep­ing in mind that it’s pos­si­ble South­ern Trust was indeed per­form­ing some sort of ‘bioin­for­mat­ic ser­vice’ in the sense that it could have been a cov­er for Epstein’s eugenic schemes:

    ...
    Epstein first began receiv­ing tax ben­e­fits from the Vir­gin Islands gov­ern­ment in 1999, after the Indus­tri­al Devel­op­ment Com­mis­sion approved his com­pa­ny, Finan­cial Trust Co., as a ben­e­fi­cia­ry, grant­i­ng him a 90% exemp­tion on income tax and 100% exemp­tion on excise and oth­er tax­es.

    George’s law­suit claimed Epstein and his asso­ciates pre­sent­ed false infor­ma­tion to the Vir­gin Islands gov­ern­ment in order to obtain tax incen­tives to fund his crim­i­nal activ­i­ties, and South­ern Trust Com­pa­ny “failed to dis­close it did not and could not car­ry out its stat­ed pur­pose of pro­vid­ing con­sult­ing ser­vices in finan­cial and bio­med­ical infor­mat­ics.”
    ...

    And when we’re think­ing about how George’s inves­ti­ga­tions could have poten­tial­ly impact­ed Vir­gin Island offi­cials, also note how the V.I. Jus­tice Depart­ment appar­ent­ly failed to uncov­er or even inves­ti­gate reports of Epstein’s sex traf­fick­ing on the ter­ri­to­ry. Again, don’t for­get that Bryan, as then-head of the EDC, signed off the 2014 grant­i­ng of spe­cial tax sta­tus to South­ern Trust, which was well after Epstein was found guilty of sex traf­fick­ing as a result of the ini­tial fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tion that result­ed in the kid glove sen­tence. That’s part of the con­text of the V.I. Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s fail­ure to even inves­ti­gate reports of sex traf­fick­ing: at least part of that fail­ure hap­pened long after the US fed­er­al gov­ern­men­t’s pros­e­cu­tion that found Epstein guilty of sex traf­fick­ing but then let him off with a slap on the wrist. What kind of rela­tion­ship with V.I. elites was Epstein able to cre­ate after that US fed­er­al treat­ment of Epstein? It’s a ques­tion Gov­er­nor Bryan made irre­sistible with his fir­ing of George:

    ...
    The V.I. Jus­tice Depart­ment is respon­si­ble for mon­i­tor­ing sex offend­ers like Epstein, but appar­ent­ly failed to uncov­er or inves­ti­gate reports that he was bring­ing vic­tims to the ter­ri­to­ry for the pur­pose of sex­u­al exploita­tion.

    ...

    George didn’t pur­sue any legal action relat­ed to Epstein until after he died by sui­cide in a Man­hat­tan jail cell in August 2019 while await­ing tri­al on new sex­u­al abuse charges.

    A month before his death, George told The Dai­ly News there was no rea­son for her to inves­ti­gate Epstein — despite at least one victim’s pub­lic claims that Epstein had trans­port­ed her to Lit­tle St. James and abused her.

    George said at the time that an inves­ti­ga­tion can only be launched if some­one files a crim­i­nal com­plaint or a peace offi­cer observes sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty, and “an inves­ti­ga­tion is not trig­gered because crim­i­nal activ­i­ty was occur­ring in anoth­er juris­dic­tion, or anoth­er state.”

    While at least one vic­tim said in a civ­il law­suit in New York that she was sex­u­al­ly abused at Epstein’s home on Lit­tle St. James, George said that infor­ma­tion was not suf­fi­cient to launch a local inves­ti­ga­tion.

    “It’s not based on that type of hearsay, or news reports from anoth­er juris­dic­tion,” George said at the time.

    If the indi­vid­ual in the case filed a com­plaint “then an inves­ti­ga­tion can be opened,” she added.

    George filed the civ­il law­suit against Epstein’s estate about five months after his death and cit­ed her desire to help vic­tims who were harmed in the Vir­gin Islands.
    ...

    Also note how George was, iron­i­cal­ly at this point, grant­ed new lev­els of auton­o­my when she assumed office in 2019 to com­bat what Bryan described as a bias in the V.I. gov­ern­ment that allowed indi­vid­u­als to use the exec­u­tive branch “to intim­i­date, sup­press and to exact polit­i­cal ret­ri­bu­tion on indi­vid­u­als and on oth­er branch­es of gov­ern­ment.” A bias that pre­sum­ably played a role in pro­tect­ing Epstein all that those years. Keep in mind that George’s suit was­n’t closed when she was fired. That will be up to the act­ing attor­ney gen­er­al Thomas-Jacobs:

    ...
    Thomas-Jacobs, now act­ing attor­ney gen­er­al, is cur­rent­ly assigned as an attor­ney on that case, accord­ing to court records.

    ...

    When he first appoint­ed George in 2019, Bryan said he had deter­mined the Attor­ney General’s Office required more auton­o­my.

    “In the Vir­gin Islands, due to the inher­ent struc­ture of our gov­ern­ment, the bal­ance of pow­er is some­times tipped towards the exec­u­tive branch. Over the years, this bias has allowed indi­vid­u­als to use the pow­er of the exec­u­tive branch to intim­i­date, sup­press and to exact polit­i­cal ret­ri­bu­tion on indi­vid­u­als and on oth­er branch­es of gov­ern­ment. It has also made way to grant favors for politi­cians and fam­i­ly affil­i­a­tions, while per­se­cut­ing per­ceived ene­mies and polit­i­cal oppo­nents,” Bryan said at the time.

    Inde­pen­dence for the attor­ney gen­er­al, “would help to restore the bal­ance of pow­er to the exec­u­tive branch. My team and I have giv­en con­sid­er­able thought to how we could help to ensure that this office, the Office of the Gov­er­nor, is nev­er used in this way, and every Vir­gin Islander is afford­ed the pro­tec­tion of the Unit­ed States Con­sti­tu­tion and the Organ­ic Act,” Bryan added.
    ...

    And then there’s the oth­er major piece of con­text in this sto­ry: the $150 bil­lion penal­ty imposed on Deutsche Bank in 2020 by the New York State Depart­ment of Finan­cial Ser­vices for for fail­ing to mon­i­tor Epstein’s accounts and “to scru­ti­nize the activ­i­ty in the accounts for the kinds of activ­i­ty that were obvi­ous­ly impli­cat­ed by Mr. Epstein’s past.” In oth­er words, Deutsche Bank was fined $150 mil­lion for doing exact­ly what JPMor­gan is accused of doing by the now-for­mer attor­ney gen­er­al of the Vir­gin Islands:

    ...
    While the V.I. gov­ern­ment grant­ed Epstein tax ben­e­fits for 20 years, George’s new law­suit claims JPMor­gan Chase should have been aware of his crim­i­nal activ­i­ties and report­ed them to law enforce­ment.

    The law­suit against JP Mor­gan, which is heav­i­ly redact­ed, cites a $150 mil­lion penal­ty the New York State Depart­ment of Finan­cial Ser­vices assessed Deutsche Bank for fail­ing to mon­i­tor Epstein’s accounts and “to scru­ti­nize the activ­i­ty in the accounts for the kinds of activ­i­ty that were obvi­ous­ly impli­cat­ed by Mr. Epstein’s past.”
    ...

    And as the fol­low­ing arti­cle excerpt from back in Novem­ber describes, we got two more rea­sons to sus­pect there’s a lot more hid­ing under this rock in the from of two new law­suits filed by two women, still unnamed, claim­ing to be Epstein’s for­mer vic­tims. One suit alleges JP Mor­gan was used in Epstein’s traf­fick­ing of the woman from 2006 to 2013, four years after Epstein’s 2009 con­vic­tion. The oth­er suit, filed against Deutsche Bank, alleges the bank was used in her exploita­tion from 2003 to 2018. And it stands to rea­son that Vir­gin Island author­i­ties were turn­ing a blind eye towards Epstein’s sex traf­fick­ing dur­ing that peri­od too, all the way up through 2018.

    The two plain­tiffs are report­ed­ly inter­est­ed in com­bin­ing the suits into a class action law­suit. So while it’s unclear what the fate of the suit opened by Ms George will ulti­mate­ly be, JPMor­gan still has plen­ty to wor­ry about. And maybe a lot of oth­er finan­cial insti­tu­tion with Epstein’s skele­ton still sit­ting in their clos­ets:

    The Inde­pen­dent

    Epstein vic­tims sue sev­er­al major banks accus­ing them of aid­ing his sex-traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion

    Vic­tims say JP Mor­gan and Deutsche Bank ‘facil­i­tat­ed’ late paedophile’s crimes

    Bevan Hur­ley
    Thurs­day 24 Novem­ber 2022 18:43

    Jef­frey Epstein’s vic­tims have launched law­suits against two major banks accus­ing them of aid­ing his sex-traf­fick­ing empire, accord­ing to a new report.

    The Wall Street Jour­nal report­ed that sev­er­al women who fell prey to Epstein’s sex­u­al abuse have filed legal claims against JP Mor­gan Chase and Deutsche Bank for ignor­ing warn­ing signs about the late paedophile’s offend­ing.

    Attor­ney Bradley Edwards told the Jour­nal that Epstein had not act­ed alone dur­ing his decades of groom­ing and sex­u­al­ly abus­ing young girls.

    “The time has come for the real enablers to be held respon­si­ble, espe­cial­ly his wealthy friends and the finan­cial insti­tu­tions that played an inte­gral role,” Mr Edwards said.

    The two vic­tims, who are seek­ing to cre­ate a class action law­suit, have not been iden­ti­fied.

    ...

    Accord­ing to the law­suit tak­en against JP Mor­gan, one woman, a for­mer bal­let dancer, was sex­u­al­ly abused by Epstein and his friends from 2006 to 2013.

    She alleges large sums of mon­ey were with­drawn from JP Mor­gan to pay her and oth­er vic­tims in cash for sex acts.

    In a sep­a­rate suit tak­en against Deutsche Bank, anoth­er woman alleges she was traf­ficked for sex by Epstein between 2003 and 2018.

    The claim accus­es Deutsche Bank of turn­ing a blind eye about pay­ments to her and oth­er women.

    Under the Bank Secre­cy Act, finan­cial insti­tu­tions are required to mon­i­tor and report sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty relat­ed to ille­gal activ­i­ties such as human-traf­fick­ing.

    At Ghis­laine Maxwell’s tri­al for sex-traf­fick­ing minors in New York last Decem­ber, the court heard how the socialite was paid $31m by Epstein for help­ing him recruit and abuse young vic­tims.

    The JP Mor­gan Chase suit claims that Maxwell kept accounts at the bank.

    In 2020, New York state finan­cial reg­u­la­tors fined Deutsche Bank $150m for its lack of over­sight of sus­pi­cious trans­ac­tions made by Epstein.

    ———-

    “Epstein vic­tims sue sev­er­al major banks accus­ing them of aid­ing his sex-traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion” by Bevan Hur­ley; The Inde­pen­dent; 11/24/2022

    The Wall Street Jour­nal report­ed that sev­er­al women who fell prey to Epstein’s sex­u­al abuse have filed legal claims against JP Mor­gan Chase and Deutsche Bank for ignor­ing warn­ing signs about the late paedophile’s offend­ing.”

    It was­n’t just JPMor­gan. Epstein had a lot of help from his friends in finance, includ­ing his friends at Deutsche Bank. And the gov­er­nor of the Vir­gin Islands won’t be able to stop these law­suits, although that does­n’t mean the cas­es can’t be stopped . Recall that dis­turb­ing July 2020 sto­ry about how the fam­i­ly home of the judge assigned anoth­er case involv­ing Deutsche Bank and Epstein was attacked by a ter­mi­nal­ly ill far right indi­vid­ual who had a case pend­ing before the judge, result­ing in the death of her son and severe wound­ing of her hus­band. This all hap­pened just four days after the judge, Esther Salas, was assigned the Deutsche Bank case. But, for now, these law­suits are still hap­pen­ing, with JPMor­gan fac­ing accu­sa­tions that the bank was used to facil­i­tate the sex­u­al abuse of one girl from 2006 to 2013. It’s anoth­er reminder that the accu­sa­tions fac­ing these banks are like­ly to span a num­ber of years because these crimes were tak­ing place for decades and include the years fol­low­ing Epstein’s 2009 con­vic­tion:

    ...
    Accord­ing to the law­suit tak­en against JP Mor­gan, one woman, a for­mer bal­let dancer, was sex­u­al­ly abused by Epstein and his friends from 2006 to 2013.

    She alleges large sums of mon­ey were with­drawn from JP Mor­gan to pay her and oth­er vic­tims in cash for sex acts.

    ...

    At Ghis­laine Maxwell’s tri­al for sex-traf­fick­ing minors in New York last Decem­ber, the court heard how the socialite was paid $31m by Epstein for help­ing him recruit and abuse young vic­tims.

    The JP Mor­gan Chase suit claims that Maxwell kept accounts at the bank.
    ...

    And then there’s the sep­a­rate suite filed against Deutsche Bank that by some­one who claims she was traf­ficked by Epstein from 2003 to 2018. Yep, Deutsche Bank was appar­ent­ly still turn­ing a blind eye towards how it was being used to facil­i­tate Epstein’s sex-traf­fick­ing net­work in 2018. It’s the kind of accu­sa­tion that, if true, sug­gests there’s a lot more scan­dal to be uncov­ered both in the Vir­gin Islands and else­where:

    ...
    In a sep­a­rate suit tak­en against Deutsche Bank, anoth­er woman alleges she was traf­ficked for sex by Epstein between 2003 and 2018.

    The claim accus­es Deutsche Bank of turn­ing a blind eye about pay­ments to her and oth­er women.

    ...

    In 2020, New York state finan­cial reg­u­la­tors fined Deutsche Bank $150m for its lack of over­sight of sus­pi­cious trans­ac­tions made by Epstein.
    ...

    Final­ly, note how these two suits could be com­bined into a class action law­suit. It’s going to be very inter­est­ing to see how that ends up get­ting thwart­ed:

    ...
    The two vic­tims, who are seek­ing to cre­ate a class action law­suit, have not been iden­ti­fied.
    ...

    So good luck to the two vic­tims, along with all the oth­er vic­tims who could end up ben­e­fit­ing from a com­bined class action law­suit. It would be quite an event should it actu­al­ly suc­ceed in bring­ing some sort of pun­ish­ment to Wall Street. Espe­cial­ly if that pun­ish­ment is a real pun­ish­ment and not just more ‘cost of doing busi­ness with elite-sex-traf­fick­ers’ fines.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | January 7, 2023, 5:55 pm
  27. Fol­low­ing up on that recent piece about Dou­glas Rushkof­f’s new found tech­no-dystopi­anism and his obser­va­tion that the apoc­a­lyp­tic dehu­man­iz­ing mind­set of Sil­i­con Val­ley oli­garch is best exem­pli­fied by none oth­er than Jef­frey Epstein, it’s worth not­ing a very import detail in the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion into Epstein’s alleged ‘sui­cide’: that inves­ti­ga­tion has remained under wraps for three years, with no expla­na­tion for the ongo­ing silence and seem­ing­ly no rea­son­able excuse that can be dis­cerned. In oth­er words, the inves­ti­ga­tion into Epstein’s death has effec­tive­ly entered ‘coverup’ ter­ri­to­ry. Because of course that’s how this played out.

    As the fol­low­ing Busi­ness Insid­er report from back in March describes, it’s not just the case that there’s been near com­plete silence offi­cial on sta­tus of that inves­ti­ga­tion. As Epstein’s broth­er, Mark Epstein, tells it, the inves­ti­ga­tors almost imme­di­ate­ly con­clud­ed that Epstein’s death was a sui­cide despite an array of evi­dence that sug­gest­ed oth­er­wise, and yet nev­er pro­vid­ed him any of the evi­dence that they based those con­clu­sions on. And that was three years. It’s been silence ever since.

    Beyond that, it’s not Mark Epstein has to rely entire­ly on the infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed to him by inves­ti­ga­tors regard­ing the evi­dence they dis­cov­ered. It turns out he hired foren­sic pathol­o­gist Michael Baden to attend the autop­sy. And accord­ing to Baden, not only was the evi­dence around Epstein’s throat more con­sis­tent with stran­gu­la­tion than a hang­ing, but Baden claims that the foren­sic pathol­o­gist who car­ried out the autop­sy, Kristin Roman, per­son­al­ly told him that she could­n’t come to a con­clu­sion and list­ed the cause of death as “pend­ing fur­ther study”. A few days lat­er, New York City’s chief med­ical exam­in­er at the time, Bar­bara Samp­son, ruled the death a sui­cide after say­ing she reviewed addi­tion­al evi­dence. That addi­tion­al evi­dence has nev­er been released.

    Now, it’s impor­tant to recall that Michael Baden has a some­what ques­tion­able track record when it comes to high­ly sen­si­tive inves­ti­ga­tions involv­ing pos­si­ble scan­dals of nation­al secu­ri­ty state. Notable, Baden backed the War­ren Com­mis­sion’s “mag­ic bul­let” the­o­ry on JFK assas­si­na­tion. And while that’s cer­tain­ly a past that should give us pause regard­ing Baden as a tru­ly inde­pen­dent observ­er in this case, it’s also the kind of back­ground that makes Baden’s claims all the more remark­able. The guy who did­n’t see a coverup with JFK is see­ing a giant Epstein coverup. It’s more than a lit­tle inter­est­ing.

    Anoth­er fas­ci­nat­ing inves­tiga­tive detail from Mark Epstein is that the inves­ti­ga­tors appar­ent­ly have only con­sid­ered the pos­si­bil­i­ty that some­one entered Epstein’s cell block to kill him, exclud­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a fel­low pris­on­er car­ry­ing out the act. So were pris­on­ers allowed free move­ment around Epstein’s cell block? We still don’t have infor­ma­tion either.

    Also, regard­ing the bro­ken secu­ri­ty cam­eras that con­ve­nient­ly could­n’t record what hap­pened in Epstein’s cell, it turns out there was anoth­er bro­ken part of the sys­tem: Epstein appar­ent­ly made numer­ous phone calls that were nev­er logged. It sure would be inter­est­ing to know if those calls were at all being mon­i­tored as is stan­dard for fed­er­al pris­on­ers. But if they were mon­i­tored, those records have appar­ent­ly been lost. Who was Epstein call­ing and what were they dis­cussing? We’ll pre­sum­ably nev­er know.

    Oh, and while Mark Epstein want­ed to file a wrong­ful death suit which promised to reveal more infor­ma­tion about his broth­er’s death, he ran into a some­what unex­pect­ed obsta­cle: the execu­tors of Epstein’s estate blocked the suit. Who­ev­er is in charge of Epstein’s estate appears con­tent on leav­ing this a ‘sui­cide’.

    So when we see Dou­glas Rushkoff label­ing Jef­frey Epstein as the once-liv­ing embod­i­ment of dehu­man­iz­ing apoc­a­lyp­tic mind­set that dom­i­nates Sil­i­con Val­ley tech­no­crat­ic elites, it’s worth keep­ing mind that an offi­cial coverup into Epstein’s death has been qui­et­ly ongo­ing for sev­er­al years now. But it’s not just a coverup of his death. It’s also, implic­it­ly, a coverup of the pro­found scale of influ­ence Epstein had while he was still alive and kick­ing:

    Busi­ness Insid­er

    The Jus­tice Depart­ment inves­ti­gat­ed Jef­frey Epstein’s death. Then it went silent.

    Jacob Sham­sian
    Mar 14, 2023, 2:26 PM CDT

    * Jef­frey Epstein’s death in a fed­er­al jail was seen as a shock­ing Jus­tice Depart­ment fail­ure.
    * Over three years lat­er, the DOJ inspec­tor gen­er­al has­n’t released the results of its inves­ti­ga­tion.
    * Epstein’s accusers — and his broth­er — still want answers.

    On Octo­ber 28, 2019, two months after his broth­er’s death, Mark Epstein was sum­moned to the US Attor­ney’s office in down­town Man­hat­tan.

    Jef­frey Epstein died in the cus­tody of a fed­er­al jail just one build­ing over, and offi­cials at the Jus­tice Depart­ment said they had an update for Mark on their inves­ti­ga­tion into his death.

    Mark showed up with a lawyer and Michael Baden, a foren­sic pathol­o­gist he hired to exam­ine Jef­frey’s body. Baden believed Jef­frey Epstein died by homi­cide.

    The group was met with a “nice lit­tle pan­el” of Jus­tice Depart­ment offi­cials, Mark Epstein recalled.

    The offi­cials said Jef­frey Epstein died by sui­cide. Pressed for more detail, they just repeat­ed them­selves.

    “They did­n’t give me any infor­ma­tion oth­er than ‘After a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion, we deter­mined it was a sui­cide,’ ” Mark Epstein said. “It was like I was talk­ing to a fu cking robot.”

    The meet­ing was the only time Mark got any answers from the DOJ about his broth­er’s death. Three years lat­er, he still does­n’t know exact­ly how Epstein died and why it’s tak­en the gov­ern­ment that long to share its answer to that ques­tion.

    Mark Epstein told Insid­er that even though he’s Jef­frey’s next of kin, he has­n’t been able to obtain cer­tain med­ical records, includ­ing the care reports filled out by EMTs who eval­u­at­ed his broth­er’s corpse.

    The pub­lic has­n’t got­ten answers either. Epstein flew at the heights of pow­er, con­sort­ing with pres­i­dents and princes while at the same time abus­ing scores of girls. His death in the cus­tody of the Bureau of Pris­ons rep­re­sents one of the most shock­ing fail­ures of fed­er­al law enforce­ment in his­to­ry. How could the Jus­tice Depart­ment let him just slip away?

    The Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s Office of Inspec­tor Gen­er­al launched an inves­ti­ga­tion after he was found dead. But more than three years lat­er, the office still has­n’t released its report into the cir­cum­stances of Epstein’s death.

    In the infor­ma­tion vac­u­um, con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries have pro­lif­er­at­ed about whether Epstein was killed to cov­er up for his pow­er­ful friends — Bill Clin­ton, Don­ald Trump, and Prince Andrew among them.

    Epstein’s vic­tims and at least one US sen­a­tor are still demand­ing answers from the DOJ.

    “For many peo­ple, the death was sus­pi­cious, to say the least,” said Glo­ria Allred, an attor­ney who rep­re­sents 20 of Epstein’s vic­tims. “Oth­ers have their own con­clu­sions about what hap­pened to Mr. Epstein. But the spec­u­la­tion needs to be replaced by facts and evi­dence.”

    Mark Epstein remains puz­zled by the holdup. He’s con­vinced his broth­er did­n’t kill him­self and stands by the con­clu­sions of Baden, who per­son­al­ly observed the four-hour autop­sy of Jef­frey Epstein’s body.

    “We all took it by sur­prise,” Mark Epstein told Insid­er. “Nobody thought he was gonna kill him­self. Nobody.”

    After 3 years, it’s not clear what’s hold­ing up DOJ’s report

    When Jef­frey Epstein was found dead in his cell, on August 10, 2019, then-Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bill Bar­r’s first reac­tion was dis­be­lief, he lat­er wrote in his mem­oir.

    “No one’s gonna believe it was a sui­cide,” Barr recalled say­ing. “There’ll be con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries all over the place.”

    Epstein had been arrest­ed two months ear­li­er on charges that he traf­ficked girls for sex. He was inves­ti­gat­ed by Man­hat­tan fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors fol­low­ing a series of arti­cles by the Mia­mi Her­ald jour­nal­ist Julie K. Brown, who detailed how he secured a secret, lenient plea deal with Flori­da pros­e­cu­tors in 2007, even after law enforce­ment con­clud­ed he sex­u­al­ly abused more than 30 girls. A com­pen­sa­tion pro­gram his estate formed after his death con­clud­ed he sex­u­al­ly abused at least 136 peo­ple over­all.

    Until his arrest in 2019, Epstein con­tin­ued liv­ing a lav­ish lifestyle, split­ting time between his Palm Beach home, his Man­hat­tan man­sion, an island in the US Vir­gin Islands, and an apart­ment in Paris.

    After los­ing all that, it was pos­si­ble he found the prospect of life behind bars unap­peal­ing, Mark Epstein said.

    “When I first heard that my broth­er was dead, and found dead from sui­cide, I just fig­ured, ‘OK, he decid­ed to take him­self out,’ ” he told Insid­er.

    Barr tasked the Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s inspec­tor gen­er­al, Michael Horowitz, and the FBI with inves­ti­gat­ing “the cir­cum­stances of Mr. Epstein’s death.”

    There were two major unan­swered ques­tions: How, exact­ly, did he die? And — whether it was a sui­cide or homi­cide — how did the Bureau of Pris­ons allow it to hap­pen?

    With­in those ques­tions are a num­ber of small­er mys­ter­ies, still unre­solved. Why was Epstein’s body moved after his death, in vio­la­tion of jail pro­to­col? If his body was found hours after he already died, why did para­medics try to push air into his lungs? If he hanged him­self, why does Baden believe the bone frac­tures in his neck were more con­sis­tent with stran­gling? Why would he tear strips of bed­sheets to make a noose instead of using the cord of his sleep-apnea machine? Why weren’t the cam­eras watch­ing his cell­block work­ing the day he died? Who else was incar­cer­at­ed in the same block, and did they see any­thing?

    Epstein claimed he had dirt on pow­er­ful peo­pleclaimed he had dirt on pow­er­ful peo­ple and, after his 2007 guilty plea, still appeared to con­sort with the likes of Mohammed bin Salman of Sau­di Ara­bia, Elon Musk, and Steve Ban­non. Were any of Epstein’s acquain­tances capa­ble of plan­ning an assas­si­na­tion?

    An Insid­er poll tak­en lat­er that fall found near­ly half of Amer­i­cans believed Epstein was mur­dered.

    The Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s Office of the Inspec­tor Gen­er­al is unique­ly suit­ed to answer these ques­tions. Equipped with sub­poe­na pow­er and statu­to­ry inde­pen­dence, the office is one of the rare insti­tu­tions in Wash­ing­ton, DC, care­ful­ly designed to stand apart from par­ti­san forces and polit­i­cal winds.

    It also had a sig­nif­i­cant mea­sure of inde­pen­dence from Barr, whose own father may have giv­en Epstein a job that he lever­aged into a career in finance.

    More than three years lat­er, it’s not clear why the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s inves­ti­ga­tion is tak­ing so long.

    Horow­itz’s oth­er high-pro­file inves­ti­ga­tions con­clud­ed far more quick­ly. An inves­ti­ga­tion into the flow of US arms to Mex­i­can drug car­tels took a year. A 568-page report about how the Jus­tice Depart­ment dealt with Hillary Clin­ton’s email serv­er and a 478-page report about the “Cross­fire Hur­ri­cane” inves­ti­ga­tion into Trump’s links with Rus­sia were each released about a year and a half after they were ini­ti­at­ed.

    Glenn Fine, who served as the Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s inspec­tor gen­er­al between 2000 and 2011, told Insid­er the office is like­ly tak­ing extra­or­di­nary care to make sure it gets all the details right.

    “The OIG is prob­a­bly tak­ing the posi­tion: We want to make sure we get it right, and we want to make sure we are thor­ough and that the report is so con­vinc­ing that the peo­ple who think that Epstein was mur­dered will be per­suad­ed by all the evi­dence once it’s out there,” Fine said.

    There are four pos­si­ble rea­sons the report has­n’t yet been released, Fine said. The inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office could still be inves­ti­gat­ing; it’s hold­ing a report so as not to inter­fere with any pend­ing crim­i­nal cas­es; it’s writ­ing the report; or it’s wait­ing for feed­back from the Bureau of Pris­ons.

    A rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the Bureau of Pris­ons said it was coop­er­at­ing with the Jus­tice Depart­ment and referred Insid­er to the Office of Inspec­tor Gen­er­al for fur­ther ques­tions. A spokesper­son for the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office declined to com­ment on this sto­ry.

    The only pub­lic crim­i­nal cas­es linked to the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s inves­ti­ga­tion were charges brought against Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, the two jail secu­ri­ty guards who were tasked with watch­ing Epstein and oth­er inmates housed near him. That case stemmed from inves­ti­ga­tions by the FBI and the US attor­ney’s office in the South­ern Dis­trict of New York, which is par­al­lel to but inde­pen­dent from the inspec­tor gen­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion, run out of Wash­ing­ton, DC.

    In a Novem­ber 2019 indict­ment, Man­hat­tan pros­e­cu­tors said Noel and Thomas skipped their required rounds the night of Epstein’s death but fal­si­fied records to hide that fact.

    Pros­e­cu­tors used court doc­u­ments in the case to give the pub­lic a glimpse of what they had dis­cov­ered. Video footage indi­cat­ed no one entered the area out­side Epstein’s cell­block between 7:49 p.m. on August 9, when he was escort­ed to his cell, until 6:33 a.m. on August 10, when Noel and Thomas were serv­ing break­fast and found him dead.

    “Epstein was alone in his cell and not respon­sive, with a noose around his neck,” the indict­ment said.

    Noel and Thomas entered deferred pros­e­cu­tion agree­ments in May 2021, agree­ing to be inter­viewed by the OIG’s inves­ti­ga­tors. They sat for those inter­views in June that year, accord­ing to a per­son famil­iar with the inves­ti­ga­tion who spoke to Insid­er on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty because they were not autho­rized to speak on the record.

    Pros­e­cu­tors for­mal­ly dropped the crim­i­nal charges against Noel and Thomas in Decem­ber 2021. Once that case was over, it looked like the path was clear for the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office to release the report.

    But it’s been more than a year, and the report is still under wraps.

    Even mem­bers of Con­gress appear to have lost inter­est in Epstein’s fate.

    Back in Decem­ber 2019, four mem­bers of the Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee — Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Ben Sasse of Nebras­ka, Richard Blu­men­thal of Con­necti­cut, and Mar­sha Black­burn of Ten­nessee — wrote an open let­ter urg­ing Horowitz to com­plete his inves­ti­ga­tion.

    “These events have ignit­ed a cri­sis of pub­lic trust in the Depart­ment and exac­er­bat­ed the ero­sion of trust that the Amer­i­can peo­ple have in our insti­tu­tions of repub­li­can self-gov­ern­ment more broad­ly,” they wrote.

    Rep­re­sen­ta­tives for Cruz and Black­burn did­n’t respond to Insid­er’s request for com­ment on this sto­ry. Sasse, who sent a fol­low-up let­ter to Horowitz in 2020 and who’s now the pres­i­dent of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Flori­da, did­n’t respond to Insid­er’s request for com­ment, either.

    Only Blu­men­thal respond­ed to Insid­er’s request for com­ment. He urged Horowitz to release his report soon.

    “I con­tin­ue to believe the pub­lic deserves to be made aware of the results of the Depart­ment of Jus­tice’s inves­ti­ga­tion into the death of Jef­frey Epstein,” Blu­men­thal said.

    Fine believes Horowitz is in a tough spot with the inves­ti­ga­tion, like­ly weigh­ing the impor­tance of inform­ing the pub­lic against doing a thor­ough job.

    “I believe that it’s impor­tant to be time­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly in mat­ters of sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic con­cern,” Fine, now a Gov­er­nance Stud­ies fel­low at The Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion and law pro­fes­sor at George­town Uni­ver­si­ty, told Insid­er. “Hav­ing said that, it’s most impor­tant to get it right, and to be thor­ough and per­sua­sive.”

    Epstein’s death high­light­ed big­ger prob­lems in fed­er­al jails

    It remains unclear how much of the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s inves­ti­ga­tion has encom­passed fail­ures at the jail where Epstein was housed.

    After Noel and Thomas were charged with fal­si­fy­ing records, their lawyers argued they were scape­goats for the Bureau of Pris­ons as a whole, which left the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter chron­i­cal­ly under­staffed, forced employ­ees to work extra­or­di­nar­i­ly long hours, and allowed the facil­i­ty to dete­ri­o­rate. Only 18 employ­ees were guard­ing the MCC’s rough­ly 750 inmates the night Epstein died, records show.

    Records obtained by The New York Times demon­strate that jail staffers bun­gled rou­tine details. An intake form described Epstein as a Black male and indi­cat­ed he had no pri­or sex-offense con­vic­tions. Numer­ous phone calls he made while in cus­tody weren’t logged.

    Mar­tin Wein­berg, one of Epstein’s crim­i­nal defense attor­neys in his New York case, told Insid­er that he hopes the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s inves­ti­ga­tion will shed more light on the dire con­di­tions of the MCC.

    “His con­di­tions of con­fine­ment were medieval,” Wein­berg said.

    The inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office has made pass­ing men­tions of Epstein a hand­ful of times in broad­er reports about the Jus­tice Depart­ment. In 2019, it men­tioned the deaths of Epstein and Whitey Bul­ger as exam­ples of why the Bureau of Pris­ons need­ed bet­ter mon­i­tor­ing for incar­cer­at­ed peo­ple. A 2020 report said the indict­ment against the two jail guards, Noel and Thomas, pro­mot­ed “account­abil­i­ty.”

    In a 2022 report about the Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s chal­lenges, the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office called Epstein’s death a sui­cide and said it had “numer­ous ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tions” into whether Bureau of Pris­ons employ­ees did their job well and how deaths like Epstein’s “impair the pub­lic’s trust in the Depart­ment.”

    The Bureau of Pris­ons shut down the MCC entire­ly in August 2021 and trans­ferred its inmates to oth­er facil­i­ties. It remains closed.

    Despite the Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s pol­i­cy of not com­ment­ing on ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tions, Barr has hap­pi­ly gabbed about how the MCC was to blame for Epstein’s death.

    Just two days after Epstein’s death, Barr sug­gest­ed in a speech to police-union mem­bers that the inves­ti­ga­tion would focus on “seri­ous irreg­u­lar­i­ties” at the jail.

    In an inter­view with the Asso­ci­at­ed Press in Novem­ber 2019, Barr said he con­clud­ed Epstein killed him­self and that “a per­fect storm of screwups” at the MCC allowed it to hap­pen. In his mem­oir, the for­mer attor­ney gen­er­al wrote that cor­rec­tion­al staff failed to do their job of check­ing on Epstein every 30 min­utes, and that he was not housed in the same cell as “a trust­ed inmate,” as he was sup­posed to be, as a result of “an unin­ten­tion­al over­sight.”

    Mark Epstein does­n’t believe his broth­er killed him­self

    When Mark Epstein saw Barr dis­miss the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a mur­der based on his review of secu­ri­ty footage out­side Jef­frey Epstein’s cell tier, he was­n’t remote­ly sat­is­fied.

    “What I thought was, this is either a cov­er-up, or he’s the dumb­est fu ck on the plan­et,” Mark Epstein said.

    To Mark, Bar­r’s ver­sion of events sug­gests he came to the con­clu­sion that Jef­frey Epstein killed him­self and then back­filled evi­dence from there.

    Barr seemed to con­sid­er only the pos­si­bil­i­ty that a mur­der­er would have been some­one who snuck into the jail. Mark told Insid­er he was gob­s­macked that Barr did­n’t seem to con­sid­er the pos­si­bil­i­ty that some­one else in Jef­frey Epstein’s block of cells killed him.

    Since there were eight cells in the tier, there would have been between sev­en and 14 peo­ple oth­er than Epstein in the block, depend­ing on how many had cell­mates. The Jus­tice Depart­ment has not made the names of those incar­cer­at­ed peo­ple pub­lic.

    Mark Epstein told Insid­er that he spoke to his broth­er about once a month in the years before his death. The two caught up over the phone while Jef­frey Epstein was in Paris, the night before he flew to New Jer­sey and was arrest­ed after his pri­vate jet land­ed.

    Jef­frey Epstein had rea­sons to stay alive, Mark said. He did­n’t leave a sui­cide note — or at least none that has been report­ed — and report­ed­ly deposit­ed mon­ey into oth­er inmates’ com­mis­sary accounts in return for pro­tec­tion. Peo­ple who spoke with him in the weeks lead­ing up to his death believed he was opti­mistic about get­ting the charges dis­missed.

    After he was arrest­ed, in ear­ly August 2019, Epstein and attor­ney David Schoen had a five-hour meet­ing to dis­cuss crim­i­nal-defense strate­gies. Schoen told Insid­er that Epstein appeared opti­mistic that he’d be pro­tect­ed by the con­tro­ver­sial and unusu­al non-pros­e­cu­tion agree­ment he signed with Alexan­der Acos­ta, the US Attor­ney in Flori­da he cut a deal with in 2007. Bill Cos­by had his sex­u­al-assault con­vic­tion over­turned in 2021 for sim­i­lar rea­sons, Mark Epstein point­ed out. Epstein’s Flori­da agree­ment had been repeat­ed­ly upheld by fed­er­al courts.

    Mark Epstein told Insid­er he built his wealth inde­pen­dent­ly from his broth­er, found­ing a silk-screen­ing busi­ness before piv­ot­ing to real estate with Ossa Prop­er­ties, which at one point report­ed­ly owned hun­dreds of apart­ments in New York City.

    At least one of Mark Epstein’s Upper East Side build­ings, how­ev­er, includes mul­ti­ple links to his broth­er. Mark has said he pur­chased it from the busi­ness mag­nate Leslie Wexn­er, his broth­er’s long­time patron. Jef­frey Epstein used about a dozen apart­ments in the build­ing, which he used to house at least one of his sex-traf­fick­ing vic­tims as well as his pri­vate pilots while they were stay­ing in New York, accord­ing to tes­ti­mo­ny at Ghis­laine Maxwell’s tri­al. Right before Epstein died, his lawyers were prepar­ing to appeal a judge’s deci­sion to deny him bail. They had pre­pared a bond pack­age val­ued at $100 mil­lion.

    Mark Epstein agreed to guar­an­tee the whole thing, he told Insid­er, mean­ing he’d lose that amount of mon­ey if his broth­er tried to flee author­i­ties.

    “If you get bail, you’re gonna be home for a year — under house arrest, with an ankle bracelet, armed guards, video cam­eras, what­ev­er the con­di­tions were — but he’ll be in his house,” Mark Epstein said. “So why kill your­self then?”

    There are still unan­swered ques­tions about Epstein’s body

    It’s not clear to what extent the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office has tried to retrace Jef­frey Epstein’s last days.

    Michael Baden — the foren­sic pathol­o­gist, who sits on a com­mis­sion that reviews all inmate deaths in New York state-con­trolled pris­ons and jails — told Insid­er that inves­ti­ga­tors haven’t inter­viewed him.

    Mark Epstein, Wein­berg, and Schoen (who said he has full con­fi­dence in Horowitz) all spoke to Jef­frey Epstein not long before his death and said they haven’t been inter­viewed by the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office either.

    A per­son close to Ghis­laine Maxwell, who is serv­ing a 20-year prison sen­tence, said the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office nev­er request­ed an inter­view with her about the inves­ti­ga­tion into Epstein’s death.

    Baden still has lin­ger­ing ques­tions about the state of Epstein’s body.

    Kristin Roman, the New York City med­ical exam­in­er who con­duct­ed the autop­sy, could­n’t come to a con­clu­sion and list­ed the man­ner of death as “pend­ing fur­ther study.” Baden claims Roman told him at the time that she want­ed to learn more about the cir­cum­stances of Epstein’s death before mak­ing a final deter­mi­na­tion.

    “It was­n’t clear yet what the find­ings were at the scene, because he was brought out of the cell many hours after he died, when nobody had seen him,” Baden said. “We did­n’t know at the time, and we still don’t know, how the two guards found him — whether he was hang­ing, whether he had a lig­a­ture around his neck — because nobody else saw the scene.”

    New York City’s chief med­ical exam­in­er at the time, Bar­bara Samp­son, side­stepped Roman and ruled the death a sui­cide a few days lat­er, after say­ing she reviewed addi­tion­al evi­dence. She did­n’t dis­close what that addi­tion­al evi­dence was, but CBS News report­ed that one ele­ment was Epstein’s pri­or sui­cide attempt. Roman did­n’t respond to Insid­er’s request for com­ment.

    Accord­ing to Baden, cer­tain fea­tures of Epstein’s dead body lined up more with homi­cide than sui­cide. His neck bones were frac­tured in three dif­fer­ent places in a way you’d expect from stran­gling, he said. The hem­or­rhages in his eyes, too, were more con­sis­tent with stran­gling than hang­ing, accord­ing to Baden. And the lig­a­ture marks on Epstein’s neck did­n’t look like they’d come from the bed­sheet found in his cell, Baden said.

    “The lig­a­tures on the ground do not match the mark on the neck,” Baden said. “A smooth sheet leaves a smooth mark on the neck. This one has a pat­tern. There’s a pat­tern on the skin.”

    A good foren­sic pathol­o­gist, Baden said, would take into account every­thing about the cir­cum­stances of a sub­jec­t’s death. But the pub­lic is still miss­ing key details, such as whether inmates could move freely between their cells with­in the tier and how the cells were locked. Epstein’s body was also moved after he was found dead.

    Baden said he still wants to make a final deter­mi­na­tion about Epstein’s death.

    “As I sit here, I still don’t know what posi­tion he was found in,” Baden told Insid­er.

    Epstein’s accusers want answers from the DOJ

    The silence from the DOJ has dis­ap­point­ed Epstein’s vic­tims, many of whom believe his death is yet anoth­er exam­ple of how the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment failed them in hold­ing the ser­i­al child rapist to account.

    Attor­neys who have col­lec­tive­ly rep­re­sent­ed more than 80 of Epstein’s accusers told Insid­er they were dis­ap­point­ed and puz­zled by the lack of trans­paren­cy.

    Lisa Bloom, an attor­ney who rep­re­sent­ed eight of Epstein’s accusers, told Insid­er that the silence only leads to dis­trust among accusers.

    “In 2019, he was allowed to take his own life to escape jus­tice — maybe that’s what hap­pened,” she said. “And now, more than three years lat­er, vic­tims do not even get the sim­ple cour­tesy of a final report. This breeds resent­ment and dis­trust. What is the gov­ern­ment hid­ing?”

    “It is remark­able that now, lit­er­al­ly years lat­er, the Jus­tice Depart­ment has yet to release its report,” Paul Cas­sell, an attor­ney who sought to inval­i­date Epstein’s non-pros­e­cu­tion agree­ment, told Insid­er. “This bla­tant lack of trans­paren­cy will only lead to fur­ther spec­u­la­tion about exact­ly how Epstein died.”

    Some of the attor­neys said the secre­cy may lead to vic­tims of abuse think­ing twice before going to author­i­ties.

    “There is no good rea­son the inves­ti­ga­tion has tak­en this long,” Brad Edwards, who rep­re­sent­ed more than 50 of Epstein’s accusers, said. “The vic­tims and the pub­lic were made strong promis­es that with pure motive were easy to uphold. The lack of trans­paren­cy rais­es sus­pi­cions about who is pro­tect­ing whom or what.”

    Adam Horowitz, an attor­ney who rep­re­sent­ed eight of Epstein’s accusers and has no rela­tion to Michael Horowitz, told Insid­er the lack of infor­ma­tion “will deter oth­er suf­fer­ing crime vic­tims from com­ing for­ward.”

    Mark Epstein want­ed to file a wrong­ful-death law­suit against the Bureau of Pris­ons but said he was blocked by the execu­tors of Jef­frey Epstein’s estate. He believes a law­suit would be a “slam-dunk case” that might have gen­er­at­ed answers.

    ...

    Fine told Insid­er the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office may be tak­ing a long time because it’s being extra­or­di­nar­i­ly thor­ough.

    “I would think the OIG would be assess­ing the entire sit­u­a­tion,” Fine said. “Whether it was just a sui­cide and, if so, how did it hap­pen? I would expect there to be a full report on this, and maybe that’s why it’s tak­ing a long time.”

    Allred said the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office should, at the very least, give accusers a time frame for the results of the inves­ti­ga­tion and be told whether it will be made pub­lic.

    “They were denied their day in court to con­front Jef­frey Epstein because of his death,” she said. “They should not be denied the results of the inves­ti­ga­tion by the inspec­tor gen­er­al.”

    Cor­rec­tion: March 13, 2023 — An ear­li­er ver­sion of this sto­ry mis­char­ac­ter­ized part of Michael Baden’s autop­sy find­ings. Jef­frey Epstein’s eyes did have hem­or­rhages, accord­ing to Baden.

    ———–

    “The Jus­tice Depart­ment inves­ti­gat­ed Jef­frey Epstein’s death. Then it went silent.” by Jacob Sham­sian; Busi­ness Insid­er; 03/14/2023

    ““They did­n’t give me any infor­ma­tion oth­er than ‘After a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion, we deter­mined it was a sui­cide,’ ” Mark Epstein said. “It was like I was talk­ing to a fu cking robot.””

    We have thor­ough­ly con­clud­ed it was a sui­cide. End of sto­ry. That’s the lev­el of detail Mark Epstein was appar­ent­ly giv­en the offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tion into his broth­er’s death. An inves­ti­ga­tion launched by Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s Office of Inspec­tor Gen­er­al three years ago and yet still remains under wraps. Why the years of silence?

    Now, if evi­dence of a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion was ever pro­vid­ed and an inde­pen­dent observ­er con­curred with the find­ings, that would be one thing. But as we’ve seen, this was as high­ly anom­alous ‘sui­cide’ that includ­ed prison guards who did­n’t car­ry out their secu­ri­ty checks that evening and secu­ri­ty cam­eras that were con­ve­nient­ly bro­ken. And as this report describes, Mark Epstein had his own inde­pen­dent foren­sic pathol­o­gist hired to observe the autop­sy, Michael Baden, who con­clud­ed that the evi­dence was more con­sis­tent with stran­gu­la­tion than sui­cide. Now, as we’ve seen, this is the same Michael Baden who has pre­vi­ous­ly been involved with a num­ber of high-pro­file foren­sic exam­i­na­tions includ­ing his defense of the War­ren Com­mis­sion’s Mag­ic Bul­let the­o­ry in the JFK assas­si­na­tion. So when we see Baden show­ing up in this sto­ry we have to ask how Epstein’s broth­er end­ed up hir­ing Baden in the first place. At the same time, Baden’s pre­pos­ter­ous take on the War­ren Com­mis­sion does­n’t auto­mat­i­cal­ly negate his obser­va­tions when it comes to Epstein’s autop­sy. If any­thing, it makes his obser­va­tions in what appears to be an ongo­ing cov­er up even more intrigu­ing and in need of answer­ing:

    ...
    Mark showed up with a lawyer and Michael Baden, a foren­sic pathol­o­gist he hired to exam­ine Jef­frey’s body. Baden believed Jef­frey Epstein died by homi­cide.

    The group was met with a “nice lit­tle pan­el” of Jus­tice Depart­ment offi­cials, Mark Epstein recalled.

    The offi­cials said Jef­frey Epstein died by sui­cide. Pressed for more detail, they just repeat­ed them­selves.

    ...

    The meet­ing was the only time Mark got any answers from the DOJ about his broth­er’s death. Three years lat­er, he still does­n’t know exact­ly how Epstein died and why it’s tak­en the gov­ern­ment that long to share its answer to that ques­tion.

    Mark Epstein told Insid­er that even though he’s Jef­frey’s next of kin, he has­n’t been able to obtain cer­tain med­ical records, includ­ing the care reports filled out by EMTs who eval­u­at­ed his broth­er’s corpse.

    ...

    The Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s Office of Inspec­tor Gen­er­al launched an inves­ti­ga­tion after he was found dead. But more than three years lat­er, the office still has­n’t released its report into the cir­cum­stances of Epstein’s death.

    ...

    “For many peo­ple, the death was sus­pi­cious, to say the least,” said Glo­ria Allred, an attor­ney who rep­re­sents 20 of Epstein’s vic­tims. “Oth­ers have their own con­clu­sions about what hap­pened to Mr. Epstein. But the spec­u­la­tion needs to be replaced by facts and evi­dence.”

    Mark Epstein remains puz­zled by the holdup. He’s con­vinced his broth­er did­n’t kill him­self and stands by the con­clu­sions of Baden, who per­son­al­ly observed the four-hour autop­sy of Jef­frey Epstein’s body.

    “We all took it by sur­prise,” Mark Epstein told Insid­er. “Nobody thought he was gonna kill him­self. Nobody.”

    After 3 years, it’s not clear what’s hold­ing up DOJ’s report

    ...

    There were two major unan­swered ques­tions: How, exact­ly, did he die? And — whether it was a sui­cide or homi­cide — how did the Bureau of Pris­ons allow it to hap­pen?

    With­in those ques­tions are a num­ber of small­er mys­ter­ies, still unre­solved. Why was Epstein’s body moved after his death, in vio­la­tion of jail pro­to­col? If his body was found hours after he already died, why did para­medics try to push air into his lungs? If he hanged him­self, why does Baden believe the bone frac­tures in his neck were more con­sis­tent with stran­gling? Why would he tear strips of bed­sheets to make a noose instead of using the cord of his sleep-apnea machine? Why weren’t the cam­eras watch­ing his cell­block work­ing the day he died? Who else was incar­cer­at­ed in the same block, and did they see any­thing?

    Epstein claimed he had dirt on pow­er­ful peo­pleclaimed he had dirt on pow­er­ful peo­ple and, after his 2007 guilty plea, still appeared to con­sort with the likes of Mohammed bin Salman of Sau­di Ara­bia, Elon Musk, and Steve Ban­non. Were any of Epstein’s acquain­tances capa­ble of plan­ning an assas­si­na­tion?

    ...

    The Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s Office of the Inspec­tor Gen­er­al is unique­ly suit­ed to answer these ques­tions. Equipped with sub­poe­na pow­er and statu­to­ry inde­pen­dence, the office is one of the rare insti­tu­tions in Wash­ing­ton, DC, care­ful­ly designed to stand apart from par­ti­san forces and polit­i­cal winds.

    It also had a sig­nif­i­cant mea­sure of inde­pen­dence from Barr, whose own father may have giv­en Epstein a job that he lever­aged into a career in finance.

    More than three years lat­er, it’s not clear why the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s inves­ti­ga­tion is tak­ing so long.
    ...

    Regard­ing Baden’s involve­ment in this case and his hir­ing by Mark Epstein, it’s also worth not­ing that Baden sits on a com­mis­sion that reviews all inmate deaths in New York state-con­trolled pris­ons and jails. And yet inves­ti­ga­tors appar­ent­ly haven’t inter­viewed him. Or Mark Epstein. Or Epstein’s defense attor­ney’s Mar­tin Wein­berg and David Schoen. Beyond that, Baden claims Kristin Roman, the New York City med­ical exam­in­er who actu­al­ly con­duct­ed the autop­sy on Epstein’s, could­n’t come to a con­clu­sion and list­ed the man­ner of death as “pend­ing fur­ther study.” But Roman’s incon­clu­sive find­ings were over­ruled a few days lat­er by New York City’s chief med­ical exam­in­er at the time, Bar­bara Samp­son, who cit­ed “addi­tion­al evi­dence” that has yet to be revealed:

    ...
    It’s not clear to what extent the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office has tried to retrace Jef­frey Epstein’s last days.

    Michael Baden — the foren­sic pathol­o­gist, who sits on a com­mis­sion that reviews all inmate deaths in New York state-con­trolled pris­ons and jails — told Insid­er that inves­ti­ga­tors haven’t inter­viewed him.

    Mark Epstein, Wein­berg, and Schoen (who said he has full con­fi­dence in Horowitz) all spoke to Jef­frey Epstein not long before his death and said they haven’t been inter­viewed by the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office either.

    A per­son close to Ghis­laine Maxwell, who is serv­ing a 20-year prison sen­tence, said the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office nev­er request­ed an inter­view with her about the inves­ti­ga­tion into Epstein’s death.

    Baden still has lin­ger­ing ques­tions about the state of Epstein’s body.

    Kristin Roman, the New York City med­ical exam­in­er who con­duct­ed the autop­sy, could­n’t come to a con­clu­sion and list­ed the man­ner of death as “pend­ing fur­ther study.” Baden claims Roman told him at the time that she want­ed to learn more about the cir­cum­stances of Epstein’s death before mak­ing a final deter­mi­na­tion.

    “It was­n’t clear yet what the find­ings were at the scene, because he was brought out of the cell many hours after he died, when nobody had seen him,” Baden said. “We did­n’t know at the time, and we still don’t know, how the two guards found him — whether he was hang­ing, whether he had a lig­a­ture around his neck — because nobody else saw the scene.”

    New York City’s chief med­ical exam­in­er at the time, Bar­bara Samp­son, side­stepped Roman and ruled the death a sui­cide a few days lat­er, after say­ing she reviewed addi­tion­al evi­dence. She did­n’t dis­close what that addi­tion­al evi­dence was, but CBS News report­ed that one ele­ment was Epstein’s pri­or sui­cide attempt. Roman did­n’t respond to Insid­er’s request for com­ment.

    Accord­ing to Baden, cer­tain fea­tures of Epstein’s dead body lined up more with homi­cide than sui­cide. His neck bones were frac­tured in three dif­fer­ent places in a way you’d expect from stran­gling, he said. The hem­or­rhages in his eyes, too, were more con­sis­tent with stran­gling than hang­ing, accord­ing to Baden. And the lig­a­ture marks on Epstein’s neck did­n’t look like they’d come from the bed­sheet found in his cell, Baden said.

    “The lig­a­tures on the ground do not match the mark on the neck,” Baden said. “A smooth sheet leaves a smooth mark on the neck. This one has a pat­tern. There’s a pat­tern on the skin.”
    ...

    So what’s the expla­na­tion for three years of offi­cial silence on this mat­ter? Well, accord­ing to for­mer DOJ Inspec­tor Gen­er­al Glenn Fine, there are four pos­si­ble expla­na­tions: 1. The inves­ti­ga­tion is still ongo­ing. 2. Oth­er relat­ed inves­ti­ga­tions are still ongo­ing. 3. The report is cur­rent being writ­ten, which implies it’s going to be released soon. Or, 4. The report has been writ­ten and it’s just await­ing feed­back from rel­e­vant par­ties before being released. Those were the four plau­si­ble expla­na­tions Fine arrived at. Now, options 3 and 4 aren’t real­ly expla­na­tions that explains the three year delay, which real­is­ti­cal­ly only leaves options 1 or 2. Either the inves­ti­ga­tion is ongo­ing or some oth­er relat­ed inves­ti­ga­tions are ongo­ing. At least those are the rea­son­able expla­na­tions for the three years of silence. There’s obvi­ous­ly much less rea­son­able and more scan­dalous expla­na­tions:

    ...
    Barr tasked the Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s inspec­tor gen­er­al, Michael Horowitz, and the FBI with inves­ti­gat­ing “the cir­cum­stances of Mr. Epstein’s death.”

    ...

    Horow­itz’s oth­er high-pro­file inves­ti­ga­tions con­clud­ed far more quick­ly. An inves­ti­ga­tion into the flow of US arms to Mex­i­can drug car­tels took a year. A 568-page report about how the Jus­tice Depart­ment dealt with Hillary Clin­ton’s email serv­er and a 478-page report about the “Cross­fire Hur­ri­cane” inves­ti­ga­tion into Trump’s links with Rus­sia were each released about a year and a half after they were ini­ti­at­ed.

    Glenn Fine, who served as the Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s inspec­tor gen­er­al between 2000 and 2011, told Insid­er the office is like­ly tak­ing extra­or­di­nary care to make sure it gets all the details right.

    “The OIG is prob­a­bly tak­ing the posi­tion: We want to make sure we get it right, and we want to make sure we are thor­ough and that the report is so con­vinc­ing that the peo­ple who think that Epstein was mur­dered will be per­suad­ed by all the evi­dence once it’s out there,” Fine said.

    There are four pos­si­ble rea­sons the report has­n’t yet been released, Fine said. The inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office could still be inves­ti­gat­ing; it’s hold­ing a report so as not to inter­fere with any pend­ing crim­i­nal cas­es; it’s writ­ing the report; or it’s wait­ing for feed­back from the Bureau of Pris­ons.

    A rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the Bureau of Pris­ons said it was coop­er­at­ing with the Jus­tice Depart­ment and referred Insid­er to the Office of Inspec­tor Gen­er­al for fur­ther ques­tions. A spokesper­son for the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office declined to com­ment on this sto­ry.

    ...

    Fine told Insid­er the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office may be tak­ing a long time because it’s being extra­or­di­nar­i­ly thor­ough.

    “I would think the OIG would be assess­ing the entire sit­u­a­tion,” Fine said. “Whether it was just a sui­cide and, if so, how did it hap­pen? I would expect there to be a full report on this, and maybe that’s why it’s tak­ing a long time.”
    ...

    Now, regard­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tions are the source of the delay, note that the only crim­i­nal cas­es pub­licly linked to this sui­cide were the two prison guards. And yet their charges were for­mal­ly dropped in Decem­ber of 2021. So it could­n’t be that case that was the basis for the hold up. Beyond that, it’s not like the DOJ has main­tained a cone of silence around this inves­ti­ga­tion. Then-Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bill Barr was pub­licly assert­ing this was a sui­cide with­in days of Epstein’s death:

    ...
    The only pub­lic crim­i­nal cas­es linked to the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s inves­ti­ga­tion were charges brought against Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, the two jail secu­ri­ty guards who were tasked with watch­ing Epstein and oth­er inmates housed near him. That case stemmed from inves­ti­ga­tions by the FBI and the US attor­ney’s office in the South­ern Dis­trict of New York, which is par­al­lel to but inde­pen­dent from the inspec­tor gen­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion, run out of Wash­ing­ton, DC.

    In a Novem­ber 2019 indict­ment, Man­hat­tan pros­e­cu­tors said Noel and Thomas skipped their required rounds the night of Epstein’s death but fal­si­fied records to hide that fact.

    Pros­e­cu­tors used court doc­u­ments in the case to give the pub­lic a glimpse of what they had dis­cov­ered. Video footage indi­cat­ed no one entered the area out­side Epstein’s cell­block between 7:49 p.m. on August 9, when he was escort­ed to his cell, until 6:33 a.m. on August 10, when Noel and Thomas were serv­ing break­fast and found him dead.

    “Epstein was alone in his cell and not respon­sive, with a noose around his neck,” the indict­ment said.

    Noel and Thomas entered deferred pros­e­cu­tion agree­ments in May 2021, agree­ing to be inter­viewed by the OIG’s inves­ti­ga­tors. They sat for those inter­views in June that year, accord­ing to a per­son famil­iar with the inves­ti­ga­tion who spoke to Insid­er on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty because they were not autho­rized to speak on the record.

    Pros­e­cu­tors for­mal­ly dropped the crim­i­nal charges against Noel and Thomas in Decem­ber 2021. Once that case was over, it looked like the path was clear for the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s office to release the report.

    But it’s been more than a year, and the report is still under wraps.

    ...

    Despite the Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s pol­i­cy of not com­ment­ing on ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tions, Barr has hap­pi­ly gabbed about how the MCC was to blame for Epstein’s death.

    Just two days after Epstein’s death, Barr sug­gest­ed in a speech to police-union mem­bers that the inves­ti­ga­tion would focus on “seri­ous irreg­u­lar­i­ties” at the jail.

    In an inter­view with the Asso­ci­at­ed Press in Novem­ber 2019, Barr said he con­clud­ed Epstein killed him­self and that “a per­fect storm of screwups” at the MCC allowed it to hap­pen. In his mem­oir, the for­mer attor­ney gen­er­al wrote that cor­rec­tion­al staff failed to do their job of check­ing on Epstein every 30 min­utes, and that he was not housed in the same cell as “a trust­ed inmate,” as he was sup­posed to be, as a result of “an unin­ten­tion­al over­sight.”
    ...

    And then we get to this very inter­est­ing set of details from Mark Epstein: not only was his broth­er report­ed­ly opti­mistic about get­ting the charges dis­missed, but the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Epstein was mur­dered by one of the oth­er 7–14 peo­ple that would have been in that cell block was sim­ply nev­er con­sid­ered by the inves­ti­ga­tors. Beyond that, we don’t even know if inmates were allowed to move freely between their cells. And yet it sounds like Epstein had already start­ed pay­ing inmates for ‘pro­tec­tion’. It’s like the inves­ti­ga­tion was rigged from the out­set to cov­er up the ludi­crous cir­cum­stances Epstein was left in:

    ...
    When Mark Epstein saw Barr dis­miss the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a mur­der based on his review of secu­ri­ty footage out­side Jef­frey Epstein’s cell tier, he was­n’t remote­ly sat­is­fied.

    “What I thought was, this is either a cov­er-up, or he’s the dumb­est fu ck on the plan­et,” Mark Epstein said.

    To Mark, Bar­r’s ver­sion of events sug­gests he came to the con­clu­sion that Jef­frey Epstein killed him­self and then back­filled evi­dence from there.

    Barr seemed to con­sid­er only the pos­si­bil­i­ty that a mur­der­er would have been some­one who snuck into the jail. Mark told Insid­er he was gob­s­macked that Barr did­n’t seem to con­sid­er the pos­si­bil­i­ty that some­one else in Jef­frey Epstein’s block of cells killed him.

    Since there were eight cells in the tier, there would have been between sev­en and 14 peo­ple oth­er than Epstein in the block, depend­ing on how many had cell­mates. The Jus­tice Depart­ment has not made the names of those incar­cer­at­ed peo­ple pub­lic.

    Mark Epstein told Insid­er that he spoke to his broth­er about once a month in the years before his death. The two caught up over the phone while Jef­frey Epstein was in Paris, the night before he flew to New Jer­sey and was arrest­ed after his pri­vate jet land­ed.

    Jef­frey Epstein had rea­sons to stay alive, Mark said. He did­n’t leave a sui­cide note — or at least none that has been report­ed — and report­ed­ly deposit­ed mon­ey into oth­er inmates’ com­mis­sary accounts in return for pro­tec­tion. Peo­ple who spoke with him in the weeks lead­ing up to his death believed he was opti­mistic about get­ting the charges dis­missed.

    After he was arrest­ed, in ear­ly August 2019, Epstein and attor­ney David Schoen had a five-hour meet­ing to dis­cuss crim­i­nal-defense strate­gies. Schoen told Insid­er that Epstein appeared opti­mistic that he’d be pro­tect­ed by the con­tro­ver­sial and unusu­al non-pros­e­cu­tion agree­ment he signed with Alexan­der Acos­ta, the US Attor­ney in Flori­da he cut a deal with in 2007. Bill Cos­by had his sex­u­al-assault con­vic­tion over­turned in 2021 for sim­i­lar rea­sons, Mark Epstein point­ed out. Epstein’s Flori­da agree­ment had been repeat­ed­ly upheld by fed­er­al courts.

    ...

    A good foren­sic pathol­o­gist, Baden said, would take into account every­thing about the cir­cum­stances of a sub­jec­t’s death. But the pub­lic is still miss­ing key details, such as whether inmates could move freely between their cells with­in the tier and how the cells were locked. Epstein’s body was also moved after he was found dead.

    Baden said he still wants to make a final deter­mi­na­tion about Epstein’s death.

    “As I sit here, I still don’t know what posi­tion he was found in,” Baden told Insid­er.
    ...

    Now, regard­ing the obvi­ous major ques­tion loom­ing over this whole case as to which pow­er­ful peo­ple may have had an incen­tive to ensure Epstein died soon­er rather than lat­er, also note this oth­er very inter­est­ing detail: numer­ous phone calls Epstein made while in cus­tody weren’t logged. Keep in mind that pris­on­er phone calls are rou­tine­ly mon­i­tored. Who was Epstein call­ing and what was the nature of these dis­cus­sion? We have no idea, but some­one pre­sum­ably knows those details. And they’re cov­er­ing it up:

    ...
    It remains unclear how much of the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s inves­ti­ga­tion has encom­passed fail­ures at the jail where Epstein was housed.

    After Noel and Thomas were charged with fal­si­fy­ing records, their lawyers argued they were scape­goats for the Bureau of Pris­ons as a whole, which left the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter chron­i­cal­ly under­staffed, forced employ­ees to work extra­or­di­nar­i­ly long hours, and allowed the facil­i­ty to dete­ri­o­rate. Only 18 employ­ees were guard­ing the MCC’s rough­ly 750 inmates the night Epstein died, records show.

    Records obtained by The New York Times demon­strate that jail staffers bun­gled rou­tine details. An intake form described Epstein as a Black male and indi­cat­ed he had no pri­or sex-offense con­vic­tions. Numer­ous phone calls he made while in cus­tody weren’t logged.

    Mar­tin Wein­berg, one of Epstein’s crim­i­nal defense attor­neys in his New York case, told Insid­er that he hopes the inspec­tor gen­er­al’s inves­ti­ga­tion will shed more light on the dire con­di­tions of the MCC.

    “His con­di­tions of con­fine­ment were medieval,” Wein­berg said.
    ...

    Final­ly, note this very inter­est­ing detail: when Mark Epstein want­ed to file a wrong­ful-death law­suit against the Bureau of Pris­ons, believ­ing it would be a “slam-dunk case” that might have gen­er­at­ed answers about his broth­er’s mys­te­ri­ous death, he was blocked by the execu­tors of Jef­frey Epstein’s estate. So the peo­ple put in charge of Epstein’s assets don’t want his death inves­ti­gat­ed:

    ...

    Mark Epstein want­ed to file a wrong­ful-death law­suit against the Bureau of Pris­ons but said he was blocked by the execu­tors of Jef­frey Epstein’s estate. He believes a law­suit would be a “slam-dunk case” that might have gen­er­at­ed answers.
    ...

    What’s under that rock? Again, we’ll pre­sum­ably nev­er know. That’s the nature of a coverup. We get to know there’s been a coverup, some tan­ta­liz­ing scan­dalous details, and that’s about it, at which point we’re just asked to for­get it all hap­pened. Which is where we are now it appears. Three years into the ‘for­get it all hap­pened’ final phase of the ‘inves­ti­ga­tion’.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | May 24, 2023, 5:05 pm
  28. Some­times it’s the cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence that just screams ‘coverup!’. Some­times it’s the phys­i­cal evi­dence. But as we’ve seen in the case of the alleged ‘sui­cide’ of Jef­frey Epstein inside a the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter (MCC) fed­er­al prison, these aren’t mutu­al­ly exclu­sive sce­nar­ios. Some­times it’s the cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence around the phys­i­cal evi­dence that’s been scream­ing ‘coverup’ for over three years now. In par­tic­u­lar, the remark­able cir­cum­stances around the bro­ken secu­ri­ty cam­era that cov­ered the cell Epstein died in. As we’ve seen, that cam­era just con­ve­nient­ly hap­pened to not be func­tion­ing for still unex­plained rea­sons on the night of Epstein’s sui­cide. We would have a very clear idea of what hap­pened had that cam­era been func­tion­ing. But, lo and behold, it was was­n’t. What a coin­ci­dence. All the oth­er cam­eras appear to have been work­ing, includ­ing the cam­eras that cov­ered who entered and exit Epstein’s cell block. Just not the cam­era that actu­al­ly cov­ered what hap­pened inside the cell block.

    And as we saw with the inter­view of Epstein’s broth­er, Mark, back in March, the pub­lic still has no idea as to whether or not the inmates in the Spe­cial Hous­ing Unit (SHU) where Epstein was locat­ed were free to move about. Mark Epstein went on to alleged that inves­ti­ga­tors have exclu­sive­ly con­sid­ered the pos­si­bil­i­ty of some­one enter­ing the cell block from the out­side to kill him but haven’t at all con­sid­ered the pos­si­bil­i­ty of some­one from inside the cell block car­ry­ing out the attack. It’s as pret­ty glar­ing inves­tiga­tive over­sight if true.

    So with the pos­si­bil­i­ty that a fel­low cell block inmate was allowed to kill Epstein with­out any cam­eras catch­ing them in the act, it’s worth not­ing anoth­er high­ly anom­alous detail the pub­lic learned about the mal­func­tion­ing cam­eras back in Jan of 2020: it turns out that same cam­era was mal­func­tion­ing dur­ing the July 23, 2019, ini­tial ‘sui­cide attempt’ by Epstein where he was found semi-con­scious in a fetal posi­tion on the floor of his cell. Spec­u­la­tion led to a pos­si­ble attack by his cell­mate, Nicholas Tartaglione. And yet, as we’ll see, Tartaglione’s defense team tried to get access to the secu­ri­ty cam­era footage and even request­ed on July 25, 2019, that the footage be pre­served. Despite that request for the preser­va­tion of the footage, we got a bizarre fias­co. First, on Decem­ber 19, 2019, US Attor­neys told the judge in the case inves­ti­gat­ing Tartaglione that the video footage did­n’t exist. Then, the next day, jail offi­cials report­ed they found the video, but it turned out to be a video from a dif­fer­ent wing of the prison. We then learn that the FBI deter­mined that “the request­ed video no longer exists on the back­up sys­tem and has not since at least August 2019 as a result of tech­ni­cal errors.” So there was indeed a back­up sys­tem. And that sys­tem did work for oth­er cam­eras. Just not that spe­cif­ic cam­era and the back­up sys­tem just hap­pened to be bro­ken “since at least August 2019” due to a still unex­plained “tech­ni­cal error”. This was the case despite Tartaglione’s lawyers request­ing preser­va­tion of the July 23 footage two days lat­er.

    That’s the absolute­ly damn­ing cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence sur­round­ing the phys­i­cal evi­dence in this inves­ti­ga­tion. Damn­ing cir­cum­stances that syn­er­gize nice­ly with Mark Epstein’s obser­va­tions that pros­e­cu­tors sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly ignored the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Epstein was killed by a fel­low inmate.

    Beyond that, as we’re going to see in a time­line of Epstein’s time at the jail pub­lished back in Feb­ru­ary based on the pub­licly released prison doc­u­ments, we can sort of infer an answer to the ques­tion of whether or not oth­er inmates in the cell block had the free­dom to inter­act with Epstein: when Epstein first arrived at the MCC and con­cerns over a pos­si­ble sui­cide risk were ele­vat­ed, he had spe­cial­ly assigned inmates where were tasked with report­ing on his vis­i­ble psy­cho­log­i­cal state. These inmates made these reports reg­u­lar­ly through­out the day.

    As we’re also going to see, an anony­mous source sug­gests that the July 23 ‘sui­cide attempt’ was actu­al­ly Epstein’s attempt to get moved to a new cell because he was scare of Tartaglione. And he did indeed end up get­ting moved to a new cell. The clos­est cell to the secu­ri­ty guard’s desk, just 15 feet away. So when we see in the time­line that the two secu­ri­ty guards on duty the night of Epstein’s death basi­cal­ly nev­er checked up on his sta­tus, it’s worth keep­ing in mind that they only had to walk about 15 feet to do so. But for what­ev­er rea­son, those check­ups did­n’t hap­pen. Ok, first, here’s a report from Jan 2020 describ­ing how the archive footage for the secu­ri­ty cam­era in the SHU just hap­pened to be lost start­ing in August 2019 for still-unex­plained “tech­ni­cal rea­sons”. That’s despite the fact that Tartaglione’s lawyers request the preser­va­tion of the archived footage on July 25, 2019, just two days after the ini­tial ‘sui­cide attempt’ and more than two weeks before Epstein’s even­tu­al death:

    Rockland/Westchester Jour­nal News

    Tartaglione pros­e­cu­tors: No jail video from Epstein’s first sui­cide attempt after all

    Jonathan Ban­dler
    Pub­lished 5:45 pm ET Jan 9, 2020 | Updat­ed 8:06 am ET Jan 10, 2020

    It turns out fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors were right the first time: There is no video from financier Jef­frey Epstein’s first attempt­ed sui­cide at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter in low­er Man­hat­tan weeks before he killed him­self.

    But why it was nev­er pre­served may be par­tic­u­lar­ly galling to the sex traf­fick­er’s cell­mate at the time, Nicholas Tartaglione, the ex-Bri­ar­cliff Manor cop fac­ing the death penal­ty in the slay­ing of four men in Orange Coun­ty in 2016.

    Tartaglione’s defense had request­ed the preser­va­tion of the video just two days after the July 23 attempt­ed sui­cide. They hoped to use it as poten­tial mit­i­ga­tion in the cap­i­tal phase of the tri­al if Tartaglione is con­vict­ed because they believe he did noth­ing wrong, and was even help­ful to author­i­ties that morn­ing.

    Jail offi­cials did pre­serve a video from the hours before and after Epstein was found on the floor of the cell, but that video was from a dif­fer­ent cell block than where Epstein and Tartaglione were in the Spe­cial Hous­ing Unit, pros­e­cu­tors wrote to the judge on Thurs­day.

    Tartaglione’s lead attor­ney, Bruce Bar­ket, said Thurs­day that he would ask U.S. Dis­trict Judge Ken­neth Karas to con­duct a hear­ing on the miss­ing video with tes­ti­mo­ny from prison offi­cials.
    ...

    Back and forth

    On Dec. 18, Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney Jason Swer­gold told Karas that he did not believe the video exist­ed. But the fol­low­ing day, he and fel­low pros­e­cu­tor Mau­rene Comey wrote to Karas to inform him that jail offi­cials had report­ed they had found the video.

    But when pros­e­cu­tors received the video and viewed it last week, they real­ized it was from the wrong area of the jail.

    Although there is a back­up sys­tem for video from the Spe­cial Hous­ing Unit, the FBI had deter­mined that “the request­ed video no longer exists on the back­up sys­tem and has not since at least August 2019 as a result of tech­ni­cal errors,” accord­ing to the pros­e­cu­tors’ let­ter.

    The miss­ing video is the lat­est mishap for a jail that has come under con­stant fire over its con­di­tions.

    It is also sure to fuel con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries that Epstein met with foul play despite the rul­ing by New York City’s chief med­ical exam­in­er that his Aug. 10 death was a sui­cide. He had been alone in his cell, even though he was sup­posed to have a cell­mate after return­ing from sui­cide watch ear­li­er that week. Two jail guards are fac­ing fed­er­al crim­i­nal charges, accused of fail­ing to make reg­u­lar checks of Epstein that morn­ing and then doc­tor­ing records to show they had.

    ———–

    “Tartaglione pros­e­cu­tors: No jail video from Epstein’s first sui­cide attempt after all” by Jonathan Ban­dler; Rockland/Westchester Jour­nal News; 01/09/2020

    “Although there is a back­up sys­tem for video from the Spe­cial Hous­ing Unit, the FBI had deter­mined that “the request­ed video no longer exists on the back­up sys­tem and has not since at least August 2019 as a result of tech­ni­cal errors,” accord­ing to the pros­e­cu­tors’ let­ter.”

    That’s right, a back­up sys­tem does indeed exist for the video cam­eras inside the SHU. But for rea­sons that have nev­er been explain, the sys­tem was­n’t back­ing up the cam­era out­side of Epstein’s cell “since at least August 2019 as a result of tech­ni­cal error”. That’s the extent of any sort of expla­na­tion we’ve ever received. And while that’s a frus­trat­ing­ly vague state­ment, not that it’s not describ­ing a back­up sys­tem that was down for ALL of the cam­eras. It’s just “the request­ed video” from a par­tic­u­lar cam­era out­side Epstein’s cell that we are told is unsal­vage­able.

    Also note that pecu­liar lan­guage here: we are we told the request video, which was record­ed on July 23, was no longer avail­able on the back­up sys­tem “since at least August 2019.” Which rais­es the obvi­ous ques­tion about the rest of videos cap­tured on that cam­era over the course of July 2019. Was ALL of the footage for that cam­era lost for the entire month? Or did it just sud­den­ly stop work­ing right around July 23? We have no idea. But inves­ti­ga­tors obvi­ous­ly know the answer.

    Worse, we also learned that at Tartaglione’s defense had request­ed the preser­va­tion of the video just two days after the July 23, 2019 attempt­ed sui­cide. So over two weeks before Epstein ‘com­mits sui­cide’, there’s a request by his cell­mate’s attor­ney to have footage from that cam­era same pre­served. Again, recall Mark Epstein’s recent rev­e­la­tion: inves­ti­ga­tors nev­er con­sid­ered the pos­si­bil­i­ty that some­one inside the cell block killed Epstein and yet there’s still nev­er been any pub­lic indi­ca­tion as to whether or not the inmates housed in the SHU were allowed to freely move about. Footage from that cam­era dur­ing the time Epstein was housed there would clear­ly help answer that ques­tion:

    ...
    Tartaglione’s defense had request­ed the preser­va­tion of the video just two days after the July 23 attempt­ed sui­cide. They hoped to use it as poten­tial mit­i­ga­tion in the cap­i­tal phase of the tri­al if Tartaglione is con­vict­ed because they believe he did noth­ing wrong, and was even help­ful to author­i­ties that morn­ing.

    ...

    Jail offi­cials did pre­serve a video from the hours before and after Epstein was found on the floor of the cell, but that video was from a dif­fer­ent cell block than where Epstein and Tartaglione were in the Spe­cial Hous­ing Unit, pros­e­cu­tors wrote to the judge on Thurs­day.

    ...

    On Dec. 18, Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney Jason Swer­gold told Karas that he did not believe the video exist­ed. But the fol­low­ing day, he and fel­low pros­e­cu­tor Mau­rene Comey wrote to Karas to inform him that jail offi­cials had report­ed they had found the video.

    But when pros­e­cu­tors received the video and viewed it last week, they real­ized it was from the wrong area of the jail.
    ...

    So giv­en the still-unre­solved mys­tery of what caused the loss of that July 23, 2019, video footage and why was­n’t the sys­tem repaired fol­low­ing the July 25, 2019, request by Tartaglione’s lawyers for a preser­va­tion of the video evi­dence, it’s worth tak­ing a clos­er look at the avail­able time­line of Epstein’s time in that prison. And that brings us to the fol­low­ing Dai­ly Mail piece lay­ing out the time­line from the released prison records. A time­line that does­n’t real­ly pro­vide any sub­stan­tial answers, but sure rais­es a lot of ques­tions:

    The Dai­ly Mail

    Was Jef­frey Epstein’s death real­ly sui­cide? As ques­tions are raised over ‘miss­ing CCTV’ and ‘unusu­al neck injuries’ and Ghis­laine Maxwell insists he was mur­dered, read our grip­ping account of pae­dophile financier’s final hours

    * The pae­dophile financier Jef­frey Epstein was found dead in his cell
    * Here are the final days and hours of Epstein’s life to find out what hap­pened

    By Emma Craigie For The Dai­ly Mail
    Pub­lished: 17:00 EDT, 17 Feb­ru­ary 2023 | Updat­ed: 17:14 EDT, 19 Feb­ru­ary 2023

    Ever since the pae­dophile financier Jef­frey Epstein was found dead in his cell in a New York prison on August 10, 2019, con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries have abound­ed.

    Offi­cial­ly, the 66-year-old tycoon com­mit­ted sui­cide. But, giv­en that he was fac­ing charges of traf­fick­ing under­age girls for sex, and the num­ber of high-pro­file and pow­er­ful peo­ple, from Prince Andrew to Bill Gates, he had asso­ci­at­ed with, con­spir­acists believe some would have pre­ferred him dead before he tes­ti­fied.

    Last month, his for­mer com­pan­ion and co-con­spir­a­tor Ghis­laine Maxwell made a frank inter­ven­tion from her prison cell.

    ‘I believe that he was mur­dered,’ she said in a TV inter­view. ‘I was shocked. Then I won­dered how it had hap­pened because . . . I was sure he was going to appeal.’

    Using writ­ten records that the Fed­er­al Bureau of Pris­ons has released, we recon­struct the final days and hours of Epstein’s life to find out what real­ly hap­pened on that fate­ful night in jail…

    Sat­ur­day, July 6, 2019, Past 4pm

    FBI agents are wait­ing on the Tar­mac as Epstein’s pri­vate jet lands at Teter­boro air­port, New Jer­sey. He has flown from Paris and has already con­fid­ed to his but­ler, Gabriel, that he is about to be arrest­ed.

    Epstein is tak­en to New York’s noto­ri­ous Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter (MCC), a grim 12-storey con­crete build­ing that is over­crowd­ed, under­staffed and infest­ed with cock­roach­es and rats.

    It’s a spec­tac­u­lar fall from grace for a man used to mix­ing with the rich and famous, count­ing the likes of Bill and Melin­da Gates, Prince Andrew and the for­mer Israeli prime min­is­ter Ehud Barak among his close asso­ciates.

    There were rumours that Epstein had con­sid­ered hid­ing in Israel, but is now hop­ing the Amer­i­can author­i­ties will offer him a plea deal, like the con­tro­ver­sial bar­gain he struck in 2006 after his arrest for sex­u­al­ly assault­ing a 14-year-old girl. (He plead­ed guilty to that charge and served only 13 months.)

    Odd­ly, the prison’s ‘intake screen­ing’ describes him as a black male with no pre­vi­ous sex­u­al con­vic­tions. This leads to Epstein being cat­e­gorised as low- risk, so he is held with the ‘gen­er­al inmate pop­u­la­tion’ in the area with the low­est lev­el of secu­ri­ty.

    His cell is an 8ft by 8ft room with no direct sun­light and bare white walls, toi­let and sink — a far cry from the lux­u­ri­ous homes he owns in New York and Palm Beach, Flori­da, or his pri­vate island in the Vir­gin Islands.

    Past 7pm

    An admin­is­tra­tor reports that Epstein seems ‘dis­traught, sad and a lit­tle con­fused’. She emails three offi­cials: ‘He seems dazed and with­drawn . . . Just to be on the safe side and pre­vent any sui­ci­dal thoughts, can some­one from Psy­chol­o­gy come and talk with him?’

    Sun­day, July 7, about 10am

    The head of the prison, Lamine N’Diaye, realis­es the ini­tial screen­ing error and trans­fers Epstein to the Spe­cial Hous­ing Unit (SHU) due to ‘con­cerns for his per­son­al safe­ty’ as a high-pro­file inmate. Epstein is put in a cell with one inmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, who is await­ing tri­al for four murders.SHU inmates have to wear orange jump­suits and are giv­en orange bed­ding. They are allowed three show­ers a week and are tak­en to the show­er block in hand­cuffs. Most spend 23 hours a day in their cell, but Epstein will find a way around this.

    Mon­day, July 8, 9.30am

    As is nor­mal pro­ce­dure, before the cell door is opened by staff, Epstein offers his hands through the food slot to be cuffed.

    He is tak­en for psy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tion. The exam­in­ing team fear he could be sui­ci­dal: he has a court hear­ing lat­er and is unlike­ly to be grant­ed bail. They don’t know how he will cope.

    Past 11am

    Epstein meets his legal team. He will pay them to vis­it all day, every week­day, dur­ing his stay in prison, enabling him to get out of his cell and out of his cuffs.

    Past 2pm

    Look­ing exhaust­ed, his grey hair a mess, Epstein arrives at court and holds his head high as he pleads not guilty to charges of sex traf­fick­ing con­spir­a­cy and sex traf­fick­ing. A jour­nal­ist says he main­tains ‘a sto­ic air’.

    Bail is denied.

    Past 7pm

    As A result of this set­back, Epstein is put under ‘psy­cho­log­i­cal obser­va­tion’. Spe­cial­ly appoint­ed inmates record his behav­iour every 15 min­utes.

    This is a less strin­gent reg­i­men than full ‘sui­cide watch’, which the prison psy­chol­o­gy team have decid­ed is unnec­es­sary.

    The inmates’ short, hand­writ­ten notes reveal Epstein’s unwill­ing­ness to let go of his life out­side prison: ‘Inmate Epstein is talk­ing about busi­ness and invest­ing’; ‘Inmate Epstein and I are talk­ing about the escort busi­ness’; ‘Inmate Epstein is talk­ing about celebs he knows.’

    Tues­day, July 9, 1.52am

    A Twit­ter user called ‘JJ Truth’ posts a pic­ture of Bill Clin­ton with a young girl called Rachel Chan­dler, alleged­ly tak­en on Epstein’s pri­vate plane.

    Thou­sands reply, call­ing for his famous friends — chief among them Clin­ton and Don­ald Trump — to be charged.

    Past 9am

    Epstein is assessed for poten­tial sui­cide risk. The psy­chol­o­gist doing the assess­ment finds him polite, coop­er­a­tive, humor­ous and ‘future-ori­en­tat­ed’.

    He seems to be in an ebul­lient mood — he calls him­self a banker with a ‘big busi­ness’ and declares that ‘being alive is fun’. He requests a phone call, a meet­ing with his lawyer, a show­er and to be able to brush his teeth.

    Wednes­day, July 10

    Epstein asks to be moved to a sin­gle cell. The request is denied.

    Thurs­day, July 11, Past 9am

    Epstein meets the psy­chol­o­gists again. This time he has a long list of com­plaints: he has slept bad­ly; it is cold in his cell; there isn’t enough water in the room where he meets his lawyers.

    Despite these frus­tra­tions, the psy­chol­o­gists report that Epstein is not in dis­tress. He is giv­en some cop­ing strate­gies and appears to be recep­tive. He assures them that he is def­i­nite­ly not sui­ci­dal and would nev­er be.

    Mon­day, July 15, 10am

    Anoth­er court appear­ance. Epstein’s lawyers make a fur­ther appli­ca­tion for bail. They argue for house arrest, at his expense, and offer a bond on his New York home, which is val­ued at $56 mil­lion.

    But Alex Ross­miller, the pros­e­cu­tor, has a dra­mat­ic announce­ment. That very morn­ing, inves­ti­ga­tors broke into a safe in Epstein’s New York prop­er­ty and found piles of cash, ‘many, many’ pho­tographs of young-look­ing girls, dozens of dia­monds and ‘a pass­port appear­ing to be issued from a for­eign coun­try with a pho­to of the defen­dant and a name on that pass­port that is not the defendant’s name’.

    Ross­miller insists that Epstein pos­es an escape risk.

    Epstein shows no emo­tion as two of his accusers give evi­dence.

    Court­ney Wild, 31, tells the court that when she was 14 years old, grow­ing up in pover­ty in Flori­da, a friend asked her if she’d like $200 to give an old man a mas­sage. She didn’t hes­i­tate. The mas­sage led to sex­u­al assault.

    Then Annie Farmer, 42, tells the court she was 16 when Epstein flew her to his New Mex­i­co ranch, where she met Ghis­laine Maxwell. The cou­ple show­ered her with gifts, but in this iso­lat­ed set­ting, sex­u­al assaults — by both — began. She had nowhere to run.

    Thurs­day, July 18, 9.30am

    Judge Richard M. Berman rejects Epstein’s bail appli­ca­tion, cit­ing the pow­er­ful tes­ti­monies of the women. He doesn’t believe Epstein’s ‘exces­sive attrac­tion to sex­u­al con­duct with or in the pres­ence of minor girls . . . is like­ly to be con­trol­lable’.

    Post 7pm

    Epstein returns to his cell. No one assess­es the psy­cho­log­i­cal impact of the bail rejec­tion. It’s a strange omis­sion. For the next four days, Epstein has min­i­mal atten­tion from offi­cials, so what hap­pens next appar­ent­ly takes every­one by sur­prise.

    Tues­day, July 23, 1.27am

    Prison offi­cers find Epstein semi-con­scious on his cell floor, in a foetal posi­tion with a strip of bed­sheet round his bruised neck. He is tak­en to the hos­pi­tal wing.

    Prison offi­cials open an inves­ti­ga­tion into whether this was a sui­cide attempt, a staged inci­dent or an assault. Rumours cir­cu­late on social media that Epstein has been attacked by his cell­mate, the mul­ti-mur­der sus­pect Nicholas Tartaglione.

    Tartaglione’s lawyers deny their client is involved and claim he tried to resus­ci­tate Epstein. They try to obtain video footage tak­en out­side his cell that day but the tape is lost, then appar­ent­ly found. It turns out to be from the wrong video cam­era.

    Offi­cials final­ly admit that the footage from out­side Epstein’s cell that night has been per­ma­nent­ly delet­ed and the mys­tery remains unsolved.

    An anony­mous source sug­gests to NBC news that Epstein staged the inci­dent in an attempt to be moved to anoth­er cell, as he was scared of Tartaglione.

    Wednes­day, July 24, Past 9.30am

    Despite his ordeal, Epstein appears chip­per. He is still deny­ing hav­ing sui­ci­dal thoughts.

    He tells the psy­chol­o­gy team that he has a ‘won­der­ful life . . . I have no inter­est in killing myself’. He calls him­self a ‘cow­ard’, insist­ing he doesn’t like pain: ‘I would not do that to myself.’ He reminds them that he is Jew­ish and sui­cide is against his reli­gion.

    Mon­day, July 29, every 15 min­utes

    Epstein has returned to ‘psy­cho­log­i­cal obser­va­tion’ by fel­low inmates. He seems low. A pris­on­er observ­ing him notes: ‘Inmate Epstein is sit­ting on the edge of the bed with his head in the palms of his hands.’

    Tues­day, July 30

    Epstein returns to SHU. He is put in the cell clos­est to the cor­rec­tion­al officer’s desk, with a new cell­mate, Efrain Reyes.

    The toi­let in the cell is leak­ing. Epstein sits with his hands over his ears. He can­not stand the sound of the run­ning water. He spec­u­lates to the psy­chol­o­gist that his sen­si­tiv­i­ty to noise could be a sign of undi­ag­nosed autism. He com­pares him­self to Dustin Hoffman’s char­ac­ter in the film Rain Man: a high­ly sen­si­tive, autis­tic savant.

    He phones his Belaru­sian girl­friend, Kary­na Shu­li­ak, 30. They have been togeth­er for ten years, ever since she moved to Amer­i­ca, and Epstein has paid for her to train to be a den­tist.

    She was report­ed­ly ‘mad­ly jeal­ous’ of him and known as ‘the inspec­tor’ for inves­ti­gat­ing every­one he had con­tact with. None of his high-pro­file friends vis­its him in prison.

    Ghis­laine Maxwell has gone into hid­ing. There are alleged sight­ings of her in Lon­don, the South of France and New Hamp­shire but none is con­firmed.

    Wednes­day, July 31, 11.30am

    Epstein returns to court for anoth­er hear­ing.

    This time he appears despon­dent but the prison psy­chol­o­gist is con­vinced that sui­cide watch is unnec­es­sary: ‘He stat­ed he lives for, and plans to fin­ish, this case and to go back to his nor­mal life.’

    Epstein com­plains that he is tired and sleep­ing bad­ly. His new cell­mate, Reyes, keeps him awake with his talk­ing.

    Thurs­day, August 8, 9am

    Epstein meets two of his lawyers, Gul­no­ra Tali and Mariel Colón Miró, to sign a new will.

    It puts assets of $577 mil­lion into a trust fund. His girl­friend Shu­li­ak is one of the main ben­e­fi­cia­ries. The trust struc­ture will make it more dif­fi­cult for alleged vic­tims to make suc­cess­ful claims against his estate.

    Fri­day, August 9, 8am

    Epstein’s cell­mate, Efrain Reyes, is released. Staff note that Epstein should expect a new cell­mate but no one is trans­ferred to share his cell.

    9am onwards

    Epstein spends the day with his lawyers. (One of his defence attor­neys, Reid Wein­garten, will lat­er ques­tion the sui­cide rul­ing, insist­ing that Epstein did not appear despon­dent, sui­ci­dal or in despair.)

    In a devel­op­ment of a civ­il case against Maxwell and Epstein brought by Vir­ginia Guiffre — who claims she was traf­ficked by the pair and forced to have sex with Prince Andrew at Maxwell’s house in Bel­gravia, Lon­don — a fed­er­al appeals court unseals 2,000 pages of con­fi­den­tial doc­u­ments. They include graph­ic tes­ti­mo­ny from vic­tims of both Maxwell and Epstein.

    Guiffre’s lawyers accuse Maxwell, who is still on the run, of ‘act­ing as a madam’ for Epstein, ‘recruit­ing, main­tain­ing, har­bour­ing and traf­fick­ing girls’.

    4pm

    Despite being just 15 ft from Epstein’s cell, Tova Noel, a 31-year-old female offi­cer, and ‘Offi­cer 1’ (whose name is redact­ed from the record) fail to check on Epstein as part of the 4pm ‘inmate count’, a phys­i­cal cell-by-cell check to con­firm that every pris­on­er is alive and account­ed for.

    Video evi­dence lat­er con­firms this. The pair false­ly sign a slip to say the check has been com­plet­ed. Noel will fal­si­fy 75 records dur­ing this 16-hour dou­ble shift.

    7.49pm

    Epstein returns from meet­ing his legal team and is escort­ed to his cell by Noel. He asks to call his moth­er. She died in 2004, and he real­ly phones Shu­li­ak.

    10pm

    Noel and ‘Offi­cer 2’ fal­si­fy the slip for the 10pm count as cells are locked for the night.

    10.30pm

    Video footage shows that Noel briefly walks to and away from the entrance door on the floor where Epstein’s cell is. The tycoon has just hours to live.

    Sat­ur­day, August 10, 12am

    Michael Thomas, a 41-year-old offi­cer, begins an eight-hour shift. Thomas and Noel fal­si­fy the slip for the mid­night count.

    3am

    Offi­cers Noel and Thomas fal­si­fy the slip for the 3am count.

    4am

    The overnight super­vi­sor vis­its Noel and Thomas in the SHU and chats with the offi­cers briefly.

    5am

    Noel and Thomas fal­si­fy the slip for the 5am pris­on­er count.

    The inmate in the cell next to Epstein’s will lat­er recount that he hears him tear­ing his sheets at some point dur­ing the night.

    5.30am

    Video footage shows that an offi­cer walks through the com­mon area of the SHU. They don’t enter the floor of Epstein’s cell; indeed, no one else enters SHU all night.

    Noel and Thomas have fal­si­fied entries for every one of the rounds they are meant to car­ry out every 30 min­utes. Instead, they have spent the night on their com­put­ers and sleep­ing. Noel browsed fur­ni­ture sales; Thomas looked at motor­bike sales and sports news.

    6.05am

    The break­fast carts arrive in the SHU. Noel and Thomas begin the round of pass­ing trays of milk and cere­al through the food hatch­es of the cells in the wing.

    6.30am

    Offi­cers Noel and Thomas enter Epstein’s floor.

    6.33am

    Noel and Thomas dis­cov­er Epstein unre­spon­sive on his cell floor. A noose made from his orange bed­sheet is tied around his neck. They sound the prison alarm.

    6.35am

    A super­vi­sor arrives at SHU. Noel tells them: ‘Epstein hung him­self.’ She imme­di­ate­ly admits that ‘we did not com­plete the 3am nor 5am rounds’. Thomas says: ‘We messed up,’ and then cor­rects him­self: ‘I messed up, she’s not to blame, we didn’t do any rounds.’

    6.39am

    Epstein is clear­ly dead but is rushed to New York Down­town Hos­pi­tal, the haste of which would lat­er be crit­i­cised, as it vio­lat­ed prison pro­to­col. The cell he was in should have been treat­ed as a crime scene and his body pho­tographed before removal.

    The med­ical exam­in­er at the hos­pi­tal pro­nounces Epstein’s death and rules that the cause is sui­cide by hang­ing lead­ing to a car­diac arrest. It is the first sui­cide at Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter for 14 years.

    8.16am

    News of Epstein’s death appears on 4chan, a noto­ri­ous social media site whose anony­mous users are known to post con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries.

    Just before 10am

    The U.S. Attor­ney Gen­er­al, William P. Barr, issues a state­ment offi­cial­ly announc­ing Epstein’s death ‘from an appar­ent sui­cide’.

    ...

    Mon­day, August 12

    The Attor­ney Gen­er­al refers to ‘seri­ous irreg­u­lar­i­ties’ at the MCC. He lat­er describes the events as ‘a per­fect storm of screw-ups’.

    Thurs­day, August 15, 4.06pm

    The New York Post pub­lish­es a pic­ture of Ghis­laine Maxwell sit­ting in a branch of In-N-Out Burg­er in Los Ange­les. She is alone with her dog, read­ing The Book Of Hon­or: The Secret Lives And Deaths Of CIA Oper­a­tives. She looks the pho­tog­ra­ph­er in the eye and sighs, ‘Well, I guess this is the last time I’ll be eat­ing here!’

    Fri­day, August 16

    Dr Bar­bara Samp­son, New York’s Chief Med­ical Offi­cer, rules that Epstein’s death was sui­cide. But if the author­i­ties hoped that would put an end to the rumours, spec­u­la­tion by a foren­sic pathol­o­gist, Dr Michael Baden, will pour fuel on the fire. He attend­ed the four-hour autop­sy on behalf of Epstein’s broth­er Mark.

    Baden will tell CBS News: ‘There were frac­tures of the left, the right thy­roid car­ti­lage and the left hyoid bone . . . I have nev­er seen three frac­tures like this in a sui­ci­dal hang­ing . . . Going over a thou­sand jail hang­ings, sui­cides in the New York City state pris­ons over the past 40–50 years, no one had three frac­tures.’

    He sug­gests the injuries are more com­mon­ly found in stran­gu­la­tion, although oth­er pathol­o­gists point out that these bone break­ages occur in the sui­cides of old­er men.

    After­math

    A fever of sus­pi­cion con­tin­ues to sur­round Epstein’s death, with some con­vinced that a murky cabal of the rich and pow­er­ful some­how pre­cip­i­tat­ed his hang­ing to pro­tect their rep­u­ta­tions.

    In Jan­u­ary 2020, a CBS doc­u­men­tary, 60 Min­utes, shows pho­tos of the tycoon’s body, his cell, the noose and lig­a­ture marks around his neck, which only fuels claims of a con­spir­a­cy.

    The New York Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter is heav­i­ly crit­i­cised for its involve­ment, and is closed down in Octo­ber 2021.

    The fol­low­ing Jan­u­ary, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas are let off charges of fal­is­fy­ing prison records by a Man­hat­tan judge as part of a plea deal after they admit­ted their guilt and com­plet­ed 100 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice.

    Still huge ques­tions remain: why did they fail to check up on Epstein dur­ing the night he died and why wasn’t he on sui­cide watch, despite one pre­vi­ous attempt to take his life, for which the video evi­dence has dis­ap­peared?

    ...

    ———–

    “Was Jef­frey Epstein’s death real­ly sui­cide? As ques­tions are raised over ‘miss­ing CCTV’ and ‘unusu­al neck injuries’ and Ghis­laine Maxwell insists he was mur­dered, read our grip­ping account of pae­dophile financier’s final hours” By Emma Craigie; The Dai­ly Mail; 02/17/2023

    “Using writ­ten records that the Fed­er­al Bureau of Pris­ons has released, we recon­struct the final days and hours of Epstein’s life to find out what real­ly hap­pened on that fate­ful night in jail…”

    This appears to the most com­plete time­line of Epstein’s time on the MCC that we have, com­piled from release prison records. And right out of the gate, we find this pret­ty amaz­ing anom­aly: when Epstein was first admit­ted into the prison, the forms described him as a black male with no pre­vi­ous sex­u­al con­vic­tions. As a result, he was ini­tial­ly held with the ‘gen­er­al inmate pop­u­la­tion’ in the area with the low­est secu­ri­ty. That over­sight appears to have been cleared the next day when the head of the prison, Lamine N’Di­aye, appar­ent­ly noticed the error and had Epstein trans­ferred to the Spe­cial Hous­ing Unit (SHU). How did such a gross over­sight hap­pen in the first place for such a high pro­file pris­on­er? And why was it the head of the prison who ulti­mate­ly caught it? It’s just a bizarre start to the time­line:

    ...
    Sat­ur­day, July 6, 2019, Past 4pm

    FBI agents are wait­ing on the Tar­mac as Epstein’s pri­vate jet lands at Teter­boro air­port, New Jer­sey. He has flown from Paris and has already con­fid­ed to his but­ler, Gabriel, that he is about to be arrest­ed.

    Epstein is tak­en to New York’s noto­ri­ous Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter (MCC), a grim 12-storey con­crete build­ing that is over­crowd­ed, under­staffed and infest­ed with cock­roach­es and rats.

    It’s a spec­tac­u­lar fall from grace for a man used to mix­ing with the rich and famous, count­ing the likes of Bill and Melin­da Gates, Prince Andrew and the for­mer Israeli prime min­is­ter Ehud Barak among his close asso­ciates.

    There were rumours that Epstein had con­sid­ered hid­ing in Israel, but is now hop­ing the Amer­i­can author­i­ties will offer him a plea deal, like the con­tro­ver­sial bar­gain he struck in 2006 after his arrest for sex­u­al­ly assault­ing a 14-year-old girl. (He plead­ed guilty to that charge and served only 13 months.)

    Odd­ly, the prison’s ‘intake screen­ing’ describes him as a black male with no pre­vi­ous sex­u­al con­vic­tions. This leads to Epstein being cat­e­gorised as low- risk, so he is held with the ‘gen­er­al inmate pop­u­la­tion’ in the area with the low­est lev­el of secu­ri­ty.

    His cell is an 8ft by 8ft room with no direct sun­light and bare white walls, toi­let and sink — a far cry from the lux­u­ri­ous homes he owns in New York and Palm Beach, Flori­da, or his pri­vate island in the Vir­gin Islands.

    Past 7pm

    An admin­is­tra­tor reports that Epstein seems ‘dis­traught, sad and a lit­tle con­fused’. She emails three offi­cials: ‘He seems dazed and with­drawn . . . Just to be on the safe side and pre­vent any sui­ci­dal thoughts, can some­one from Psy­chol­o­gy come and talk with him?’

    Sun­day, July 7, about 10am

    The head of the prison, Lamine N’Diaye, realis­es the ini­tial screen­ing error and trans­fers Epstein to the Spe­cial Hous­ing Unit (SHU) due to ‘con­cerns for his per­son­al safe­ty’ as a high-pro­file inmate. Epstein is put in a cell with one inmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, who is await­ing tri­al for four murders.SHU inmates have to wear orange jump­suits and are giv­en orange bed­ding. They are allowed three show­ers a week and are tak­en to the show­er block in hand­cuffs. Most spend 23 hours a day in their cell, but Epstein will find a way around this.
    ...

    Now, in terms of Epstein’s ini­tial psy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tions, it sounds like there were ini­tial fears he might be sui­ci­dal, and he’s put under ‘psy­cho­log­i­cal obser­va­tion’ with spe­cial­ly appoint­ed inmates record­ing his behav­ior every five min­utes. Recall what Mark Epstein not­ed back in March: there’s nev­er been a pub­lic expla­na­tion as to whether or not the oth­er inmates in the SHU had free move­ment with­in the unit. And here we see that spe­cial­ly appoint­ed inmates were record­ing Epstein’s behav­ior every 5 min­utes. That sure sounds like a sit­u­a­tion where the inmates have the abil­i­ty to inter­min­gle unless those spe­cial­ly appoint­ed inmates were cell mates:

    ...
    Mon­day, July 8, 9.30am

    As is nor­mal pro­ce­dure, before the cell door is opened by staff, Epstein offers his hands through the food slot to be cuffed.

    He is tak­en for psy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tion. The exam­in­ing team fear he could be sui­ci­dal: he has a court hear­ing lat­er and is unlike­ly to be grant­ed bail. They don’t know how he will cope.

    Past 11am

    Epstein meets his legal team. He will pay them to vis­it all day, every week­day, dur­ing his stay in prison, enabling him to get out of his cell and out of his cuffs.

    Past 2pm

    Look­ing exhaust­ed, his grey hair a mess, Epstein arrives at court and holds his head high as he pleads not guilty to charges of sex traf­fick­ing con­spir­a­cy and sex traf­fick­ing. A jour­nal­ist says he main­tains ‘a sto­ic air’.

    Bail is denied.

    Past 7pm

    As A result of this set­back, Epstein is put under ‘psy­cho­log­i­cal obser­va­tion’. Spe­cial­ly appoint­ed inmates record his behav­iour every 15 min­utes.

    This is a less strin­gent reg­i­men than full ‘sui­cide watch’, which the prison psy­chol­o­gy team have decid­ed is unnec­es­sary.

    The inmates’ short, hand­writ­ten notes reveal Epstein’s unwill­ing­ness to let go of his life out­side prison: ‘Inmate Epstein is talk­ing about busi­ness and invest­ing’; ‘Inmate Epstein and I are talk­ing about the escort busi­ness’; ‘Inmate Epstein is talk­ing about celebs he knows.’
    ...

    So did Epstein seem sui­ci­dal dur­ing this peri­od? Not accord­ing to the psy­chol­o­gist who assessed him and described Epstein as being in an ebul­lient mood at one point:

    ...
    Tues­day, July 9, 1.52am

    ...

    Past 9am

    Epstein is assessed for poten­tial sui­cide risk. The psy­chol­o­gist doing the assess­ment finds him polite, coop­er­a­tive, humor­ous and ‘future-ori­en­tat­ed’.

    He seems to be in an ebul­lient mood — he calls him­self a banker with a ‘big busi­ness’ and declares that ‘being alive is fun’. He requests a phone call, a meet­ing with his lawyer, a show­er and to be able to brush his teeth.

    Wednes­day, July 10

    Epstein asks to be moved to a sin­gle cell. The request is denied.

    Thurs­day, July 11, Past 9am

    Epstein meets the psy­chol­o­gists again. This time he has a long list of com­plaints: he has slept bad­ly; it is cold in his cell; there isn’t enough water in the room where he meets his lawyers.

    Despite these frus­tra­tions, the psy­chol­o­gists report that Epstein is not in dis­tress. He is giv­en some cop­ing strate­gies and appears to be recep­tive. He assures them that he is def­i­nite­ly not sui­ci­dal and would nev­er be.
    ...

    Then we get to this strange peri­od lead­ing up to the July 23, 2019, appar­ent ‘sui­cide attempt’: First, there’s a lack of ongo­ing con­cerns about Epstein’s psy­cho­log­i­cal state despite the July 18 rejec­tion of his bail appli­ca­tion, with no assess­ments of the psy­cho­log­i­cal impacts of that rejec­tion. Then, on July 23, Epstein is found semi-con­scious on his cell floor. Sus­pi­cions range from a mur­der attempt by his cell­mate Nicholas Tarta­gione, a sui­cide attempt by Epstein, or, as one anony­mous source sug­gests, a staged inci­dent by Epstein in an attempt to be moved to anoth­er cell. To this day we still don’t know what hap­pened thanks to the mys­te­ri­ous­ly delet­ed secu­ri­ty cam­era back­up sys­tem caused by a still unex­plained rea­son:

    ...
    Thurs­day, July 18, 9.30am

    Judge Richard M. Berman rejects Epstein’s bail appli­ca­tion, cit­ing the pow­er­ful tes­ti­monies of the women. He doesn’t believe Epstein’s ‘exces­sive attrac­tion to sex­u­al con­duct with or in the pres­ence of minor girls . . . is like­ly to be con­trol­lable’.

    Post 7pm

    Epstein returns to his cell. No one assess­es the psy­cho­log­i­cal impact of the bail rejec­tion. It’s a strange omis­sion. For the next four days, Epstein has min­i­mal atten­tion from offi­cials, so what hap­pens next appar­ent­ly takes every­one by sur­prise.

    Tues­day, July 23, 1.27am

    Prison offi­cers find Epstein semi-con­scious on his cell floor, in a foetal posi­tion with a strip of bed­sheet round his bruised neck. He is tak­en to the hos­pi­tal wing.

    Prison offi­cials open an inves­ti­ga­tion into whether this was a sui­cide attempt, a staged inci­dent or an assault. Rumours cir­cu­late on social media that Epstein has been attacked by his cell­mate, the mul­ti-mur­der sus­pect Nicholas Tartaglione.

    Tartaglione’s lawyers deny their client is involved and claim he tried to resus­ci­tate Epstein. They try to obtain video footage tak­en out­side his cell that day but the tape is lost, then appar­ent­ly found. It turns out to be from the wrong video cam­era.

    Offi­cials final­ly admit that the footage from out­side Epstein’s cell that night has been per­ma­nent­ly delet­ed and the mys­tery remains unsolved.

    An anony­mous source sug­gests to NBC news that Epstein staged the inci­dent in an attempt to be moved to anoth­er cell, as he was scared of Tartaglione.
    ...

    Keep in mind anoth­er time­line detail from this peri­od that we saw in the above arti­cle: it was on July 25, 2019, when Tartaglione’s lawyers request­ed that sur­veil­lance video of the cam­era clos­est to the cell be pre­served.

    Fol­low­ing that ‘sui­cide attempt’ inci­dent, Epstein appears to main­tain that he’s not sui­ci­dal and does indeed gets trans­ferred to the cell clos­est to the cor­rec­tion offi­cer’s desk, with a new cell­mate Effrain Reyes. So the cell Epstein dies in is the clos­est to the cor­rec­tion offi­cer’s desk. As we’re going to see below, it’s just 15 feet away from the desk:

    ...
    Wednes­day, July 24, Past 9.30am

    Despite his ordeal, Epstein appears chip­per. He is still deny­ing hav­ing sui­ci­dal thoughts.

    He tells the psy­chol­o­gy team that he has a ‘won­der­ful life . . . I have no inter­est in killing myself’. He calls him­self a ‘cow­ard’, insist­ing he doesn’t like pain: ‘I would not do that to myself.’ He reminds them that he is Jew­ish and sui­cide is against his reli­gion.

    Mon­day, July 29, every 15 min­utes

    Epstein has returned to ‘psy­cho­log­i­cal obser­va­tion’ by fel­low inmates. He seems low. A pris­on­er observ­ing him notes: ‘Inmate Epstein is sit­ting on the edge of the bed with his head in the palms of his hands.’

    Tues­day, July 30

    Epstein returns to SHU. He is put in the cell clos­est to the cor­rec­tion­al officer’s desk, with a new cell­mate, Efrain Reyes.

    The toi­let in the cell is leak­ing. Epstein sits with his hands over his ears. He can­not stand the sound of the run­ning water. He spec­u­lates to the psy­chol­o­gist that his sen­si­tiv­i­ty to noise could be a sign of undi­ag­nosed autism. He com­pares him­self to Dustin Hoffman’s char­ac­ter in the film Rain Man: a high­ly sen­si­tive, autis­tic savant.

    He phones his Belaru­sian girl­friend, Kary­na Shu­li­ak, 30. They have been togeth­er for ten years, ever since she moved to Amer­i­ca, and Epstein has paid for her to train to be a den­tist.

    She was report­ed­ly ‘mad­ly jeal­ous’ of him and known as ‘the inspec­tor’ for inves­ti­gat­ing every­one he had con­tact with. None of his high-pro­file friends vis­its him in prison.
    ...

    A week and a half lat­er, on August 9, Effrain Reyes is released, leav­ing Epstein alone in the cell. Epstein ends up spend­ing the day with his lawyers, who describe him as not seem­ing sui­ci­dal. And as we can see, the amount of effort required for the secu­ri­ty guards to check in on Epstein’s cell is a walk of 15 feet. That’s how far his cell was from their desk. So if some­one from inside the cell block did enter Epstein’s cell, it’s hard to imag­ine the guards would­n’t have seen it unless they just hap­pened to not be at that desk:

    ...
    Fri­day, August 9, 8am

    Epstein’s cell­mate, Efrain Reyes, is released. Staff note that Epstein should expect a new cell­mate but no one is trans­ferred to share his cell.

    9am onwards

    Epstein spends the day with his lawyers. (One of his defence attor­neys, Reid Wein­garten, will lat­er ques­tion the sui­cide rul­ing, insist­ing that Epstein did not appear despon­dent, sui­ci­dal or in despair.)

    ...

    4pm

    Despite being just 15 ft from Epstein’s cell, Tova Noel, a 31-year-old female offi­cer, and ‘Offi­cer 1’ (whose name is redact­ed from the record) fail to check on Epstein as part of the 4pm ‘inmate count’, a phys­i­cal cell-by-cell check to con­firm that every pris­on­er is alive and account­ed for.

    Video evi­dence lat­er con­firms this. The pair false­ly sign a slip to say the check has been com­plet­ed. Noel will fal­si­fy 75 records dur­ing this 16-hour dou­ble shift.
    ...

    And then we get the time­line for that evening, with the last appar­ent check on Epstein’s cell tak­ing place at 10:30 pm when Tova Noel briefly walks to and away from the entrance door on the floor where Epstein’s cell is, which gives us a sense of what angles are avail­able in the still-pre­served secu­ri­ty footage: We can see who entered or exit­ed that cell block, but not what hap­pened inside it. Which, again, rais­es the ques­tion Mark Epstein raised of why the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Epstein was mur­dered by a fel­low inmate was not even con­sid­ered by inves­ti­ga­tors:

    ...
    7.49pm

    Epstein returns from meet­ing his legal team and is escort­ed to his cell by Noel. He asks to call his moth­er. She died in 2004, and he real­ly phones Shu­li­ak.

    10pm

    Noel and ‘Offi­cer 2’ fal­si­fy the slip for the 10pm count as cells are locked for the night.

    10.30pm

    Video footage shows that Noel briefly walks to and away from the entrance door on the floor where Epstein’s cell is. The tycoon has just hours to live.

    Sat­ur­day, August 10, 12am

    Michael Thomas, a 41-year-old offi­cer, begins an eight-hour shift. Thomas and Noel fal­si­fy the slip for the mid­night count.

    3am

    Offi­cers Noel and Thomas fal­si­fy the slip for the 3am count.

    4am

    The overnight super­vi­sor vis­its Noel and Thomas in the SHU and chats with the offi­cers briefly.

    5am

    Noel and Thomas fal­si­fy the slip for the 5am pris­on­er count.

    The inmate in the cell next to Epstein’s will lat­er recount that he hears him tear­ing his sheets at some point dur­ing the night.

    5.30am

    Video footage shows that an offi­cer walks through the com­mon area of the SHU. They don’t enter the floor of Epstein’s cell; indeed, no one else enters SHU all night.

    Noel and Thomas have fal­si­fied entries for every one of the rounds they are meant to car­ry out every 30 min­utes. Instead, they have spent the night on their com­put­ers and sleep­ing. Noel browsed fur­ni­ture sales; Thomas looked at motor­bike sales and sports news.

    6.05am

    The break­fast carts arrive in the SHU. Noel and Thomas begin the round of pass­ing trays of milk and cere­al through the food hatch­es of the cells in the wing.

    6.30am

    Offi­cers Noel and Thomas enter Epstein’s floor.

    6.33am

    Noel and Thomas dis­cov­er Epstein unre­spon­sive on his cell floor. A noose made from his orange bed­sheet is tied around his neck. They sound the prison alarm.
    ...

    Final­ly, there’s the com­plete destruc­tion of the crime scene that hap­pened after Epstein’s now-dead body is raced to the hos­pi­tal in vio­la­tion of prison pro­to­col:

    ...
    6.35am

    A super­vi­sor arrives at SHU. Noel tells them: ‘Epstein hung him­self.’ She imme­di­ate­ly admits that ‘we did not com­plete the 3am nor 5am rounds’. Thomas says: ‘We messed up,’ and then cor­rects him­self: ‘I messed up, she’s not to blame, we didn’t do any rounds.’

    6.39am

    Epstein is clear­ly dead but is rushed to New York Down­town Hos­pi­tal, the haste of which would lat­er be crit­i­cised, as it vio­lat­ed prison pro­to­col. The cell he was in should have been treat­ed as a crime scene and his body pho­tographed before removal.

    The med­ical exam­in­er at the hos­pi­tal pro­nounces Epstein’s death and rules that the cause is sui­cide by hang­ing lead­ing to a car­diac arrest. It is the first sui­cide at Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter for 14 years.
    ...

    And, of course, as we’ve seen, the evi­den­tiary fol­lies just con­tin­ued from there, with Michael Baden — hired on behalf of Mark Epstein — attend­ing the autop­sy and alleg­ing that it showed signs con­sis­tent with stran­gu­la­tion. Beyond that, Baden claims that the foren­sic pathol­o­gist who car­ried out the autop­sy, Kristin Roman, per­son­al­ly told him that she couldn’t come to a con­clu­sion and list­ed the cause of death as “pend­ing fur­ther study”. A few days lat­er, New York City’s chief med­ical exam­in­er at the time, Bar­bara Samp­son, ruled the death a sui­cide after say­ing she reviewed addi­tion­al evi­dence. That addi­tion­al evi­dence has nev­er been released. More cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence around the phys­i­cal evi­dence that was scream­ing ‘coverup!’ at the time and con­tin­ues to scream ‘coverup!’ to this.

    It’s one of the tru­ly depress­ing aspects of cas­es like there where an array of cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence is scream­ing ‘coverup!’ of a sto­ry that is so awful it sim­ply can­not ever be allowed to see the light of day. Jux­ta­posed with the endur­ing silence of an inves­ti­ga­tion that has gone as far as it’s allowed to go. It’s an espe­cial­ly deaf­en­ing silence giv­en the scream­ing cir­cum­stances.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | May 25, 2023, 5:32 pm
  29. It’s the kind of taint that does­n’t wash off. Your best shot is cov­er­ing it up. It’s a les­son we keep learn­ing about the taint of an asso­ci­a­tion with Jef­frey Epstein. A les­son that at popped up again thanks to the recent demands by the Sen­ate Finance Com­mit­tee for details explain­ing a most curi­ous Epstein-tie: Leon Black­’s $158 mil­lion in pay­ments to Epstein for ‘tax and estate plan­ning’ ser­vices. As we’re going to see, the for­mer pri­vate equi­ty titan claims he was sim­ply pay­ing Epstein for his estate plan­ning advice in rela­tion to the trans­fer of rough­ly $2 bil­lion in wealth to his chil­dren. And while Epstein’s whole per­sona was pred­i­cat­ed on the notion that he was some kind of finan­cial whiz, it’s clear that Epstein was paid far more for his ser­vices than Black was pay­ing any­one else. Hence all the ques­tions about what exact­ly was Epstein get­ting paid for?

    And as with so much else about Epstein, this sto­ry points towards some­thing far worse than just ques­tion­able pay­ments for estate plan­ning. First, it turns out that Black was allowed to qui­et­ly reach a $62.5 mil­lion set­tle­ment with the Vir­gin Islands back in Jan­u­ary of this year. Which is some very inter­est­ing tim­ing. Recall how law­suits were filed by Epstein vic­tims against both Deutsche Bank and JP Mor­gan back in Novem­ber of 2022, alleg­ing that Epstein hadn’t act­ed alone in his sex traf­fick­ing but had help from the banks. The suit alleged that the banks know­ing­ly facil­i­tat­ed the large sex-traf­fick­ing-relat­ed cash flows. Then, a lit­tle over a month after that law­suit was filed, the attor­ney gen­er­al of the Vir­gin Islands, Denise George, also filed a law­suit against JP Mor­gan on charges that the bank turned a blind eye towards Epstein’s use of the bank to facil­i­tate his sex-traf­fick­ing. Then, days after George filed the suit, the gov­er­nor of the Vir­gin Islands, Albert Bryan, fired George for appar­ent­ly unre­lat­ed rea­sons. As we also saw, both Bryan and for­mer-gov­ern­ment John deJongh Jr. have per­son­al ties to the spe­cial treat­ment Epstein received from the Vir­gin Islands gov­ern­ment over the years he was based there, includ­ing spe­cial tax treat­ment. So the for­mer Vir­gin Islands attor­ney gen­er­al files a num­ber of law­suits or inves­ti­ga­tions in rela­tions to Epstein, gets fired for mys­te­ri­ous rea­sons, and then weeks lat­er Black is allowed to qui­et­ly reach this set­tle­ment. Keep in mind that the $158 mil­lion Black paid to Epstein for tax and estate plan­ning ser­vices was paid to Epstein’s Vir­gin Islands-based South­ern Trust.

    And then we get to this very inter­est­ing detail that relates the Epstein’s ties to Black to the inves­ti­ga­tion into Epstein’s ties to JP Mor­gan: it turns out that Epstein’s role as a finan­cial plan­ner for Black end­ed up keep Epstein in con­tact with JP Mor­gan’s offi­cers even after the bank sev­ered its ties to Epstein in 2013. In oth­er words, Epstein’s role as Black­’s finan­cial advi­sors appar­ent­ly served as a kind of backchan­nel between Epstein and JP Mor­gan. So Black was wild­ly over­pay­ing for ser­vices and, as a result, JP Mor­gan offi­cers had an excuse to main­tain con­tact with Epstein. What are we look­ing at here?

    Ok, first, here’s a look at the Sen­ate Finance Com­mit­tee’s demands for infor­ma­tion about the kinds of ser­vices Epstein was pro­vid­ing for Black. Ser­vices that appar­ent­ly includ­ed exten­sive use of the now-close 1031 “like-kind” loop­hole for dodg­ing cap­i­tal gains on high-end art pieces:

    Art­Net

    The Sen­ate Finance Com­mit­tee Demands Answers From Leon Black About Jef­frey Epstein’s Role Advis­ing on His $1 Bil­lion Art Col­lec­tion

    The com­mit­tee wants details on a $158 mil­lion pay­ment to Epstein and an “art part­ner­ship” he cre­at­ed for Black.

    Eileen Kin­sel­la, August 24, 2023

    Art­work and a pur­port­ed $1 bil­lion pri­vate art col­lec­tion are a major focus of the 16-page let­ter that U.S. Sen­a­tor Ron Wyden, chair­man of the Sen­ate Finance Com­mit­tee, sent to embat­tled investor and col­lec­tor Leon Black late last month.

    The com­mit­tee is inves­ti­gat­ing Black’s finan­cial deal­ings with Jef­frey Epstein, the con­vict­ed sex traf­fick­er who died by sui­cide in a down­town Man­hat­tan jail in 2019. The let­ter, which is dat­ed July 24, requests high­ly detailed infor­ma­tion on trans­ac­tions between Epstein and Black, the for­mer Muse­um of Mod­ern Art chair­man.

    “As you are aware, the Com­mit­tee is inves­ti­gat­ing the $158 mil­lion in pay­ments you made to Epstein for ser­vices relat­ed to a vari­ety of tax and estate plan­ning mat­ters. In par­tic­u­lar, the Com­mit­tee seeks infor­ma­tion on Epstein’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in struc­tur­ing trusts and oth­er com­plex trans­ac­tions designed to avoid fed­er­al gift and estate tax­es on as much as $2 bil­lion in wealth trans­ferred to your chil­dren,” the let­ter reads. The Com­mit­tee is also ask­ing for infor­ma­tion regard­ing Epstein’s “extra­or­di­nary com­pen­sa­tion scheme, which involved amounts that far exceed­ed those paid to oth­er pro­fes­sion­al advi­sors” involved in Black’s tax and estate plan­ning.

    ...

    A rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Black told Art­net News via email: “Mr. Black has coop­er­at­ed exten­sive­ly with the Com­mit­tee, pro­vid­ing detailed infor­ma­tion about the mat­ters under review. The trans­ac­tions ref­er­enced in the Committee’s let­ter were law­ful in all respects, were con­ceived of, vet­ted and imple­ment­ed by rep­utable law firms and tax and oth­er advi­sors, and Mr. Black has ful­ly paid all tax­es owed to the gov­ern­ment.”

    The most point­ed atten­tion on art and relat­ed trans­ac­tions comes at the close of the let­ter, where Wyden notes that, on August 1, 2022, Black’s out­side coun­sel “indi­cat­ed that Epstein pro­vid­ed sub­stan­tial advice relat­ed to your pri­vate art col­lec­tion, which is worth over $1 bil­lion,” in a brief­ing with the com­mit­tee. “This advice report­ed­ly includ­ed help­ing you form a new art part­ner­ship as well as assis­tance in con­nec­tion with the sale of cer­tain pieces of art­work.”

    Sen­a­tor Wyden went on to ask what the pur­pose of the art part­ner­ship formed with Epstein’s assis­tance was, as well as the specifics of his assis­tance. He asked for details regard­ing any art loans that involved Epstein as well as the specifics of Epstein’s role.

    He also asked for a list of “like-kind” exchanges involv­ing art pieces val­ued at over $1 mil­lion. So-called 1031 exchanges were for­mer­ly avail­able to art collectors—and heav­i­ly favored by art flip­pers—that allowed them to avoid pay­ing cap­i­tal gains tax­es on prof­its from the sale of art by rolling the pro­ceeds into anoth­er invest­ment of the same type or “like-kind.” Con­gress killed the pro­vi­sion as it applied to real prop­er­ty, includ­ing art, in ear­ly 2018.

    For the 1031 exchanges, Wyden asked for a detailed descrip­tion of the tax ben­e­fits obtained through the exe­cu­tion of such trans­ac­tions. Last­ly, he asked for a list of art sales val­ued at over $1 mil­lion that Epstein assist­ed Black with.

    An ear­li­er sub­poe­na from the U.S. Vir­gin Islands issued in its Epstein inves­ti­ga­tion in late 2020, referred to a legal deci­sion regard­ing an enti­ty called CDECRE ARTWORK EAT LLC that was deliv­ered in New York State’s Divi­sion of Tax Appeals in March of 2020. The eight-page rul­ing describes trans­ac­tions regard­ing two works by Paul Cézanne and one by Pablo Picas­so, as well as an uniden­ti­fied “peti­tion­er” for the LLC (pre­sum­ably Epstein), who report­ed a total val­ue of $139 mil­lion for the three works.

    Denise N. George was the attor­ney gen­er­al in the U.S. Vir­gin Islands when that and oth­er sub­poe­nas regard­ing art were issued in the Epstein inves­ti­ga­tion. How­ev­er, accord­ing to the Times, George was fired by the gov­er­nor of the U.S. territory—Albert Bryan Jr.—on New Year’s Eve last year, just days after her office sued JPMor­gan Chase in con­nec­tion with its financ­ing and bank­ing activ­i­ties with Epstein.

    Wyden’s let­ter to Black came just days after it looked like Black had cleared a major legal headache off his plate when the New York Times report­ed that he had agreed to pay $62.5 mil­lion to the U.S. Vir­gin Islands in Jan­u­ary of this year in order set­tle any claims stem­ming from the territory’s three-year inves­ti­ga­tion into Epstein. The Times report­ed that the pre­vi­ous­ly undis­closed agree­ment, which it obtained a copy of via a pub­lic records request, came after the Vir­gin Islands reached a $105 mil­lion set­tle­ment deal in Novem­ber 2022 with Epstein’s estate.

    A recent inves­ti­ga­tion by Air Mail looked at all the rea­sons why the finance com­mit­tee might be look­ing so close­ly at Black, the for­mer chair­man of pri­vate-equi­ty behe­moth Apol­lo Glob­al Man­age­ment. A for­mer pros­e­cu­tor who was not iden­ti­fied by name told Air Mail: “It’s ball­sy of Black to refuse the Sen­ate,” adding that if he refus­es to com­ply, the Sen­ate could pos­si­bly com­pel him to com­ply via sub­poe­na.

    ...

    ————

    “The Sen­ate Finance Com­mit­tee Demands Answers From Leon Black About Jef­frey Epstein’s Role Advis­ing on His $1 Bil­lion Art Col­lec­tion” by Eileen Kin­sel­la; Art­Net; 08/24/2023

    “The most point­ed atten­tion on art and relat­ed trans­ac­tions comes at the close of the let­ter, where Wyden notes that, on August 1, 2022, Black’s out­side coun­sel “indi­cat­ed that Epstein pro­vid­ed sub­stan­tial advice relat­ed to your pri­vate art col­lec­tion, which is worth over $1 bil­lion,” in a brief­ing with the com­mit­tee. “This advice report­ed­ly includ­ed help­ing you form a new art part­ner­ship as well as assis­tance in con­nec­tion with the sale of cer­tain pieces of art­work.”

    Jef­frey Epstein sure had a lot of lucra­tive skills, it would seem. Includ­ing skills in high-end art-relat­ed tax and estate plan­ning appar­ent­ly, in par­tic­u­lar the $2 bil­lion in wealth trans­ferred from Leon Black to his chil­dren. Epstein was help­ing Black save so much mon­ey in tax­es that he was paid $158 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion. It was, as con­gress put it, an “extra­or­di­nary com­pen­sa­tion scheme, which involved amounts that far exceed­ed those paid to oth­er pro­fes­sion­al advi­sors.” And it was ‘like-kind’ exchanges of high end art pieces that Epstein report­ed­ly advised Black rely on to see those tax sav­ings. So giv­en that Epstein was paid vast sums of mon­ey to basi­cal­ly give what amounts to rather stan­dard tax advice, we have to ask what was it that was so spe­cial about this art-relat­ed advice? Was Black engaged in some sort of art-relat­ed tax fraud or mon­ey laun­der­ing? What’s the expla­na­tion?

    ...
    The com­mit­tee is inves­ti­gat­ing Black’s finan­cial deal­ings with Jef­frey Epstein, the con­vict­ed sex traf­fick­er who died by sui­cide in a down­town Man­hat­tan jail in 2019. The let­ter, which is dat­ed July 24, requests high­ly detailed infor­ma­tion on trans­ac­tions between Epstein and Black, the for­mer Muse­um of Mod­ern Art chair­man.

    “As you are aware, the Com­mit­tee is inves­ti­gat­ing the $158 mil­lion in pay­ments you made to Epstein for ser­vices relat­ed to a vari­ety of tax and estate plan­ning mat­ters. In par­tic­u­lar, the Com­mit­tee seeks infor­ma­tion on Epstein’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in struc­tur­ing trusts and oth­er com­plex trans­ac­tions designed to avoid fed­er­al gift and estate tax­es on as much as $2 bil­lion in wealth trans­ferred to your chil­dren,” the let­ter reads. The Com­mit­tee is also ask­ing for infor­ma­tion regard­ing Epstein’s “extra­or­di­nary com­pen­sa­tion scheme, which involved amounts that far exceed­ed those paid to oth­er pro­fes­sion­al advi­sors” involved in Black’s tax and estate plan­ning.

    ...

    He also asked for a list of “like-kind” exchanges involv­ing art pieces val­ued at over $1 mil­lion. So-called 1031 exchanges were for­mer­ly avail­able to art collectors—and heav­i­ly favored by art flip­pers—that allowed them to avoid pay­ing cap­i­tal gains tax­es on prof­its from the sale of art by rolling the pro­ceeds into anoth­er invest­ment of the same type or “like-kind.” Con­gress killed the pro­vi­sion as it applied to real prop­er­ty, includ­ing art, in ear­ly 2018.

    For the 1031 exchanges, Wyden asked for a detailed descrip­tion of the tax ben­e­fits obtained through the exe­cu­tion of such trans­ac­tions. Last­ly, he asked for a list of art sales val­ued at over $1 mil­lion that Epstein assist­ed Black with.
    ...

    It’s also rather notable that the Vir­gin Island’s inves­ti­ga­tion into these deal­ings was opened by for­mer attor­ney gen­er­al Denise George, who was fired just days after her office sued JP Mor­gan over its facil­i­ta­tion of Epstein’s sex traf­fick­ing activ­i­ties:

    ...
    An ear­li­er sub­poe­na from the U.S. Vir­gin Islands issued in its Epstein inves­ti­ga­tion in late 2020, referred to a legal deci­sion regard­ing an enti­ty called CDECRE ARTWORK EAT LLC that was deliv­ered in New York State’s Divi­sion of Tax Appeals in March of 2020. The eight-page rul­ing describes trans­ac­tions regard­ing two works by Paul Cézanne and one by Pablo Picas­so, as well as an uniden­ti­fied “peti­tion­er” for the LLC (pre­sum­ably Epstein), who report­ed a total val­ue of $139 mil­lion for the three works.

    Denise N. George was the attor­ney gen­er­al in the U.S. Vir­gin Islands when that and oth­er sub­poe­nas regard­ing art were issued in the Epstein inves­ti­ga­tion. How­ev­er, accord­ing to the Times, George was fired by the gov­er­nor of the U.S. territory—Albert Bryan Jr.—on New Year’s Eve last year, just days after her office sued JPMor­gan Chase in con­nec­tion with its financ­ing and bank­ing activ­i­ties with Epstein.
    ...

    As we also saw, law­suits were filed by Epstein vic­tims against both Deutsche Bank and JP Mor­gan back in Novem­ber of 2022, alleg­ing that Epstein hadn’t act­ed alone in his sex traf­fick­ing but had help from the banks. The suit alleged that the banks know­ing­ly facil­i­tat­ed the large sex-traf­fick­ing-relat­ed cash flows. Then, a lit­tle over a month after that law­suit was filed, Denise George also filed a law­suit against JP Mor­gan on charges that the bank turned a blind eye towards Epstein’s use of the bank to facil­i­tate his sex-traf­fick­ing. Then, days after George filed the suit, the gov­er­nor of the Vir­gin Islands, Albert Bryan, fired George for appar­ent­ly unre­lat­ed rea­sons. As we also saw, both Bryan and for­mer-gov­ern­ment John deJongh Jr. have per­son­al ties to the spe­cial treat­ment Epstein received from the Vir­gin Islands gov­ern­ment over the years he was based there, includ­ing spe­cial tax treat­ment.

    So the inves­ti­ga­tion into Epstein is appar­ent­ly ongo­ing, but under a new attor­ney gen­er­al. And that brings us the fol­low­ing NY Times piece from back in July about the Vir­gin Island­s’s inves­ti­ga­tion into Leon Black­’s ties to Epstein. It turns the inves­ti­ga­tion was qui­et­ly set­tled back in Jan­u­ary, with Black pay­ing $62.5 mil­lion while admit­ting no guilt:

    The New York Times

    Leon Black Agreed to Pay $62.5 Mil­lion to Set­tle Epstein-Relat­ed Claims

    The pri­vate equi­ty mogul struck a deal with the U.S. Vir­gin Islands to avoid a poten­tial law­suit over his ties to Jef­frey Epstein.

    By Matthew Gold­stein
    July 21, 2023

    The bil­lion­aire investor Leon Black agreed to pay $62.5 mil­lion to the U.S. Vir­gin Islands in Jan­u­ary to be released from any poten­tial claims aris­ing out of the territory’s three-year inves­ti­ga­tion into the sex traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion of the dis­graced financier Jef­frey Epstein, accord­ing to a copy of the set­tle­ment agree­ment.

    The pre­vi­ous­ly undis­closed set­tle­ment came after the Vir­gin Islands reached a $105 mil­lion deal in Novem­ber with Mr. Epstein’s estate. The next month, the ter­ri­to­ry sued JPMor­gan Chase in fed­er­al court over the bank’s 15-year rela­tion­ship with Mr. Epstein, a reg­is­tered sex offend­er who killed him­self in a Man­hat­tan jail cell in 2019.

    The Vir­gin Islands gov­ern­ment pro­duced its set­tle­ment agree­ment with Mr. Black in response to a pub­lic records request by The New York Times. In Jan­u­ary, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the two par­ties held a pri­vate medi­a­tion ses­sion to set­tle claims, accord­ing to anoth­er doc­u­ment reviewed by The Times. The $62.5 mil­lion set­tle­ment fol­lowed that ses­sion. Mr. Black agreed to pay in cash, accord­ing the set­tle­ment doc­u­ment.

    The set­tle­ment shows the extent to which Mr. Black, once a titan of the pri­vate equi­ty indus­try, has gone to lim­it scruti­ny of his decades-long social and busi­ness ties to Mr. Epstein. Those deal­ings, includ­ing the rev­e­la­tion that he paid $158 mil­lion to Mr. Epstein for tax and estate plan­ning ser­vices, had become a source of embar­rass­ment for Mr. Black in the years after Mr. Epstein’s death.

    Mr. Black, 71, was forced to step down in ear­ly 2021 as chair­man and chief exec­u­tive of Apol­lo Glob­al Man­age­ment, the giant pri­vate equi­ty firm he co-found­ed in 1990. A major art col­lec­tor who made news for his $120 mil­lion pur­chase of a ver­sion of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” Mr. Black also stepped down as chair­man of the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art in New York.

    The four-page set­tle­ment said noth­ing in it should be con­strued as an “admis­sion of lia­bil­i­ty” by Mr. Black.

    ...

    The set­tle­ment occurred after a sched­uled two-day medi­a­tion attend­ed by lawyers for Mr. Black and the Vir­gin Islands, as well as a plain­tiffs’ lawyer who had rep­re­sent­ed many of Mr. Epstein’s vic­tims, accord­ing to the doc­u­ment reviewed by The Times.

    ...

    Some vic­tims of Mr. Epstein who had received set­tle­ments direct­ly from his estate were grant­ed per­mis­sion by the estate’s execu­tors to pur­sue claims against a hand­ful of men who had social­ized with Mr. Epstein, accord­ing to a per­son with knowl­edge of the mat­ter. Mr. Black was one of those men, the per­son said.

    The set­tle­ment with the Vir­gin Islands did not cov­er claims any­one else might have against Mr. Black. But the set­tle­ment itself could not be used as “evi­dence of wrong­do­ing by Black,” the doc­u­ment said.

    The Vir­gin Islands’ inves­ti­ga­tion of Mr. Black arose from an inquiry that led to the $105 mil­lion set­tle­ment with Mr. Epstein’s estate and the territory’s pend­ing law­suit against JPMor­gan Chase. The ter­ri­to­ry had been weigh­ing a suit that would have accused Mr. Black of facil­i­tat­ing Mr. Epstein’s sex traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion by pay­ing large sums of mon­ey to South­ern Trust, which was one of Mr. Epstein’s main com­pa­nies in the Vir­gin Islands, said two peo­ple briefed on the mat­ter.

    Mr. Black’s deci­sion to step down at Apol­lo fol­lowed an arti­cle in The Times that report­ed his ties to Mr. Epstein were more exten­sive than pre­vi­ous­ly known. Apol­lo sub­se­quent­ly hired the law firm Dechert to inves­ti­gate Mr. Black’s rela­tion­ship with Mr. Epstein. Dechert cleared Mr. Black of any wrong­do­ing. But the law firm found Mr. Black had paid $158 mil­lion to South­ern Trust and also pro­vid­ed the busi­ness with a $30 mil­lion loan.

    In its report, Dechert not­ed that the com­pen­sa­tion paid by Mr. Black to Mr. Epstein, a col­lege dropout, “far exceed­ed any amounts” paid to his oth­er pro­fes­sion­al advis­ers.

    Plan­ning for the medi­a­tion ses­sion with Mr. Black began in Decem­ber while Denise N. George was still attor­ney gen­er­al of the Vir­gin Islands. But she was fired on New Year’s Eve by the gov­er­nor of the U.S. ter­ri­to­ry — Albert Bryan Jr. — just days after her office sued JPMor­gan.

    In its law­suit against JPMor­gan, the Vir­gin Islands claims that the nation’s largest bank turned a blind eye to Mr. Epstein’s traf­fick­ing of teenage girls and young women for sex. It is seek­ing $190 mil­lion in penal­ties.

    JPMor­gan, which recent­ly reached a $290 mil­lion set­tle­ment with Mr. Epstein’s vic­tims on sim­i­lar grounds, is oppos­ing the law­suit filed by the Vir­gin Islands. The bank claims the ter­ri­to­ry should not be enti­tled to any mon­ey from it because gov­ern­ment offi­cials did lit­tle to deter Mr. Epstein’s activ­i­ties.

    In 2013, JPMor­gan dropped Mr. Epstein as a cus­tomer, after years of red flags raised by bank com­pli­ance employ­ees about it doing busi­ness with a reg­is­tered sex offend­er, accord­ing to court fil­ings in the law­suit.

    But oth­er doc­u­ments reviewed by The Times show that sev­er­al bank employ­ees con­tin­ued to talk to Mr. Epstein after 2013 because of his role as a tax advis­er to Mr. Black, who had also been a cus­tomer of JPMorgan’s pri­vate bank. These doc­u­ments also show that the deci­sion to con­tin­ue to work with Mr. Epstein because he was Mr. Black’s advis­er was approved by top exec­u­tives at the bank.

    Ms. Velazquez said in her state­ment, “Unlike any sin­gle indi­vid­ual, JPMor­gan had detailed and com­pre­hen­sive finan­cial data on Epstein’s activ­i­ties and a legal oblig­a­tion to share that infor­ma­tion with law enforce­ment.”

    A JPMor­gan spokes­woman said any meet­ing that bank employ­ees had with Mr. Epstein after 2013 would have been in ser­vice of his clients.

    Some of the set­tle­ment mon­ey will go toward men­tal health pro­grams and to com­bat sex traf­fick­ing on the Vir­gin Islands, the territory’s attor­ney general’s office said.

    ———–

    “Leon Black Agreed to Pay $62.5 Mil­lion to Set­tle Epstein-Relat­ed Claims” By Matthew Gold­stein; The New York Times; 07/21/2023

    The set­tle­ment shows the extent to which Mr. Black, once a titan of the pri­vate equi­ty indus­try, has gone to lim­it scruti­ny of his decades-long social and busi­ness ties to Mr. Epstein. Those deal­ings, includ­ing the rev­e­la­tion that he paid $158 mil­lion to Mr. Epstein for tax and estate plan­ning ser­vices, had become a source of embar­rass­ment for Mr. Black in the years after Mr. Epstein’s death.”

    $62.5 mil­lion to end the inves­ti­gat­ing. Not a bad deal if you have a lot to hide. How much does Leon Black have to hide? We’ll pre­sum­ably nev­er real­ly know thanks to this set­tle­ment. But note how the Vir­gin Islands report­ed­ly had been weigh­ing a suit that would have accused Black of facil­i­tat­ing Epstein’s sex traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion via these very large pay­ments for Epstein’s ‘ser­vices’. So was Black­’s out­sized pay­ments to Epstein made in rela­tion to Epstein’s sex traf­fick­ing? That would appear to be what for­mer Attor­ney Gen­er­al Denise George sus­pect­ed. And then she was fired:

    ...
    The Vir­gin Islands gov­ern­ment pro­duced its set­tle­ment agree­ment with Mr. Black in response to a pub­lic records request by The New York Times. In Jan­u­ary, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the two par­ties held a pri­vate medi­a­tion ses­sion to set­tle claims, accord­ing to anoth­er doc­u­ment reviewed by The Times. The $62.5 mil­lion set­tle­ment fol­lowed that ses­sion. Mr. Black agreed to pay in cash, accord­ing the set­tle­ment doc­u­ment.

    ...

    The set­tle­ment occurred after a sched­uled two-day medi­a­tion attend­ed by lawyers for Mr. Black and the Vir­gin Islands, as well as a plain­tiffs’ lawyer who had rep­re­sent­ed many of Mr. Epstein’s vic­tims, accord­ing to the doc­u­ment reviewed by The Times.

    ...

    The Vir­gin Islands’ inves­ti­ga­tion of Mr. Black arose from an inquiry that led to the $105 mil­lion set­tle­ment with Mr. Epstein’s estate and the territory’s pend­ing law­suit against JPMor­gan Chase. The ter­ri­to­ry had been weigh­ing a suit that would have accused Mr. Black of facil­i­tat­ing Mr. Epstein’s sex traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion by pay­ing large sums of mon­ey to South­ern Trust, which was one of Mr. Epstein’s main com­pa­nies in the Vir­gin Islands, said two peo­ple briefed on the mat­ter.

    Mr. Black’s deci­sion to step down at Apol­lo fol­lowed an arti­cle in The Times that report­ed his ties to Mr. Epstein were more exten­sive than pre­vi­ous­ly known. Apol­lo sub­se­quent­ly hired the law firm Dechert to inves­ti­gate Mr. Black’s rela­tion­ship with Mr. Epstein. Dechert cleared Mr. Black of any wrong­do­ing. But the law firm found Mr. Black had paid $158 mil­lion to South­ern Trust and also pro­vid­ed the busi­ness with a $30 mil­lion loan.

    In its report, Dechert not­ed that the com­pen­sa­tion paid by Mr. Black to Mr. Epstein, a col­lege dropout, “far exceed­ed any amounts” paid to his oth­er pro­fes­sion­al advis­ers.
    ...

    Also note that that, while plan­ning for a medi­a­tion ses­sions with Black began in Decem­ber while George was still attor­ney gen­er­al, it did­n’t actu­al­ly hap­pen until after she was fired. It rais­es the ques­tion as to what kind of deal we could have expect­ed Black to get had George still been in office. In oth­er words, just how much of a bar­gain was that $62.5 mil­lion set­tle­ment? Again, we’ll prob­a­bly nev­er know:

    ...
    Plan­ning for the medi­a­tion ses­sion with Mr. Black began in Decem­ber while Denise N. George was still attor­ney gen­er­al of the Vir­gin Islands. But she was fired on New Year’s Eve by the gov­er­nor of the U.S. ter­ri­to­ry — Albert Bryan Jr. — just days after her office sued JPMor­gan.

    In its law­suit against JPMor­gan, the Vir­gin Islands claims that the nation’s largest bank turned a blind eye to Mr. Epstein’s traf­fick­ing of teenage girls and young women for sex. It is seek­ing $190 mil­lion in penal­ties.

    JPMor­gan, which recent­ly reached a $290 mil­lion set­tle­ment with Mr. Epstein’s vic­tims on sim­i­lar grounds, is oppos­ing the law­suit filed by the Vir­gin Islands. The bank claims the ter­ri­to­ry should not be enti­tled to any mon­ey from it because gov­ern­ment offi­cials did lit­tle to deter Mr. Epstein’s activ­i­ties.
    ...

    Final­ly, in rela­tion to the law­suits against JP Mor­gan, note this very intrigu­ing detail: Black­’s ongo­ing ties to Epstein were used as an excuse to keep Epstein in con­tact with JP Mor­gan even after the bank sev­ered its ties to Epstein in 2013. It’s a fur­ther indi­ca­tion that we can’t real­ly sep­a­rate inves­ti­ga­tions into JP Mor­gan’s rela­tion­ship with Epstein and Black­’s rela­tion­ship to Epstein. There’s some sort of join scan­dal here:

    ...
    In 2013, JPMor­gan dropped Mr. Epstein as a cus­tomer, after years of red flags raised by bank com­pli­ance employ­ees about it doing busi­ness with a reg­is­tered sex offend­er, accord­ing to court fil­ings in the law­suit.

    But oth­er doc­u­ments reviewed by The Times show that sev­er­al bank employ­ees con­tin­ued to talk to Mr. Epstein after 2013 because of his role as a tax advis­er to Mr. Black, who had also been a cus­tomer of JPMorgan’s pri­vate bank. These doc­u­ments also show that the deci­sion to con­tin­ue to work with Mr. Epstein because he was Mr. Black’s advis­er was approved by top exec­u­tives at the bank.
    ...

    It’s like Black was pay­ing a pre­mi­um to keep Epstein in con­tact with JP Mor­gan. Who was doing who the favor here? It’s a puz­zling set of rela­tion­ships. All the more puz­zling thanks to the Vir­gin Island­s’s deci­sion to qui­et­ly set­tle for $62.5 mil­lion with no admis­sion of guilt, weeks after the mys­te­ri­ous fir­ing of Denise George. Again, what are we look­ing at here? Because it sure looks a lot like an ongo­ing coverup in plain sight.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | August 25, 2023, 5:18 pm

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