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---
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category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
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tags:
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- Person
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- JeffreyEpstein
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- NonProsecutionAgreement
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- Prosecutor
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- DepartmentOfJustice
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- PublicIntegritySection
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- RevolvingDoor
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alias:
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- Andrew Lourie
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- Andrew C. Lourie
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- Andy Lourie
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summary: "Federal prosecutor who managed the West Palm Beach office during the Epstein investigation, twice acted as chief of the Public Integrity Section, and left for Criminal Division leadership while the non-prosecution agreement was negotiated."
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location: "West Palm Beach, Florida"
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relations:
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey]]"
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role: "Assistant U.S. Attorney"
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start: 1991
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end: 1994
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fn: 1
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida]]"
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role: "Assistant U.S. Attorney; Deputy Chief, Criminal Division; Managing AUSA, West Palm Beach"
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start: 1994
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end: 2007-09
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fn: 1
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- type: head_of
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with: "[[Public Integrity Section]]"
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role: "Acting Chief, on detail"
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start: 2001-09
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end: 2002-09
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fn: 1
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- type: head_of
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with: "[[Public Integrity Section]]"
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role: "Acting Chief, on detail"
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start: 2006-02
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end: 2006-07
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fn: 1
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- type: reported_to
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with: "[[Alice Fisher]]"
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role: "Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Chief of Staff, Criminal Division"
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start: 2007-09
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end: 2008-02
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fn: 1
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[Kobre & Kim]]"
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role: "partner"
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fn: 12
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[Tein Malone]]"
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role: "of counsel"
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fn: 4
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- type: investigated
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with: "[[Office of Professional Responsibility]]"
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reverse: true
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start: 2019-02-06
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end: 2020-11
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fn: 2
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created: 2026-09-25
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updated: 2026-09-25
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---
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Andrew C. Lourie is an American lawyer and former federal prosecutor who, as a deputy chief of the Criminal Division of the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida]] and managing attorney of its [[West Palm Beach, Florida|West Palm Beach]] branch, supervised the 2006 to 2007 investigation of [[Jeffrey Epstein]] and took part in negotiating the [[Epstein non-prosecution agreement]]. Twice detailed to Washington as acting chief of the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s [[Public Integrity Section]], he left the Miami office in September 2007, while the agreement was being negotiated, to become Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and chief of staff to [[Alice Fisher]], head of the department's Criminal Division, and left the department in February 2008. He later practiced government enforcement defense at [[Kobre & Kim]] and [[Tein Malone]] in [[Miami]]. The [[Office of Professional Responsibility]] named him one of five subjects of its Epstein investigation and found no professional misconduct.[^1][^2]
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### Career
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According to his current firm biography, Lourie practiced at [[Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher]] in New York and then served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in [[New Jersey]], focusing on public corruption. He joined the Southern District of Florida office in 1994 after three years in New Jersey, and during a thirteen-year tenure there headed the Major Crimes unit and the West Palm Beach office. He served two details as acting chief of the Public Integrity Section, from September 2001 to September 2002 and from February to July 2006. Kobre & Kim's biography of him states that as chief of the section he supervised public corruption prosecutions including investigations of bribery in [[United States Congress|Congress]] and the executive branch arising from the prosecution of the lobbyist [[Jack Abramoff]], and that as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General he ran the day-to-day operations of the 438-lawyer Criminal Division.[^1][^3][^4]
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### Supervising the Epstein Case
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Lourie returned to West Palm Beach in July 2006 as the managing attorney over the line prosecutor [[Ann Marie Villafana|A. Marie Villafaña]], who had briefed [[Alexander Acosta]] and [[Jeffrey Sloman]] on the new case that month without first telling him. On July 24, 2006 Sloman emailed Lourie that Operation Leap Year was "a highly sensitive case involving some [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]] rich guy." When Villafaña kept sending updates directly to Miami, Lourie asked Sloman in August, "Do you and Alex [Acosta] want her updating you on the case?" Sloman answered, "At this point, I don't really care." The Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section chief, [[Drew Oosterbaan|Andrew Oosterbaan]], reviewed her prosecution memorandum favorably, but Lourie told OPR the case was "a bit of uncharted territory." After explaining to the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] squad supervisor on May 9, 2007 that charges would not be quickly approved, he reported to [[Matthew Menchel]] that the FBI was "not happy," adding: "I did not even tell them I think we should bring [Epstein] in, once we decide to charge him, and offer a pre-indictment deal, figuring a judge might never agree to such a deal post indictment. That would have sent them thru the roof."[^5][^6]
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On May 10, 2007 he wrote to Villafaña: "I believe that Epstein's att[orneys] are scared of the victims they don't know. Epstein has no doubt told them that there were many. Thus I believe the f[ir]st indictment should contain only the victims they have nothing on at all. We can add in the other ones that have myspace [sic] pages and prior testimony in a [superseding indictment]. I think for the first strike we should make all their nightmare[]s come true." The next day he recommended to Acosta and Menchel: "My current thoughts are that we should charge him," proposing to "start with a complaint, arrest him, detain him . . . and then try to see if he wants a pre-indictment resolution." He told OPR that he "was not in favor of walking away, which is what the defense wanted," but "didn't think the odds were nearly as good as you want in a criminal case."[^6]
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### The September 2007 Negotiations
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Lourie was on the federal side of the September 13, 2007 joint meeting with [[Rolando Garcia]] and Villafaña, facing Epstein's lawyers [[Jay Lefkowitz]], [[Gerald Lefcourt]] and [[Jack Goldberger]], with State Attorney [[Barry Krischer]] and [[Lanna Belohlavek]] for the state. When Villafaña proposed that Epstein plead to a federal assault charge, Lourie told her it "sounds like a stretch and factually [is] sort of silly," and told Sloman and Acosta that he did not "like the assault charge" because it would not "go smooth with every judge"; Acosta answered, "If we need[,] let's find a different charge." Villafaña then relayed his advice to Lefkowitz: "Andy recommended that some of the timing issues be addressed only in the state agreement, so that it isn't obvious to the judge that we are trying to create federal jurisdiction for prison purposes." On September 23, the day before the agreement was signed, Acosta told Lefkowitz to deal directly with Lourie and Villafaña.[^7][^8][^9]
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That month Lourie moved to Washington as Fisher's chief of staff. OPR found that the three supervisors under Acosta "left the USAO, were transitioning to other jobs, or were absent at critical junctures." From Washington, on November 29, 2007, he was party to an exchange that Sloman forwarded, recording that the defense "originally agreed to plead to the state felony that they thought was unregisterable (but did not tell us knowing we thought it was), but then discovered they were wrong and tried to get out of it."[^1][^2][^9]
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### Ties to the Defense
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One of Epstein's Miami lawyers, identified in OPR's report by the first name Guy, was a former career Assistant U.S. Attorney who had been U.S. Attorney for the district from 2000 to 2002 and then for two years Director of the [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]]; he telephoned Villafaña with an overture on Epstein's behalf in early November 2006, a call Sloman joined. OPR found that "Villafaña and Lourie had worked for [him] and Lourie was close friends with one of [his] law partners," also a former Assistant U.S. Attorney representing Epstein. A December 2018 account of Epstein's early defense team listed "former U.S. Attorney [[Guy Lewis]]" among its members.[^10][^11]
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Early in the investigation Lourie voluntarily asked the office's Professional Responsibility Officer whether the two friendships created "either a conflict of interest or an appearance of impropriety mandating recusal." The officer answered that they were not "covered" relationships under the conflict guidelines and deferred to Sloman or Menchel "to make the call," and Sloman authorized Lourie to continue supervising the case. OPR treated the inquiry as "an indication that he was alert to his ethical responsibilities." Lourie told OPR that his "preexisting associations with Epstein's attorneys" did not influence "anything."[^10]
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### After the Justice Department
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Lourie left the department in February 2008 for private practice and became a partner at Kobre & Kim, where his practice covered government enforcement defense in commodities manipulation, spoofing, insider trading and [[Foreign Corrupt Practices Act]] matters, and international judgment enforcement and asset recovery. In 2015 the firm quoted the Chambers guide that his "skills are extraordinary, and his judgment is first-rate." Menchel, his former Criminal Division chief on the Epstein matter, is a partner at the same firm. Lourie is now of counsel at the Miami firm Tein Malone, whose attorneys include [[Michael Tein]].[^1][^3][^4][^12]
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### OPR and Villafaña
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Questioned by OPR about Villafaña's September 2007 emails, which the district court had quoted in 2019 in [[Doe v. United States]], Lourie said he was "surprised to see how nice she was to them. And she winds up taking it on the chin for being so nice to them. When I know the whole time she was the one who wanted to go after him the most." OPR found no professional misconduct by Lourie or the other four subjects.[^2][^13]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284, Prior DOJ Disclosures, report, Office of Professional Responsibility, "Investigation into the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida's Resolution of Its 2006-2008 Federal Criminal Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and Its Interactions with Victims during the Investigation," November 2020, pp. 5 to 6 (EFTA02847314 to EFTA02847315). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Prior%20DOJ%20Disclosures/Memos.%20&%20Correspondence/EFTA02847284.pdf
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[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284 (see note 1), Executive Summary, pp. vi, ix to x (EFTA02847291, EFTA02847294 to EFTA02847295).
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[^3]: Kobre & Kim, "Andrew C. Lourie" (firm biography, Chinese-language edition). https://kobrekim.com/zh_cmn/people-cn/andrew-c-lourie-cn
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[^4]: Tein Malone, "Andrew Lourie" (firm biography). https://www.teinmalone.com/andrewlourie
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[^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284 (see note 1), pp. 18, 21 and nn. 28, 30 (EFTA02847327, EFTA02847330).
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[^6]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284 (see note 1), pp. 28 to 29 and nn. 41 to 43 (EFTA02847337 to EFTA02847338).
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[^7]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00224943, DataSet 9, "Epstein Investigation Timeline," Exhibit A-1, privileged chronology of the federal investigation, May 2006 to August 2011, entries for September 13 and 23, 2007. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00224943.pdf
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[^8]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284 (see note 1), pp. 68 to 70 (EFTA02847377 to EFTA02847379).
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[^9]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00224943 (see note 4), pp. 23 to 29.
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[^10]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284 (see note 1), pp. 22, 150 to 152 and n. 34 (EFTA02847331, EFTA02847459 to EFTA02847461).
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[^11]: "Daily Dicta: Why Jeffrey Epstein's All-Star Defense Team May Be the Victim of Its Own Success," *ALM Media* via *Yahoo Finance,* December 5, 2018. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/daily-dicta-why-jeffrey-epstein-062720798.html
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[^12]: Kobre & Kim, "Kobre & Kim Receives Top Rankings in the 2015 Edition of Chambers & Partners," May 19, 2015. https://kobrekim.com/news/accolades/kobre-and-kim-receives-top-rankings-in-the-2015-edition-of-chambers-and-partners
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[^13]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284 (see note 1), p. 165 (EFTA02847474).
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@ -104,7 +104,7 @@ Hannam's case is not a documented instance of O9A insight roles in law enforceme
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What Hannam's case does document is the structural fact that a member of a proscribed terrorist organisation successfully passed police vetting and served as a constable for two years. Whether the mechanism was insight-role doctrine, opportunistic careerism, or a combination is not established in the trial record.
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The documented cases of O9A adherents who joined military or law enforcement institutions as a direct expression of insight role doctrine include [[Ethan Phelan Melzer]], the U.S. Army private in the [[173rd Airborne Brigade]] who was convicted in the Southern District of New York after transmitting classified unit deployment information to O9A members on [[Telegram]], conspiring to arrange a mass-casualty attack on his own soldiers. Melzer's prosecution memo stated explicitly that he "joined the Army in 2018 as part of what O9A referred to as an 'insight role.'" He was sentenced to 45 years in March 2023.[^20]
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The documented cases of O9A adherents who joined military or law enforcement institutions as a direct expression of insight role doctrine include [[Ethan Phelan Melzer]], the U.S. Army private in the [[173rd Airborne Brigade]] who was convicted in the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]] after transmitting classified unit deployment information to O9A members on [[Telegram]], conspiring to arrange a mass-casualty attack on his own soldiers. Melzer's prosecution memo stated explicitly that he "joined the Army in 2018 as part of what O9A referred to as an 'insight role.'" He was sentenced to 45 years in March 2023.[^20]
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[[Nicholas Welker]], the [[Feuerkrieg Division]] leader convicted in the Eastern District of New York of conspiring to make interstate death threats, joined FKD explicitly as an O9A insight role, as documented in his prosecution records. He was sentenced to 44 months in April 2024.[^21]
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@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ Cecile de Jongh (born Cecile Galiber) was the office manager of [[Jeffrey Epstei
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De Jongh worked as the office manager of Epstein's Virgin Islands companies from 2007, the year her husband took office, through 2015, the year his term ended. JPMorgan's filings stated that she earned more than 200,000 dollars in compensation in 2007 alone for the role. The companies that employed her, Financial Trust Company and later Southern Trust Company, were the entities through which Epstein held his territorial tax benefits under the [[Economic Development Commission]] program and through which his Virgin Islands operations were funded.[^1][^2]
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The same filings alleged that Epstein paid tuition for de Jongh's children, that she forwarded her children's tuition bills to him for payment, and that she requested he help fund her husband's re-election campaign. In her May 2023 deposition, taken at the Ritz-Carlton on St. Thomas over roughly five and a half hours, de Jongh described confronting Epstein after his 2006 Florida arrest, saying she looked him in the eye and asked what was going on, and was assured it was a one-time mistake that would not recur. The arrangement continued after Epstein registered as a sex offender following his 2008 Florida plea.[^2][^3]
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The same filings alleged that Epstein paid tuition for de Jongh's children, that she forwarded her children's tuition bills to him for payment, and that she requested he help fund her husband's re-election campaign. In her May 2023 deposition, taken at the Ritz-Carlton on [[St. Thomas]] over roughly five and a half hours, de Jongh described confronting Epstein after his 2006 Florida arrest, saying she looked him in the eye and asked what was going on, and was assured it was a one-time mistake that would not recur. The arrangement continued after Epstein registered as a sex offender following his 2008 Florida plea.[^2][^3]
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The employment overlapped entirely with her public role. While serving as First Lady from 2007 to 2015, she simultaneously drew her salary from Epstein's companies, an overlap that was reported contemporaneously and that became the foundation of the later allegations. No charges were brought against de Jongh, and she was not a defendant in the territory's case against the estate, whose November 2022 settlement resolved only the claims against the estate and the named co-defendants. The phrase "shield its participants from liability" in that litigation comes from the territory's 2020 objection to the estate's proposed victim compensation program, which required claimants to release claims against "any person or entity arising from or related to Mr. Epstein's conduct." Denise George later told the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] that Governor Albert Bryan, urging her to settle for 80 million dollars, said "that the Epstein estate just wanted to clear people."[^2][^4][^5][^6][^7]
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@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ Darren K. Indyke is a New York lawyer who was [[Jeffrey Epstein]]'s longtime per
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According to the Virgin Islands government's Second Amended Complaint, filed in November 2022, Indyke or Kahn, "frequently both," were officers or directors of the Butterfly Trust, of the companies holding Epstein's real property, and of Financial Strategy Group, Ltd.; Financial Trust, Inc.; FT Real Estate Inc.; [[Gratitude America]], Inc.; Hyperion Air, Inc.; the J. Epstein Virgin Islands Foundation, Inc.; Jeepers, Inc.; Mort, Inc.; Nautilus, Inc.; and Zorro Development Corporation, and had "signatory authority over virtually all of the accounts held by the Epstein Enterprise entities." The territory alleged that the two men "organized, controlled, and directed almost every aspect of the Epstein Enterprise," that with Epstein they "held and managed at least 140 different bank accounts for Epstein and Epstein-owned entities, many of which existed only to transfer payments to other entities and accounts," and that "in many instances, Kahn and/or Indyke structured these transactions in order to evade the bank's reporting requirements."[^2]
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Indyke sat with Epstein and Kahn on the board of [[Southern Trust Company]], the St. Thomas company that obtained a Virgin Islands tax-incentive certificate on the representation that it ran a "biomedical and financial informatics" business. He was signatory on its primary bank account, into which funds were wired "primarily from a single source," and authorized a majority of the wire transfers out of it to Epstein's other entities and personal accounts. The territory estimated that the certificate let Epstein avoid 80,576,236 dollars in taxes. When Epstein formed [[Cypress Inc.|Cypress, Inc.]], [[Maple Inc.|Maple, Inc.]] and [[Laurel Inc.|Laurel, Inc.]] as Virgin Islands corporations in November 2011 and moved title to the [[Zorro Ranch]], the [[9 East 71st Street]] townhouse and his [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]] house into them, Indyke became vice president, secretary and director of each. The territory alleged that these transfers "were made for the sole purpose of sheltering these assets from collection."[^2]
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Indyke sat with Epstein and Kahn on the board of [[Southern Trust Company]], the [[St. Thomas]] company that obtained a Virgin Islands tax-incentive certificate on the representation that it ran a "biomedical and financial informatics" business. He was signatory on its primary bank account, into which funds were wired "primarily from a single source," and authorized a majority of the wire transfers out of it to Epstein's other entities and personal accounts. The territory estimated that the certificate let Epstein avoid 80,576,236 dollars in taxes. When Epstein formed [[Cypress Inc.|Cypress, Inc.]], [[Maple Inc.|Maple, Inc.]] and [[Laurel Inc.|Laurel, Inc.]] as Virgin Islands corporations in November 2011 and moved title to the [[Zorro Ranch]], the [[9 East 71st Street]] townhouse and his [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]] house into them, Indyke became vice president, secretary and director of each. The territory alleged that these transfers "were made for the sole purpose of sheltering these assets from collection."[^2]
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Indyke was listed as president of the J. Epstein Virgin Islands Foundation, a tax-exempt private foundation, as of October 23, 2007. Between September 2015 and June 2019 he signed foundation checks for more than 400,000 dollars payable to young female models and actresses, including more than 380,000 dollars in monthly payments of 8,333 dollars to a former Russian model; in November 2017 he signed a foundation check to a New York immigration lawyer whose memo line referenced that model's surname. Earlier in 2017 he signed a foundation check for 160,000 dollars to resolve an environmental fine Epstein had incurred for construction on [[Great St. James]], which the estate later repaid to the foundation after questions were raised about it. The territory called the payments "inconsistent with the charitable purpose of the Foundation."[^2]
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---
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category: "Crime & Abuse Networks"
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tags:
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- Person
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- ErikaKellerhals
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- JeffreyEpstein
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- VirginIslands
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- TaxIncentives
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- SouthernTrust
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- ButterflyTrust
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- Lawyer
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alias:
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- Ericka Kellerhals
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- Erica Kellerhals
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- Erika A. Kellerhals
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- Attorney Kellerhals
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summary: "St. Thomas tax lawyer who represented Jeffrey Epstein before the Virgin Islands tax-incentive board and justice department, served as a trustee of his Butterfly Trust, and received his foundation's mail."
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location: "St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands"
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relations:
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- type: founded
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with: "[[Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin]]"
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start: 2011
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role: "co-founder of Kellerhals Ferguson LLP"
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fn: 1
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- type: represented
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with: "[[Jeffrey Epstein]]"
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start: 2012
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end: 2019
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role: "territorial counsel before the Economic Development Commission, Planning and Natural Resources, and the Department of Justice"
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fn: 4
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- type: represented
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with: "[[Southern Trust Company]]"
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start: 2012-11-15
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role: "counsel at the Economic Development Commission hearing"
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fn: 4
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- type: director_of
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with: "[[Butterfly Trust]]"
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role: "trustee"
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fn: 8
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[Stacey Plaskett]]"
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reverse: true
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fn: 2
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- type: partner_of
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with: "[[David Bornn]]"
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start: 2017-01
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role: "law partners at Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin"
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fn: 6
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created: 2026-09-25
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updated: 2026-09-25
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---
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Erika A. Kellerhals is a tax and business lawyer on [[St. Thomas]], [[U.S. Virgin Islands]], and a founder of Kellerhals Ferguson LLP, later styled [[Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin|Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC]]. She represented [[Jeffrey Epstein]] in the territory from at least 2012 until his death: she appeared with him at the November 2012 [[Economic Development Commission]] hearing that led to the tax-incentive certificate of [[Southern Trust Company]], received the wire for its application fee, drafted a 2017 suit against the territory over his construction on [[Great St. James]], sought to restore his 24-hour travel notice in 2019, and filed the petition to probate his estate. She was a trustee of his Butterfly Trust and the care-of addressee of his foundation, [[Gratitude America]]. The future congressional delegate [[Stacey Plaskett]] and the future chief legal counsel to Governor [[Albert Bryan]], [[David Bornn]], both worked with her firm.[^1][^2][^3][^4]
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### Career
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Kellerhals holds an LL.M. in taxation from [[New York University]]. She practiced at a boutique New York firm giving tax advice to individuals and closely held corporations, relocated to the Virgin Islands in 2003, and worked at the Law Offices of Marjorie Rawls Roberts, P.C. before opening her own practice in 2008 and forming Kellerhals Ferguson, LLP in 2011 with a former co-worker. Her firm biography describes a practice "rooted in her years of practice in the Virgin Islands and in depth knowledge of the U.S. Virgin Islands incentive programs," advising clients "on obtaining economic development incentives from the U.S. Virgin Islands Economic Development Commission and the University of the Virgin Islands Research & Technology Park," and representing taxpayers before the [[Internal Revenue Service]] and the Virgin Islands Bureau of Internal Revenue. By 2019 the firm, Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC, was at 9053 Estate Thomas, Suite 101, in the Royal Palms Professional Building on St. Thomas.[^1][^5]
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Plaskett, who was general counsel of the Economic Development Commission from 2007 to 2014, had worked for Kellerhals. In August 2014 the firm congratulated "our colleague and friend Stacey Plaskett" on her Democratic primary victory for delegate to Congress. On January 4, 2017 the firm announced that "David A. Bornn, Esq. has become a Partner of the Firm," operating a branch from the Bornn Building on Norre Gade in [[Charlotte Amalie]]; Bornn later became Bryan's chief legal counsel. The journalist [[Lee Fang]] published in 2025 a territorial campaign-finance record showing a check from Kellerhals to Bryan's 2018 campaign.[^2][^6][^7]
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### Southern Trust and the Tax-Incentive Board
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On September 21, 2012 Epstein's bookkeeper [[Harry Beller]] faxed [[JPMorgan Chase]] a memorandum directing a wire of 5,000 dollars from Epstein's account through Pacific Coast Banker's Bank to Merchants Commercial Bank in St. Thomas, "for further credit to Kellerhals Ferguson LLP," and Epstein's September 2012 statement records the debit with the reference "Southern Trust Company Application Fee." At a public hearing of the Economic Development Commission on November 15, 2012, "Epstein and his attorney Ericka Kellerhals described the company as providing 'cutting edge consulting services' in 'biomedical and financial informatics,'" according to the territory's later complaint; no one asked about his 2008 conviction or his registration as a sex offender. The commission granted Southern Trust a ten-year package from February 1, 2013 with a 90 percent income-tax exemption, and the territory later estimated that the certificate let Epstein avoid 80,576,236 dollars in taxes.[^3][^4]
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### Trusts and the Foundation
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|
||||
A [[Deutsche Bank]] know-your-customer page headed "The 2013 Butterfly Trust," produced to a federal grand jury in the [[Southern District of New York]], lists Kellerhals as a current trustee with the note "(Deutsche Bank already has on file)," and names among the trust's "Current Potential Beneficiaries" Epstein's assistant [[Lesley Groff]], his pilot [[Larry Visoski|Lawrence Paul Visoski Jr.]] and his lawyer [[Darren Indyke]]. The Internal Revenue Service record of Gratitude America Ltd, recognized as a private foundation in September 2012, gives its address as 9053 Estate Thomas, Suite 101, St. Thomas, "in care of Erika Kellerhals." It reported revenue and assets of one dollar for 2012 through 2014 and gross contributions of 10,003,000 dollars for 2015.[^5][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
In September 2025 Senator [[Ron Wyden]] introduced the Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act, S. 2746, which would require the Treasury to produce suspicious activity reports relating to Epstein and a list of individuals and entities that includes "Erika Kellerhals," alongside Indyke, [[Richard Kahn]], Beller, Southern Trust Company, the Butterfly Trust and Gratitude America Ltd.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Great St. James
|
||||
|
||||
Epstein bought Great St. James in January 2016, and the [[Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources|Department of Planning and Natural Resources]] issued a cease-and-desist order over unpermitted construction there on October 28, 2016. After text exchanges in which Governor [[Kenneth Mapp]] told Epstein he was "a bit disappointed" at an "end run around the VI code," Kellerhals drafted a lawsuit in March 2017 alleging "unauthorized entry" by the government. The dispute was settled with the original 280,000 dollar fine reduced to 160,000 dollars.[^10][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2019 Travel Notice
|
||||
|
||||
On March 14, 2019 acting Attorney General [[Carol Thomas-Jacobs]] revoked the arrangement, granted by Attorney General [[Vincent Frazer]] in 2012, under which Epstein gave 24 hours' notice of travel by email, and required 21 days' notice in person for travel abroad. On April 30, 2019 Kellerhals's firm wrote to the Attorney General nominee, [[Denise George]], "We represent Mr. Jeffrey Epstein, who is registered on the U.S. Virgin Islands Sexual Offender Registry," asking the department to "reinstate the proven travel notification procedures that have been in effect since Mr. Epstein's initial registration." It blamed Epstein's February 2019 detention in the [[Dominican Republic]] "solely" on the department's failure to notify that country, and stated that the department "has been aware of Mr. Epstein's location every single day of his life without exception for the past ten (10) years." On May 1 Kellerhals apologized "profusely for incorrectly addressing my prior correspondence" and sent a corrected letter.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
George asked on June 2, 2019 whether Kellerhals was "still representing Mr. Epstein in this matter" or whether to write to the attorney [[Clive Rivers]]; Kellerhals asked that correspondence go to both. George then wrote that the department had no record that "reasonable and reliable proof" of frequent travel had ever been submitted to Frazer, and asked for it. On June 17 Kellerhals asked what information would satisfy that standard, and on June 20 Rivers wrote that "Erika and I would like to meet with you." In July 2019 Kellerhals asked George for a meeting about the waiver; Epstein was arrested on July 6.[^2][^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### After Epstein's Death
|
||||
|
||||
After Epstein died in August 2019, Kellerhals filed a petition to probate his estate in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands. When George investigated the estate, she found that its employees "had nondisclosure agreements and were informed if questioned by law enforcement to say nothing and alert Kellerhals," according to the notes of her October 2, 2023 interview with the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]. After the territory's outside counsel, [[Motley Rice]], began interviewing employees, George received a call from Bornn, then Bryan's chief legal counsel, relaying that Kellerhals wanted to know what George was investigating; George told him it was "none of Kellerhals's business."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC, "Erika Kellerhals," attorney biography, captured August 10, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190810121434/https://www.kellfer.com/attorneys/erika-kellerhals/
|
||||
[^2]: Carlson, Suzanne. "Docs confirm Bryan pressed for special treatment of sex offender." *Virgin Islands Daily News,* February 2, 2026. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/docs-confirm-bryan-pressed-for-special-treatment-of-sex-offender/article_5e9483c9-38d2-406c-8bb0-e5757ce287f2.html (Plaskett's employment with Kellerhals; Bornn; probate petition; George's FBI interview; July 2019 meeting request).
|
||||
[^3]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01580553, DataSet 10, memorandum from Harry Beller to JPMorgan wire desk, September 21, 2012 (JPM-SDNY-00059908); EFTA01483636, DataSet 10, JPMorgan statement for Jeffrey E. Epstein, September 1-28, 2012 (JPM-SDNY-00004812). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01580553.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01483636.pdf
|
||||
[^4]: Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein, No. ST-20-CV-14 (V.I. Super. Ct.), Second Amended Complaint, paragraphs 157 to 159 and 175, filed as Exhibit 1 to Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 1:22-cv-10904-JSR (S.D.N.Y.), ECF No. 1-1 (December 27, 2022). https://web.archive.org/web/20260117011558/https://www.justice.gov/multimedia/Court%20Records/Government%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Virgin%20Islands%20v.%20JPMorgan%20Chase%20Bank,%20N.A.,%20No.%20122-cv-10904%20(S.D.N.Y.%202022)/001-01.pdf
|
||||
[^5]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF data for Gratitude America Ltd, EIN 66-0789697, tax years 2012 to 2022, and IRS Business Master File record (ruling date September 2012; in care of Erika Kellerhals, 9053 Estate Thomas Suite 101, St. Thomas), as indexed by ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/660789697
|
||||
[^6]: Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC, "Attorney Stacey Plaskett Wins Democratic Primary for VI Delegate to Congress," August 11, 2014, captured May 14, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190514002952/https://www.kellfer.com/blog/2014/08/11/attorney-stacey-plaskett-wins-democratic-primary-vi-delegate-congress/ ; Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC, "Welcome David Bornn," January 4, 2017, captured August 20, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190820054157/https://www.kellfer.com/blog/2017/01/04/welcome-david-bornn/
|
||||
[^7]: Fang, Lee. "Jeffrey Epstein Exploited the U.S. Virgin Islands for a Reason." *Lee Fang* (Substack), May 26, 2025. https://www.leefang.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-exploited-the-us (image of a Kellerhals check to Bryan's 2018 campaign).
|
||||
[^8]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01364303, DataSet 10, Deutsche Bank know-your-customer page "The 2013 Butterfly Trust" (DB-SDNY-0054829); EFTA01372887, DataSet 10, Deutsche Bank "KYC Print," July 15, 2019 (DB-SDNY-0066790). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01364303.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01372887.pdf
|
||||
[^9]: S. 2746, 119th Congress, "Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act," introduced September 9, 2025, section 2(b)(2). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119s2746is/html/BILLS-119s2746is.htm
|
||||
[^10]: Carlson, Suzanne. "Files reveal Epstein's efforts to influence V.I. officials; emails with Mapp." *Virgin Islands Daily News,* February 2, 2026. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/files-reveal-epstein-s-efforts-to-influence-v-i-officials-emails-with-mapp/article_2dd4fe69-4daf-4dc2-b3b8-37a929002bb6.html (spelling the name "Erica Kellerhals").
|
||||
[^11]: "DPNR Orders Cease and Desist for Unauthorized Development on Great St. James." *St. Thomas Source,* November 1, 2016. https://stthomassource.com/content/2016/11/01/dpnr-orders-cease-and-desist-for-unauthorized-development-on-great-st-james/
|
||||
[^12]: Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 1:22-cv-10904-JSR (S.D.N.Y.), Exhibit 83, ECF No. 194-24 (filed June 20, 2023), pp. 2 to 7 (Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin letter to Denise George, April 30, 2019), 56 to 60 (emails of May 1 to June 20, 2019). https://web.archive.org/web/20260117011719/https://www.justice.gov/multimedia/Court%20Records/Government%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Virgin%20Islands%20v.%20JPMorgan%20Chase%20Bank,%20N.A.,%20No.%20122-cv-10904%20(S.D.N.Y.%202022)/194-24.pdf
|
||||
|
|
@ -48,9 +48,9 @@ In March 1963 - immediately after the period of his closest contact with Oswald
|
|||
|
||||
During the HSCA investigation period of 1976-1979, de Mohrenschildt was in deteriorating psychological condition. He had been briefly committed to a Dallas psychiatric facility in 1976. In fall 1976, while fragile, he wrote an unpublished memoir titled "I Am a Patsy! I Am a Patsy!" - its title a reference to what he claimed were Oswald's final public words before being shot by [[Jack Ruby]]. The 28-chapter manuscript covered his friendship with the Oswalds and the assassination's effects on his life, maintaining throughout that Oswald was innocent of killing Kennedy. The HSCA received a copy from his widow Jeanne on April 1, 1977 - three days after de Mohrenschildt's death - and published it as HSCA Volume XII.
|
||||
|
||||
On March 29, 1977, de Mohrenschildt was found dead of a shotgun wound to the head at his daughter Alexandra's home in Manalapan, [[Florida]]. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office ruled the death a suicide. De Mohrenschildt was 65 years old.
|
||||
On March 29, 1977, de Mohrenschildt was found dead of a shotgun wound to the head at his daughter Alexandra's home in Manalapan, [[Florida]]. The [[Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office]] ruled the death a suicide. De Mohrenschildt was 65 years old.
|
||||
|
||||
Two events had occurred on the same day: HSCA investigator [[Gaeton Fonzi]] visited the house that morning and left his business card when de Mohrenschildt was not home; journalist [[Edward Jay Epstein]] concluded an extensive interview with de Mohrenschildt at The Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach for a Reader's Digest-commissioned article on the Kennedy assassination. De Mohrenschildt reportedly found Fonzi's business card in his shirt pocket upon returning home. He died approximately three hours after the Epstein interview ended. The suicide ruling was not challenged through any formal proceeding.[^1]
|
||||
Two events had occurred on the same day: HSCA investigator [[Gaeton Fonzi]] visited the house that morning and left his business card when de Mohrenschildt was not home; journalist [[Edward Jay Epstein]] concluded an extensive interview with de Mohrenschildt at The Breakers Hotel in [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]] for a Reader's Digest-commissioned article on the Kennedy assassination. De Mohrenschildt reportedly found Fonzi's business card in his shirt pocket upon returning home. He died approximately three hours after the Epstein interview ended. The suicide ruling was not challenged through any formal proceeding.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
65
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Gerald Lefcourt.md
Normal file
65
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Gerald Lefcourt.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- GeraldLefcourt
|
||||
- Lawyer
|
||||
- CriminalDefense
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
- NonProsecutionAgreement
|
||||
- NACDL
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Gerald B. Lefcourt
|
||||
- Gerry Lefcourt
|
||||
- Gerald Lefcourt
|
||||
summary: "New York criminal defense lawyer and former NACDL president who represented Jeffrey Epstein from 2006 and signed the September 2007 non-prosecution agreement and its October addendum for the defense."
|
||||
location: "New York, New York"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers]]"
|
||||
role: "president"
|
||||
start: 1997
|
||||
end: 1998
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[New York State Commission on Judicial Nomination]]"
|
||||
role: "designee of the Speaker of the New York State Assembly"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
created: 2026-09-25
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-25
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Gerald B. Lefcourt is a New York criminal defense lawyer, a past president of the [[National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers]] and for more than twenty years the [[New York State Assembly]] Speaker's designee to the state Commission on Judicial Nomination, who represented [[Jeffrey Epstein]] in the [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]] state investigation and the federal investigation that ended in the [[Epstein non-prosecution agreement]]. He opened the defense's contact with the federal prosecutor in August 2006, co-signed the July 2007 letter that put the [[Steven Pinker]] opinion before the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida]], and was one of the two defense lawyers who signed the agreement on September 24, 2007.[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Practice and Bar Positions
|
||||
|
||||
Lefcourt holds a B.A. in political science from [[New York University]], a J.D. from [[Brooklyn Law School]] and an LL.M. in taxation from the [[New York University School of Law]]. His clients have included the [[Yippie]] founder [[Abbie Hoffman]] and leaders of the [[Black Panther Party]], the [[Drexel Burnham Lambert]] securities trader Bruce Newberg, the real estate owner [[Harry Helmsley]], the actor [[Russell Crowe]], the New York Assembly Speaker [[Mel Miller]], the Brooklyn Democratic leader [[Vito Lopez]], the [[Murder Inc. Records]] head [[Irv Gotti]], and the campaign treasurer of the New York mayoral candidate [[John Liu]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
He was president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in 1997 and 1998 and later of its Foundation for Criminal Justice, has co-chaired its annual White Collar Crime Conference since 2004, and founded both the [[New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers]] and the New York Criminal Bar Association. He served for more than twenty years as the Assembly Speaker's designee to the statewide [[New York State Commission on Judicial Nomination|Commission on Judicial Nomination]], which recommends to the Governor the candidates for the [[New York Court of Appeals]], and he sits on the Magistrate Selection Committee of the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The State Investigation
|
||||
|
||||
Lefcourt began representing Epstein during the state investigation, which the Justice Department's [[Office of Professional Responsibility]] later reviewed. After Epstein hired the West Palm Beach lawyer [[Jack Goldberger]], whose law partner was married to the assistant state attorney on the case, that prosecutor was removed and [[Lanna Belohlavek]] took over; "Goldberger, together with Gerald Lefcourt, a nationally known New York criminal defense attorney also representing Epstein, then directed their efforts at Belohlavek and [State Attorney Barry] Krischer to dissuade the office from prosecuting Epstein, largely by attacking the credibility of the victim witnesses." A 2006 letter from Lefcourt to the State Attorney's Office showed that "the defense team had thoroughly researched the details and ramifications of Florida's sexual offender registration requirement"; the office "did not find evidence indicating similar research and consideration by the USAO." The plea eventually entered rested on conduct involving a victim who was at least 16, which, because the age of consent in [[New Mexico]] was 16, exempted Epstein from registration there.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Federal Investigation
|
||||
|
||||
Lefcourt made the first defense contact with the line prosecutor, [[Ann Marie Villafana|A. Marie Villafaña]], in August 2006. On November 15, 2006 [[Lilly Ann Sanchez]], a former Deputy Chief of the office's Major Crimes Section, wrote to Villafaña that she and Lefcourt represented Epstein and asked that all contact be directed to them. When Villafaña insisted on documents before any meeting, Sanchez telephoned the West Palm Beach manager, [[Andrew Lourie]], a former colleague, who granted one. At the February 1, 2007 meeting Sanchez and Lefcourt presented a 25-page letter arguing that there was no federal jurisdiction, that the [[Petite policy]] barred a second prosecution, and that the state's two principal victims had "damaging histories of lies, illegal drug use, and crime."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The federal investigation's subpoenas of May 31, 2007 to [[Financial Trust Company]], the J. Epstein Virgin Islands Foundation, J. Epstein & Company and "Epstein Interests" listed Lefcourt as the correspondent. On May 22, 2007 he wrote to Lourie to "confirm" that the defense would be heard before any charging decision; Villafaña wrote to First Assistant [[Jeffrey Sloman]] and Criminal Division chief [[Matthew Menchel]]: "I just want to again voice my disagreement with promising to have a meeting or having a meeting with Lefcourt or any other of Epstein's attorneys. . . . This is a case where the defendant is facing the possibility of dozens of years of prison time."[^2][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
On June 25, 2007 Lefcourt sent a 19-page letter arguing that voluntary sexual activity with "young adults, 16 or 17 years of age" was "strictly a state concern" and that 18 U.S.C. 2422(b) was aimed at "internet trolling." [[Alan Dershowitz]] led the defense presentation at the Miami office the next day. On July 6, 2007 Lefcourt and Dershowitz wrote on Lefcourt's letterhead to Sloman, Menchel, Lourie and Villafaña that the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker had found their narrow reading of the statute "the sole rational reading," annexing Pinker's opinion. The office's investigative chronology lists a further submission from Lefcourt and Dershowitz to Menchel titled "Data that strongly supports the arguments made that no charge can or should be made under 18 U.S.C. 2422(b)."[^2][^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Agreement
|
||||
|
||||
After the office presented its term sheet at a July 31, 2007 meeting with Lefcourt, Sanchez and [[Roy Black]], Epstein added [[Kenneth Starr]] and [[Jay Lefkowitz]] of [[Kirkland & Ellis]]. Shortly after Acosta's September 7 meeting with Starr and Lefkowitz, which Lefcourt did not attend, he spoke with both [[Alexander Acosta]] and Lourie and proposed that Epstein serve 15 months in jail followed by 15 months of home confinement; Villafaña called it "a reasonable counteroffer in light of our starting position of 24 months," but "a really low sentence." On September 11 she sent Lefcourt a revised draft with Acosta's edits, and on September 12 he, Lefkowitz and Goldberger met the federal prosecutors together with Krischer and Belohlavek.[^2][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
The agreement was signed on September 24, 2007 by Epstein and, for the defense, by Lefcourt and Sanchez. A December 11, 2007 letter from the office to Lefkowitz, written by the line prosecutor over Acosta's name, stated: "The agreement itself was signed by Mr. Epstein, Ms. Sanchez, and Mr. Lefcourt, whose experience speaks for itself." Lefcourt and Sanchez also signed the addendum of October 29, 2007, which governed the selection of an attorney representative for victims' civil claims. Lefcourt attended the December 14, 2007 meeting with Acosta in Miami with Starr, Dershowitz and [[Martin Weinberg]], and a January 7, 2008 meeting at which the defense presented "federal jurisdiction issues, legal issues, and [a] request for de novo review."[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, "Gerald Lefcourt, NACDL Past Presidents, Past President, 1997-98." https://www.nacdl.org/People/GeraldLefcourt ; Gerald B. Lefcourt, P.C., attorney biography. https://www.lefcourtlaw.com/attorney/gerald-b-lefcourt/index.html
|
||||
[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284, Prior DOJ Disclosures, Office of Professional Responsibility, report, "Investigation into the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida's Resolution of Its 2006-2008 Federal Criminal Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and Its Interactions with Victims during the Investigation," November 2020, pp. 8, 15, 22-24, 31-35, 54, 59, 63-64, 85, 93, 99, 156, 174. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Prior%20DOJ%20Disclosures/Memos.%20&%20Correspondence/EFTA02847284.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00013538, DataSet 8, letter, U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida to Jay P. Lefkowitz, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, "Re: Jeffrey Epstein," December 11, 2007, p. 3, signed over the block "R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney, By:" and written in the first person by the line Assistant U.S. Attorney. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%208/EFTA00013538.pdf
|
||||
[^4]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00224943, DataSet 9, "Epstein Investigation Timeline," Exhibit A-1, privileged chronology of the federal investigation, pp. 1, 4 to 7, 9, 11. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00224943.pdf
|
||||
[^5]: Letter from Gerald B. Lefcourt and Alan M. Dershowitz to Jeffrey Sloman, Matthew Menchel, Andrew Lourie and A. Marie Villafaña, July 6, 2007, filed as Exhibit 46, *Doe v. United States*, No. 9:08-cv-80736-KAM (S.D. Fla.), ECF No. 361-46 (entered February 10, 2016). https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.317867/gov.uscourts.flsd.317867.361.46.pdf
|
||||
[^6]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00224943, DataSet 9, "Epstein Investigation Timeline," Exhibit A-1, pp. 9, 12 to 14, 19 to 20. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00224943.pdf
|
||||
|
|
@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ After Robert Maxwell drowned in November 1991 and his empire was found to have l
|
|||
|
||||
### Arrest, Indictment, and the Non-Prosecution Agreement Defense
|
||||
|
||||
A grand jury in the Southern District of New York returned a sealed indictment against Maxwell on June 29, 2020. It was unsealed on July 2, 2020, the day agents of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] arrested her at a property in [[New Hampshire]]. The original six counts charged her with facilitating Epstein's sexual abuse of minor victims "from around 1994 to 1997." A first superseding indictment, filed July 10, 2020, added two counts of perjury arising from her 2016 deposition testimony in [[Giuffre v. Maxwell]]. A second superseding indictment, filed March 29, 2021, added a sex trafficking conspiracy count and a count of sex trafficking of a minor, extended the charged conduct into the early 2000s, and renumbered the perjury counts as Counts Seven and Eight. On July 30, 2020, Judge [[Alison Nathan|Alison J. Nathan]] entered the protective order (ECF No. 36) that governed discovery in the case and that the government moved to modify five years later.[^5][^6]
|
||||
A grand jury in the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]] returned a sealed indictment against Maxwell on June 29, 2020. It was unsealed on July 2, 2020, the day agents of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] arrested her at a property in [[New Hampshire]]. The original six counts charged her with facilitating Epstein's sexual abuse of minor victims "from around 1994 to 1997." A first superseding indictment, filed July 10, 2020, added two counts of perjury arising from her 2016 deposition testimony in [[Giuffre v. Maxwell]]. A second superseding indictment, filed March 29, 2021, added a sex trafficking conspiracy count and a count of sex trafficking of a minor, extended the charged conduct into the early 2000s, and renumbered the perjury counts as Counts Seven and Eight. On July 30, 2020, Judge [[Alison Nathan|Alison J. Nathan]] entered the protective order (ECF No. 36) that governed discovery in the case and that the government moved to modify five years later.[^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Maxwell's lead pretrial motion, filed over the signatures of Mark S. Cohen of [[Cohen & Gresser]], Jeffrey S. Pagliuca and [[Laura Menninger|Laura A. Menninger]] of [[Haddon, Morgan and Foreman]], and Bobbi C. Sternheim, sought dismissal of the superseding indictment for breach of Epstein's September 2007 [[Epstein non-prosecution agreement|non-prosecution agreement]] with the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida]]. In consideration of Epstein's state guilty pleas, that agreement provided that "the [[United States]] also agrees that it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein, including but not limited to [[Sarah Kellen]], [[Adriana Ross]], [[Lesley Groff]], or [[Nadia Marcinkova]]." Maxwell argued that she was a third-party beneficiary of the clause. Nathan denied the motion with the other pretrial motions in an opinion and order of April 16, 2021 (ECF No. 207).[^6][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -118,7 +118,7 @@ An FBI Guardian complaint form dated April 23, 2021 and filed under the Epstein
|
|||
|
||||
### Collateral Attack
|
||||
|
||||
On December 17, 2025, Maxwell filed a pro se motion to vacate her sentence under 28 U.S.C. section 2255 (ECF No. 830), opened as the companion civil matters Maxwell v. United States, Nos. 1:25-cv-10464 and 1:25-cv-10468. Engelmayer's January 2026 opinion described the criminal case as "effectively closed," with the section 2255 motion "the only outstanding item." The government's letters of February 12 and April 21, 2026 (ECF Nos. 852, 856) concerned the briefing schedule for its response, and the docket remained active in July 2026 (ECF No. 866).[^23][^27]
|
||||
On December 17, 2025, Maxwell filed a pro se motion to vacate her sentence under 28 U.S.C. section 2255 (ECF No. 830), opened as the companion civil matters [[United States v. Maxwell|Maxwell v. United States]], Nos. 1:25-cv-10464 and 1:25-cv-10468. Engelmayer's January 2026 opinion described the criminal case as "effectively closed," with the section 2255 motion "the only outstanding item." The government's letters of February 12 and April 21, 2026 (ECF Nos. 852, 856) concerned the briefing schedule for its response, and the docket remained active in July 2026 (ECF No. 866).[^23][^27]
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ tags:
|
|||
summary: "Harry Jones was an Assistant U.S."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Harry Jones was an Assistant U.S. Trustee in the Southern District of New York. He became involved in the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]] allegations concerning the attempted conversion of [[INSLAW|Inslaw]]'s bankruptcy case.
|
||||
Harry Jones was an Assistant U.S. Trustee in the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]]. He became involved in the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]] allegations concerning the attempted conversion of [[INSLAW|Inslaw]]'s bankruptcy case.
|
||||
|
||||
[[Anthony Pasciuto]] alleged that [[Thomas Stanton]], Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Trustees (EOUST), tried to detail Jones to [[William White]]'s office in Washington D.C. to work on converting the Inslaw case from Chapter 11 reorganization to Chapter 7 liquidation. [[Cornelius Blackshear]] initially testified that White had told him of Stanton's pressure to have Jones assigned to the case. Bankruptcy Judge Bason, in his findings, concluded that Stanton sought to have Jones detailed to accomplish the conversion when White resisted Stanton's pressure. The Special Counsel's investigation found that Stanton did consider transferring Jones to assist in the Inslaw matter, but denied that Jones was to be assigned to effect a conversion. Stanton testified he wanted Jones to set up the creditors' committee and conduct the first meeting of creditors due to the matter's likely publicity, and that Blackshear had told him his office was too busy to spare Jones. Jones himself testified that he was never requested by anyone, including Stanton, to go to Washington to work on the [[INSLAW]] case. The Special Counsel's investigation found no evidence to the contrary and concluded that the inference that Jones was to be used to file a baseless motion to convert was unreasonable, given Jones's reputation for integrity and expertise in bankruptcy matters.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ In October 2025 Lutnick told the [[New York Post]] that he and his wife, Allison
|
|||
|
||||
### The Correspondence After 2005
|
||||
|
||||
The released emails show Lutnick and Epstein arranging calls and planning drinks in 2011.[^1] On April 4, 2011, Epstein's assistant [[Lesley Groff]] told him, "Howard Lutnick returned your call." On April 27 she wrote that Lutnick "will come see you at 5pm on Sunday May 1st," and Epstein's calendar for May 1, 2011 reads "5:00 Drinks w/Howard Lutnick."[^4] On November 20, 2012, Groff wrote to Lutnick: "Jeffrey Epstein understands you will be down in St. Thomas some over the holidays," passing on Epstein's telephone numbers and naming as contacts the staff of his St. Thomas office, "FTC," the [[Financial Trust Company]]. Calendar alerts of December 20 and 21, 2012 read "can Howard Lutnick do lunch Sat or Sun on JE's island?" and "can Howard Lutnick do lunch on Sat. 22nd or Sun. 23rd?"[^5] In December 2012 Lutnick, his wife, and their four children planned a visit to Little St. James, and Lutnick was invited to lunch there on December 24, 2012; afterward Epstein's assistant wrote to Lutnick on Epstein's behalf, "it was nice seeing you."[^1]
|
||||
The released emails show Lutnick and Epstein arranging calls and planning drinks in 2011.[^1] On April 4, 2011, Epstein's assistant [[Lesley Groff]] told him, "Howard Lutnick returned your call." On April 27 she wrote that Lutnick "will come see you at 5pm on Sunday May 1st," and Epstein's calendar for May 1, 2011 reads "5:00 Drinks w/Howard Lutnick."[^4] On November 20, 2012, Groff wrote to Lutnick: "Jeffrey Epstein understands you will be down in [[St. Thomas]] some over the holidays," passing on Epstein's telephone numbers and naming as contacts the staff of his St. Thomas office, "FTC," the [[Financial Trust Company]]. Calendar alerts of December 20 and 21, 2012 read "can Howard Lutnick do lunch Sat or Sun on JE's island?" and "can Howard Lutnick do lunch on Sat. 22nd or Sun. 23rd?"[^5] In December 2012 Lutnick, his wife, and their four children planned a visit to Little St. James, and Lutnick was invited to lunch there on December 24, 2012; afterward Epstein's assistant wrote to Lutnick on Epstein's behalf, "it was nice seeing you."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
On December 28, 2012, four days after the lunch, Lutnick and Epstein each signed, on behalf of limited liability companies, a contract to acquire stakes in Adfin, an advertising-technology company since shut down. Epstein signed for [[Southern Trust Company]], Inc., the [[U.S. Virgin Islands]] entity through which he conducted much of his business; Lutnick signed for an LLC named CVAFH I. Their signatures appear on neighboring pages, and the document lists nine shareholders.[^1] A person close to Lutnick told CBS News that "Cantor was a small minority investor in Adfin" and that Lutnick "would not have any knowledge of who the other investors were."[^1] Adfin correspondence continued into 2014, when the shareholder David Mitchell wrote to Epstein about further fundraising involving Cantor Ventures.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
100
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Jay Lefkowitz.md
Normal file
100
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Jay Lefkowitz.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- JayLefkowitz
|
||||
- Lawyer
|
||||
- KirklandAndEllis
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
- NonProsecutionAgreement
|
||||
- GeorgeWBushAdministration
|
||||
- NorthKorea
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Jay P. Lefkowitz
|
||||
- Jay Lefkowitz
|
||||
- Lefkowitz
|
||||
summary: "Kirkland & Ellis litigation partner and veteran of both Bush White Houses who led Jeffrey Epstein's 2007 non-prosecution negotiations while serving as special envoy for human rights in North Korea."
|
||||
location: "New York, New York"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Kirkland & Ellis]]"
|
||||
role: "partner"
|
||||
end: 2026-03
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Domestic Policy Council]]"
|
||||
role: "deputy executive secretary, then director of cabinet affairs"
|
||||
start: 1991
|
||||
end: 1993
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Office of Management and Budget]]"
|
||||
role: "general counsel"
|
||||
start: 2001-03
|
||||
end: 2002-01
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: appointed
|
||||
with: "[[George W. Bush]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy"
|
||||
start: 2002-01-31
|
||||
end: 2003
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: appointed
|
||||
with: "[[George W. Bush]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea"
|
||||
start: 2005-08-19
|
||||
end: 2009-01
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
created: 2026-09-25
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-25
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Jay P. Lefkowitz is an American lawyer, a litigation partner at [[Kirkland & Ellis]] and a former official in the administrations of [[George H.W. Bush]] and [[George W. Bush]], who was the principal defense negotiator of the September 2007 [[Epstein non-prosecution agreement]] between [[Jeffrey Epstein]] and the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida]]. From August 2005 to January 2009 he was also the part-time Special Envoy for Human Rights in [[North Korea]], appointed by the second Bush. He retired from Kirkland in March 2026, saying that he would not have taken the Epstein matter "knowing what we all know now."[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Government Career
|
||||
|
||||
Lefkowitz took both his undergraduate degree in history and his law degree at [[Columbia University]]. From 1991 to 1993 he served in the [[White House]] under George H.W. Bush as deputy executive secretary of the [[Domestic Policy Council]] and then as director of cabinet affairs, and in 1990 he was a public member of the United States delegation to the [[United Nations Commission on Human Rights|United Nations Human Rights Commission]] in [[Geneva]]. Before joining the second Bush administration he was a partner in the Washington office of Kirkland & Ellis. He became general counsel of the [[Office of Management and Budget]] in March 2001, and on January 31, 2002 the White House announced his appointment as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, to "advise the President on a wide range of domestic policy issues and advise the domestic policy council."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
On August 19, 2005 President Bush appointed him Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea under the [[North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004]]. The [[State Department]]'s 2006 biography described him in that post as "also a senior partner at Kirkland & Ellis, LLP, where he serves clients in trial and appellate litigation," and noted his 2004 membership of the United States delegation to the [[Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe]] conference on anti-Semitism in [[Berlin]]. He filed his final report as envoy in January 2009. A 2013 Kirkland profile dated his government service as 2001 to 2003 in the White House and at the Office of Management and Budget and 2005 to 2009 as envoy, and described his 2011 Supreme Court victory for generic drug manufacturers in [[Pliva v. Mensing]].[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Entry into the Epstein Defense
|
||||
|
||||
Epstein's defense had been conducted since 2006 by [[Roy Black]], [[Alan Dershowitz]], [[Gerald Lefcourt]], [[Lilly Ann Sanchez]] and others. In early August 2007, immediately after the federal office presented a term sheet requiring a state guilty plea, jail time, sex offender registration and civil damages, Epstein added Lefkowitz and [[Kenneth Starr]], then of counsel to Kirkland & Ellis while dean of the [[Pepperdine University School of Law]]. U.S. Attorney [[Alexander Acosta]] had been an associate at Kirkland a decade earlier and had worked on at least one matter with each of them. On the evening of August 6, 2007, First Assistant U.S. Attorney [[Jeffrey Sloman]] emailed Acosta: "Just saw Menchel. I didn't know Kirkland made a call into you. You were right. Unbelievable." Acosta answered that the Kirkland lawyers "are likely to go to DC. We should strategize a bit. We are not changing positions, and that should be made clear."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Lefkowitz and Starr met Acosta, Sloman, the line prosecutor [[Ann Marie Villafana|A. Marie Villafaña]] and [[Drew Oosterbaan]], chief of the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s [[Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section]], on September 7, 2007, Acosta's first meeting with the defense. On September 12 Lefkowitz, Lefcourt and [[Jack Goldberger]] met federal prosecutors with State Attorney [[Barry Krischer]] and Assistant State Attorney [[Lanna Belohlavek]], a session at which, the Justice Department's [[Office of Professional Responsibility]] later found, "the USAO made additional concessions." On September 19 Villafaña forwarded to her supervisors a defense redline that restored provisions she had already rejected, writing: "This is NOT good faith negotiations."[^4][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The final terms were settled in email between Lefkowitz and Villafaña. On September 13 she wrote that she had been "spending some quality time with Title 18 looking for misdemeanors," and he answered that he was "[a]lready thinking about the same statutes." On September 20 an internal email reported that he wanted the registration requirement removed; on September 23 he wrote that the defense had agreed to plead to Florida Statute 796.03 on a "mistaken assumption," and Acosta told him to deal directly with [[Andrew Lourie]] and Villafaña. On September 24, as the agreement was executed, Lefkowitz wrote: "Please do whatever you can to keep this from becoming public." It was signed for the defense by Epstein, Sanchez and Lefcourt.[^5][^6][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### After the Signing
|
||||
|
||||
On October 10, 2007 Lefkowitz wrote to Acosta that "[n]either federal agents nor anyone from your Office should contact the identified individuals." Acosta met him for breakfast on October 12, and Lefkowitz's follow-up letter thanked him "for the commitment you made to me during our October 12 meeting in which you . . . assured me that your Office would not . . . contact any of the identified individuals, potential witnesses, or potential civil claimants." The Office of Professional Responsibility found no evidence that the breakfast "led to the NPA, which had been signed weeks earlier, or to any other significant decision that benefited Epstein." When Sloman moved in late November 2007 to notify victims under the [[Justice for All Act of 2004]], Lefkowitz objected on November 29 that victims should not be invited to the state sentencing or "encouraged to contact law enforcement officials."[^6][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
On December 11, 2007 Starr transmitted to Acosta two submissions written by Lefkowitz, one of them a 20-page attack on the "improper involvement" of federal authorities that accused Villafaña of "unprecedented federal overreaching" and of forcing a registrable plea. The same day the office answered Lefkowitz in a five-page letter issued over Acosta's name and written by the line prosecutor, who described herself as "a simple line AUSA" who had "handled the primary negotiations for the Office." It stated that she had continued to deal with him professionally "even after I learned that you had been proceeding in bad faith for several weeks," thinking she had wrongly treated solicitation of minors as registrable "and that you would 'fool' our Office into letting Mr. Epstein plead to a non-registrable offense," that "neither you nor your client ever intended to abide by the terms of the agreement that he signed," and that "you repeatedly went over my head, involving Messrs [redacted] and Acosta in the negotiations at various times." The letter stated that he and his co-counsel had contacted a federal judge in an attempt to "lobby" him over the choice of the victims' attorney representative, a selection the agreement reserved to the office.[^4][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
Starr and Lefkowitz sent Acosta a 110-page letter on December 17, 2007. On January 3, 2008 Acosta recorded a telephone statement from Lefkowitz: "I may have made a mistake 6 months ago. [Belohlavek] told us solicitation [is] not registrable. It turns out that the actual offense charged is." Through the spring Lefkowitz pressed the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, telling Oosterbaan its role should be "review only," and he and Starr then sought review by the [[Criminal Division]] and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. On June 23, 2008 Senior Associate Deputy Attorney General John Roth wrote to both men that intervention was not warranted and that "[e]ven if we were to substitute our judgment for that of the U.S. Attorney, we believe that federal prosecution of this case is appropriate." Epstein pleaded guilty in state court a week later.[^4][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
In late 2008, while considering employment at Kirkland & Ellis, Acosta stopped receiving email on the Epstein matter and obtained formal Department approval of his recusal because he had "begun to discuss possible employment" with the firm. On June 15, 2009, with Epstein on work release, Villafaña wrote to Lefkowitz, Black and Goldberger on the history of Epstein's performance under the agreement. In March 2011 the victims in [[Doe v. United States]], the [[Crime Victims' Rights Act]] case, moved to use the plea correspondence as evidence and to unseal it; on April 7, 2011 Lefkowitz, Black and [[Martin Weinberg]] moved to intervene in their own names, and Lefkowitz was admitted pro hac vice on April 18. Epstein moved for limited intervention on September 2, 2011.[^4][^7][^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Later Contacts
|
||||
|
||||
In March 2011 the general counsel of [[JPMorgan Chase|JPMorgan]]'s investment bank reported to the bank's general counsel, [[Stephen Cutler]], a conversation with Lefkowitz, who "represented Epstein in state plea/fed NPA process" and believed that "any pre-plea conduct is subsumed within plea/NPA." The exchange was entered in 2023 in the [[Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank|Virgin Islands' suit against JPMorgan]].[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
The Office of Professional Responsibility's November 2020 report found that Epstein had hired Starr and Lefkowitz "when Epstein was seeking Acosta's personal involvement in the case," attorneys "with whom Acosta was acquainted from his previous employment with that firm," and concluded that the evidence did not establish that Acosta extended any improper benefit because of those relationships. Villafaña told the office that "the ability of Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr and Jay Lefkowitz to convince Alex Acosta that I didn't know what I was talking [about] also, all came into play."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
On his retirement from Kirkland in March 2026 after three decades at the firm, Lefkowitz said: "Although I believe everyone is entitled to representation no matter how heinous their crimes, knowing what we all know now, I would not have taken on the Epstein matter." A Kirkland spokesperson said: "To say the least, we deeply regret the firm's 2007 representation of Jeffrey Epstein."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: The White House (George W. Bush archives), "Personnel Announcement," January 31, 2002. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020131-10.html ; Kirkland & Ellis LLP, "Q&A With Kirkland's Jay Lefkowitz" (Law360), February 27, 2013. https://www.kirkland.com/news/in-the-news/2013/02/qa-with-kirklands-jay-lefkowitz
|
||||
[^2]: U.S. Department of State, "Jay Lefkowitz, Special Envoy, Human Rights in North Korea," biography, released May 25, 2006 (term of appointment from August 19, 2005). https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/66929.htm ; "Final Report of Jay Lefkowitz, U.S. Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea," January 2009. https://2009-2017.state.gov/s/senk/115268.htm
|
||||
[^3]: "Jeffrey Epstein's Disgraced Lawyer Jay Lefkowitz Who Secured Sweetheart Deal Leaves Firm," *The Daily Beast,* March 2026, quoting Lefkowitz's retirement statement and a Kirkland & Ellis spokesperson. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epsteins-disgraced-lawyer-jay-lefkowitz-who-secured-sweetheart-deal-leaves-firm/
|
||||
[^4]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284, Prior DOJ Disclosures, Office of Professional Responsibility, report, "Investigation into the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida's Resolution of Its 2006-2008 Federal Criminal Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and Its Interactions with Victims during the Investigation," November 2020, pp. 9, 59, 62-64, 76, 97-99, 101, 105, 109-110, 150-152. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Prior%20DOJ%20Disclosures/Memos.%20&%20Correspondence/EFTA02847284.pdf
|
||||
[^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00224943, DataSet 9, "Epstein Investigation Timeline," Exhibit A-1, privileged chronology of the federal investigation, pp. 12 to 14, 19 to 20, 24 to 29. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00224943.pdf
|
||||
[^6]: Opinion and Order, *Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 v. United States*, No. 9:08-cv-80736-KAM (S.D. Fla. Feb. 21, 2019), ECF No. 435 (Marra, J.), reported at 359 F. Supp. 3d 1201, quoting ECF No. 407 at paragraphs 33, 37, 52, 61, 63, 82. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.317867/gov.uscourts.flsd.317867.435.0.pdf
|
||||
[^7]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00224943, DataSet 9, "Epstein Investigation Timeline," Exhibit A-1, pp. 34 to 38, 45 to 51. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00224943.pdf ; U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284 (note 4), p. 85 (signatories of the agreement).
|
||||
[^8]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, Executive Summary of the November 2020 report, pp. i-xi. https://www.justice.gov/opr/page/file/1336471/dl
|
||||
[^9]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00013538, DataSet 8, letter, U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida to Jay P. Lefkowitz, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, "Re: Jeffrey Epstein," December 11, 2007, EFTA00013538 to EFTA00013542, signed over the block "R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney, By:" with Acosta copied, and written in the first person by the line Assistant U.S. Attorney. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%208/EFTA00013538.pdf
|
||||
[^10]: Docket, *Doe v. United States*, No. 9:08-cv-80736-KAM (S.D. Fla.), ECF Nos. 48, 51, 56, 68, 70, 93 (March to September 2011), CourtListener. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4502088/doe-v-united-states/
|
||||
[^11]: Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 1:22-cv-10904-JSR (S.D.N.Y.), Plaintiff's Statement of Material Facts, ECF No. 221 (filed July 24, 2023), paras. 123-124, 374. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.591653/gov.uscourts.nysd.591653.221.0.pdf
|
||||
|
|
@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ John F. Kennedy was the 35th President of the [[United States]], serving from 19
|
|||
|
||||
Kennedy's presidency was marked by a struggle with [[Israel]] over its nuclear ambitions, particularly concerning the [[Dimona]] reactor. He established himself as firmly opposed to the Israeli bomb, and his administration insisted on American inspection teams being permitted full and unfettered access to [[Dimona]]. This stance was met with resistance from [[David Ben-Gurion]] and [[Shimon Peres]], who sought to protect the secret.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Kennedy continued to pressure [[David Ben-Gurion]] throughout 1962 about international inspection, receiving bland and irritating assurances that [[Israel]] had no intention of becoming an atomic power. He angrily told his friend [[Charles L. Bartlett]] that the Israelis "lie to me constantly about their nuclear capability." In what amounted to a direct move against Ben-Gurion's leadership, Kennedy invited Foreign Minister [[Golda Meir]], one of Ben-Gurion's leading critics, to his Palm Beach, Florida, home for a private talk in late December 1962. During this meeting, Kennedy made an extraordinary private commitment to [[Israel]]'s defense, stating that in case of an invasion, the [[United States]] would come to [[Israel]]'s support.[^2]
|
||||
Kennedy continued to pressure [[David Ben-Gurion]] throughout 1962 about international inspection, receiving bland and irritating assurances that [[Israel]] had no intention of becoming an atomic power. He angrily told his friend [[Charles L. Bartlett]] that the Israelis "lie to me constantly about their nuclear capability." In what amounted to a direct move against Ben-Gurion's leadership, Kennedy invited Foreign Minister [[Golda Meir]], one of Ben-Gurion's leading critics, to his [[Palm Beach, Florida]], home for a private talk in late December 1962. During this meeting, Kennedy made an extraordinary private commitment to [[Israel]]'s defense, stating that in case of an invasion, the [[United States]] would come to [[Israel]]'s support.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Despite his tough stance, Kennedy's political needs, particularly the significant Jewish vote that contributed to his narrow victory in 1960, complicated his approach to Israeli issues. He appointed [[Myer Feldman]] as his presidential point man for Jewish and Israeli affairs, a position that created bureaucratic chaos due to Feldman's strong pro-Israel bias.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ Epstein's donations to the Media Lab were directed through intermediaries and th
|
|||
|
||||
### The Resignation and the Aftermath
|
||||
|
||||
Ito resigned from the MIT Media Lab on September 7, 2019, one day after the *New Yorker* reporting. MIT initiated an independent investigation conducted by the law firm [[Goodwin Procter|Goodwin Procter]], which produced a report documenting the extent of the Media Lab's Epstein relationship and the institutional failures that permitted it. The Goodwin Procter investigation found that Epstein made ten donations to MIT totaling 850,000 dollars between 2002 and 2017, nine of them, 750,000 dollars, after his 2008 conviction and 525,000 dollars of those to the Media Lab; that the post-conviction gifts were driven by Ito or by Professor Seth Lloyd; that three members of MIT's senior team approved them in 2013 knowing of Epstein's record; and that President L. Rafael Reif "was not contemporaneously aware of Epstein's donations."[^4]
|
||||
Ito resigned from the MIT Media Lab on September 7, 2019, one day after the *New Yorker* reporting. MIT initiated an independent investigation conducted by the law firm [[Goodwin Procter|Goodwin Procter]], which produced a report documenting the extent of the Media Lab's Epstein relationship and the institutional failures that permitted it. The Goodwin Procter investigation found that Epstein made ten donations to MIT totaling 850,000 dollars between 2002 and 2017, nine of them, 750,000 dollars, after his 2008 conviction and 525,000 dollars of those to the Media Lab; that the post-conviction gifts were driven by Ito or by [[Seth Lloyd|Professor Seth Lloyd]]; that three members of MIT's senior team approved them in 2013 knowing of Epstein's record; and that President L. Rafael Reif "was not contemporaneously aware of Epstein's donations."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Ito also resigned from positions at the [[John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation|MacArthur Foundation]], the [[John S. and James L. Knight Foundation|Knight Foundation]], the [[Knight-Hennessy Scholars|Knight-Hennessy Scholars]] program, and the [[New York Times Company|New York Times Company]] board. The MIT Media Lab subsequently reformed its donor-acceptance policies to prohibit anonymous donations and to require enhanced due diligence on donors with criminal records.[^1][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
95
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Kenneth Mapp.md
Normal file
95
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Kenneth Mapp.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,95 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Political Figure"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- KennethMapp
|
||||
- VirginIslands
|
||||
- Governor
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
- CampaignFinance
|
||||
- GovernmentCapture
|
||||
- GreatStJames
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Ken Mapp
|
||||
- Kenneth E. Mapp
|
||||
- Governor Kenneth Mapp
|
||||
- Gov. Kenneth Mapp
|
||||
- Kenn Mapp
|
||||
summary: "Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands from 2015 to 2019, who asked Jeffrey Epstein to lend the territory 275 million dollars and to fund his political action committee."
|
||||
born: 1955-11-02
|
||||
location: "U.S. Virgin Islands"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Legislature of the Virgin Islands]]"
|
||||
role: "senator, three terms"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Industrial Development Commission]]"
|
||||
role: "assistant director"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Virgin Islands Public Finance Authority]]"
|
||||
start: 2002
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Jeffrey Epstein]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2014-12
|
||||
role: "10,000 dollars from Southern Trust Company to the Mapp-Potter inaugural committee"
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
created: 2026-09-25
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-25
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Kenneth E. Mapp (born November 2, 1955, in [[New York]]) is a [[U.S. Virgin Islands]] politician who was governor of the territory from January 5, 2015 to January 7, 2019, between [[John de Jongh]] and [[Albert Bryan]]. He governed while [[Jeffrey Epstein]], a registered sex offender in the territory, bought and built on [[Great St. James]], and [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] releases in 2026 showed years of direct correspondence between the two, including a 2016 request that Epstein lend the territorial government 275 million dollars and a 2018 request for 50,000 dollars for his political action committee. Deposed in 2023 in the territory's suit against [[JPMorgan Chase]], Mapp, like the other officials deposed, said he had no knowledge of Epstein's crimes. A federal trafficking suit naming him was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction in 2025.[^1][^2][^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Career
|
||||
|
||||
Mapp began as a police officer in New York and in the Virgin Islands. He was elected to three terms as a senator in the [[Legislature of the Virgin Islands]], and served as assistant director of the [[Industrial Development Commission]], the body that preceded the [[Economic Development Commission]] as the territory's tax-incentive board and that granted Epstein's [[Financial Trust Company]] its first certificate in 1999, and as director of the Consumer Services Administration. He was lieutenant governor from 1995 to 1999, under Governor [[Roy Schneider]]. In 2002 he was appointed director of the [[Virgin Islands Public Finance Authority]], the territory's borrowing agency.[^1][^5] He holds a master's degree in public administration from the [[Harvard Kennedy School|John F. Kennedy School of Government]] at [[Harvard University]] and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. The [[National Governors Association]] lists him as an independent.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
De Jongh defeated Mapp in the 2010 gubernatorial election, and Mapp won the governorship in 2014. In August 2015 his administration's acting Attorney General, [[Claude Walker]], had de Jongh arrested on embezzlement charges over roughly 490,000 dollars in public highway funds spent on security at de Jongh's private house; de Jongh's lawyers called the case "a politically-driven, poorly conceived vendetta initiated by the current governor," and the charges were dismissed with prejudice in January 2016 after de Jongh paid 380,000 dollars. Bryan defeated Mapp in a November 2018 runoff.[^3][^6][^7][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Arrangements Through Cecile de Jongh
|
||||
|
||||
Epstein's contacts with Mapp were first arranged by [[Cecile de Jongh]], the wife of Governor de Jongh and the office manager of Epstein's territorial companies. On October 16, 2014 she wrote to Epstein that "Kenn Mapp and Celestino White would like to see you," referring to the former senator and police chief [[Celestino White]], who had signed a contractor's and confidentiality agreement with Epstein in August 2013 for 10,000 dollars. After the election she wrote, "Mapp won in a landslide. Congrats," and White offered to obtain tickets for Epstein to the inaugural events. In December 2014 she asked Epstein "to confirm that you want to donate $10,000 to the Mapp-Potter inaugural committee and that it should come from Southern Trust," a payment the consultant [[Carlyn Irwin]], retained by JPMorgan Chase, later reported as made through [[Southern Trust Company]].[^3][^9][^10]
|
||||
|
||||
In March 2015 Cecile de Jongh prepared Epstein for a meeting with White and Mapp: "I understand that Mapp has about $60K in campaign debt to retire and it would be illegal for him to discuss anything having to do at GH," meaning Government House. "I don't think he will or at least I hope not but I just wanted you to know." She added: "When you get to Government House, there is a sign in book for visitors at the entrance. I have asked Celestino to arrange to have you not sign in and he said that he would take care of it." The same month she informed Epstein that Mapp was interested in repurposing the former [[HOVENSA]] refinery on [[St. Croix]], writing that the [[Department of Defense]] was "sending a team to St. Croix within the month to make a full assessment of the HOVENSA facility for use as a replacement for the prison at Guantanamo, or other military use in light of the proposed closing of GTMO."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Money and Advice
|
||||
|
||||
In his May 2023 deposition in the territory's suit against JPMorgan Chase, Mapp testified that he had lunch on Epstein's island between 2015 and 2019, likely in 2016, to seek his advice on the territory's effort to raise more than 200 million dollars in municipal bonds amid uncertainty over [[Puerto Rico|Puerto Rico's]] debt crisis and the federal PROMESA legislation, and that he sought similar advice from other financial contacts. Released emails schedule lunches and brunches at Epstein's properties and at Government House, one of them for "Gov Mapp for brunch."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
In July 2016 Mapp emailed Epstein: "Good afternoon; question. Would you be open to/interested in lending the GVI $275M at 4.75-5.25%, pledged revenues as security over a 20 year term?" Epstein answered, "I may be back in territory next week. Let's discuss. How taxed? Sinking funds? Other collateral, ? Land, ? Use of funds?" After further texts Mapp wrote: "Coffee, maybe subject to your EDC certificate. If we did a pvt placement bond, a greater portion would be triple tax exempt." A month later Epstein's assistant sent him a reminder to "Buy coffee set for Gov. Mapp." On September 1, 2016 Epstein told Cecile de Jongh to "prepare a check for mapps super pac. For 75k." The day before his 2017 State of the Territory address Mapp sought Epstein's advice on the speech, and Epstein replied that he had "made some general edits to give you a flavor . not to be your speechwriter :)." Released texts also show Mapp fundraising from Epstein for the Queen Louise Home for Children on St. Croix, thanking him for donations, reporting a public presentation totaling 140,500 dollars, and later acknowledging an additional 20,000 dollar contribution.[^2][^3][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
In October 2018, facing a runoff, Mapp asked Epstein "to help me with one last push to stay ahead" and wrote, "Can u donate 50k to the PAC? I need to bring more expertise on messaging." He told Epstein he had hired "a political mercenary." It is not shown in the released material whether Epstein paid. After Bryan's victory Epstein wrote, "Let's talk about what you do next. Shame," and Mapp thanked him "for your tremendous help and support" and "our work on a number of issues." In his deposition Mapp said he believed Epstein had donated to his inaugural committee and had no reason to dispute records showing 10,000 dollars, though he had not known the amount at the time.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Great St. James and the Planning Department
|
||||
|
||||
Epstein bought Great St. James in January 2016 and pressed Mapp and the Commissioner of Planning and Natural Resources, [[Dawn Henry]], over permit delays and fines for unpermitted construction. In October 2016 three inspectors of the [[Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources|Department of Planning and Natural Resources]], among them the Coastal Zone Management director [[Jean-Pierre Oriol]], visited the island, and the department issued a cease-and-desist order on October 28, 2016. In the text exchange that followed, Epstein told Mapp that the election of [[Donald Trump]] "means many opportunities" and that he was "Seeing trump (sic) people today," that he had "left you out of the dpnr issues as you requested," and that he would "prefer not to go to court to enforce reasonableness."[^3][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
On November 14, 2016 Mapp wrote that he was "a bit disappointed" to learn that Epstein had poured concrete for a helipad and made other unpermitted changes after "you solicited my help to move DPNR along," and accused him of attempting "an end run around the VI code." Epstein answered that "there is another side to the story" and "I will not disappoint you." Mapp replied, "I do want to work with you. Being open and honest on both sides will make this very productive," and later that he would "convene a meeting with all concerned to bring this matter to finality. I certainly can't regulate the territory's environmental issues by text." He added: "Frankly, I can't do this over and over and over again. I really wanna work on some more pressing issues during my tenure. The economy, health care, public safety finding a strategy to work with the new president. I'm sure you understand." Epstein wrote back, "Me too," and that "with regard Donald" they would "talk face to face," and on November 16, 2016 asked whether Mapp wanted to discuss "trump (sic) priorities? I think he would like your guantamo (sic) proposal."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Pressed again for a meeting date, Mapp wrote: "What is wrong with you? I told you I would do that and in your mind you expect that to happen in 24 hours? Maybe my efforts to assist and resolve this matter is for naught. Or maybe my duties only require me to attend to your issues. I cannot understand your impatience or unreasonable expectations. WOW!" Epstein replied that it was "not urgent at all," and the correspondence continued. In March 2017 Epstein's attorney [[Erika Kellerhals]] drafted a lawsuit against the government alleging "unauthorized entry," and the dispute was settled with the original 280,000 dollar fine reduced to 160,000 dollars. The Coastal Zone Management program issued a stop-work order on the island on December 21, 2018, in the final weeks of Mapp's term.[^3][^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Litigation
|
||||
|
||||
On November 22, 2023 six women identified as Jane Does sued the [[Government of the United States Virgin Islands]], John and Cecile de Jongh, Mapp, the former Attorney General [[Vincent Frazer]], White, the former senator [[Carlton Dowe]], and Delegate [[Stacey Plaskett]] in the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York]], alleging under the [[Trafficking Victims Protection Act]] and New York law that the defendants made the territory a "safe haven" for Epstein. The second amended complaint alleged, among other things, that defendants had labeled Epstein a Tier 1 sex offender when he should have been Tier 2, modified sex-trafficking laws, and received rewards including "a $50 million loan, payment of financial obligations, campaign donations, and monthly retainer fees." On March 21, 2025 Judge [[Arun Subramanian]] dismissed all claims against Mapp and every other defendant except Plaskett, holding that receiving money from Epstein's New York bank accounts and communicating with him about it did not amount to transacting business in New York. The claims against Plaskett were dismissed with prejudice by stipulation on September 23, 2025, and final judgment was entered on May 5, 2026.[^4][^13]
|
||||
|
||||
Mapp was among the officials deposed in the territory's suit against JPMorgan Chase, with Bryan, John and Cecile de Jongh, Frazer, [[Carol Thomas-Jacobs]] and Plaskett, who each said they had no knowledge of Epstein's crimes.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: National Governors Association, "Gov. Kenneth Mapp," former Virgin Islands governors (terms January 5, 2015 to January 7, 2019; born November 2, 1955, New York; career). https://www.nga.org/governor/kenneth-mapp/
|
||||
[^2]: "Former Gov. Kenneth Mapp Visited Epstein's Island, Sought $50,000 for Final Election Push, DOJ Records Show." *The Virgin Islands Consortium,* January 31, 2026. https://viconsortium.com/vi-federal/virgin-islands-former-gov--kenneth-mapp-visited-epstein-s-island--sought--50-000-for--final-push---doj-records-show
|
||||
[^3]: Carlson, Suzanne. "Files reveal Epstein's efforts to influence V.I. officials; emails with Mapp." *Virgin Islands Daily News,* February 2, 2026. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/files-reveal-epstein-s-efforts-to-influence-v-i-officials-emails-with-mapp/article_2dd4fe69-4daf-4dc2-b3b8-37a929002bb6.html
|
||||
[^4]: Doe 1 v. Government of the United States Virgin Islands, No. 1:23-cv-10301-AS (S.D.N.Y.), Opinion and Order, ECF No. 202 (March 21, 2025), pp. 1 to 2, 7 to 8, 16 to 17. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.610915/gov.uscourts.nysd.610915.202.0.pdf
|
||||
[^5]: Carlson, Suzanne. "Epstein estate could be ordered to repay more than $144 million in tax breaks." *Virgin Islands Daily News,* February 13, 2020. http://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/epstein-estate-could-be-ordered-to-repay-more-than-144-million-in-tax-breaks/article_b84d9710-14af-5e69-a890-bcf8265cf8f9.html (1999 Financial Trust certificate issued by the Industrial Development Commission, predecessor of the Economic Development Authority).
|
||||
[^6]: "Governor John P. de Jongh Arrested By DOJ Officials." *The Virgin Islands Consortium,* August 18, 2015. https://viconsortium.com/vi-world/governor-john-p-de-jongh-arrested-being-processed-at-district-court (archived at https://wp.viconsortium.com/?p=27084).
|
||||
[^7]: "De Jongh Attorneys Slam Mapp And Walker; Call Case Against Former Governor Sham, Disgrace And Poltically-Driven." *The Virgin Islands Consortium,* November 4, 2015. https://viconsortium.com/vi-government/de-jongh-attorneys-slam-mapp-administration-says-case-against-former-governor-is-sham-disgrace-and-poltically-driven (archived at https://wp.viconsortium.com/?p=30871).
|
||||
[^8]: "DOJ Drops Charges Against Former Governor De Jongh After $380,000 Settlement." *The Virgin Islands Consortium,* January 22, 2016. https://viconsortium.com/vi-vic_news/doj-drops-charges-against-former-governor-de-jongh-with-prejudice-after-380000-settlement (archived at https://wp.viconsortium.com/?p=33926).
|
||||
[^9]: Carlson, Suzanne. "Court filings show V.I. First Lady's loyalty to Epstein." *Virgin Islands Daily News,* June 21, 2023. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/court-filings-show-v-i-first-ladys-loyalty-to-epstein/article_c2dca0a7-a243-5365-88c0-389c576ad022.html (Mapp and White meeting, Mapp-Potter inaugural committee and Mapp super PAC requests).
|
||||
[^10]: Carlson, Suzanne. "Docs confirm Bryan pressed for special treatment of sex offender." *Virgin Islands Daily News,* February 2, 2026. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/docs-confirm-bryan-pressed-for-special-treatment-of-sex-offender/article_5e9483c9-38d2-406c-8bb0-e5757ce287f2.html (Carlyn Irwin report: 10,000 dollar donation to the Mapp-Potter inaugural committee).
|
||||
[^11]: "DPNR Orders Cease and Desist for Unauthorized Development on Great St. James." *St. Thomas Source,* November 1, 2016. https://stthomassource.com/content/2016/11/01/dpnr-orders-cease-and-desist-for-unauthorized-development-on-great-st-james/
|
||||
[^12]: "DPNR planning visit to Epstein's island." *Virgin Islands Daily News,* 2019. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/dpnr-planning-visit-to-epstein-s-island/ (December 21, 2018 stop-work order).
|
||||
[^13]: Doe 1 v. Government of the United States Virgin Islands, No. 1:23-cv-10301-AS (S.D.N.Y.), docket, including Stipulation and Order of Dismissal, ECF No. 224 (September 23, 2025), and Judgment, ECF No. 229 (May 5, 2026). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68031620/doe-1-v-government-of-the-united-states-virgin-islands/
|
||||
|
|
@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ In a 2011 ruling Marra held that rights under the Act attach before the governme
|
|||
|
||||
On February 21, 2019 he granted partial summary judgment for the petitioners. He wrote that "[p]articularly problematic was the Government's decision to conceal the existence of the NPA and mislead the victims to believe that federal prosecution was still a possibility," that "[w]hile the Government spent untold hours negotiating the terms and implications of the NPA with Epstein's attorneys, scant information was shared with victims," and that "[t]he Court is not ruling that the decision not to prosecute was improper." He rejected the government's argument that a 2015 amendment had excluded non-prosecution agreements from victims' rights, reasoning that "[o]nce a NPA is entered into without notice, the matter is closed and the victims have no opportunity to be heard regarding any aspect of the case."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
After Epstein's death, Marra closed the case on September 16, 2019, denying the victims' requests to rescind the agreement, to compel a meeting with former U.S. Attorney [[Alexander Acosta]], to obtain grand jury and internal documents, and to impose sanctions or damages. He wrote that "[t]he Court has no jurisdiction over Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. Attorney, who is now a private citizen," and that "despite Petitioners having demonstrated the Government violated their rights under the CVRA, in the end they are not receiving much, if any, of the relief they sought." He said the rulings "likely played some role, however small it may have been, in the initiation of criminal charges against Mr. Epstein in the Southern District of New York." He also ordered unsealed the remedies briefing that had been filed under seal in December 2011.[^7]
|
||||
After Epstein's death, Marra closed the case on September 16, 2019, denying the victims' requests to rescind the agreement, to compel a meeting with former U.S. Attorney [[Alexander Acosta]], to obtain grand jury and internal documents, and to impose sanctions or damages. He wrote that "[t]he Court has no jurisdiction over Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. Attorney, who is now a private citizen," and that "despite Petitioners having demonstrated the Government violated their rights under the CVRA, in the end they are not receiving much, if any, of the relief they sought." He said the rulings "likely played some role, however small it may have been, in the initiation of criminal charges against Mr. Epstein in the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]]." He also ordered unsealed the remedies briefing that had been filed under seal in December 2011.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Chiquita Litigation
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -72,7 +72,7 @@ Krauss rose to prominence in the 1990s through popular books and lectures on phy
|
|||
|
||||
In March 2006 Krauss convened "[[Confronting Gravity]]," a conference of about twenty physicists in [[Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands|St. Thomas]] funded by Epstein's foundation. Krauss had pitched it as "a small and rather exclusive workshop" with all expenses paid, naming as invitees [[Stephen Hawking]], the 2004 Nobel laureates [[David Gross]] and [[Frank Wilczek]], the 1999 laureate [[Gerard 't Hooft]] and [[Kip Thorne]]. "To get good people, you've got to have a hook," Krauss said in 2026. The announcement promised time to "relax on the beach, and take a trip to the nearby private island retreat of the science philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein." Epstein told the *St. Thomas Source* that "there is no agenda except fun and physics, and that's fun with a capital 'F.'" The physicists stayed at the Ritz-Carlton, and the program ended with a submarine dive for Hawking and a boat trip to a barbecue on [[Little St. James]], where a guide told them, "Don't go wandering off into the island."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Alan Guth]] of MIT recalled that "we probably never saw him without three or four young women." [[Jim Peebles]] recalled five to ten young women at a coffee break: "I can only tell you they were younger than the youngest women in our meeting. . . . Were they 15 or 30? I have no idea." Krauss told NPR the young women were Hawking's nurses. Palm Beach police were then completing their investigation of Epstein, who was indicted four months later. In a 2017 text Epstein wrote that when Hawking "came to my island. and said his dream was to go diving . . . i [duct-taped] his head to a high back chair and loaded him in a private sub, great fun," and he later listed the conference among his top five professional achievements. In 2012 someone whose name is redacted told Epstein they were "rehas[h]ing an article . . . on the gravity conference," and a press release on the six-year-old event followed the next month.[^1]
|
||||
[[Alan Guth]] of MIT recalled that "we probably never saw him without three or four young women." [[Jim Peebles]] recalled five to ten young women at a coffee break: "I can only tell you they were younger than the youngest women in our meeting. . . . Were they 15 or 30? I have no idea." Krauss told NPR the young women were Hawking's nurses. [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]] police were then completing their investigation of Epstein, who was indicted four months later. In a 2017 text Epstein wrote that when Hawking "came to my island. and said his dream was to go diving . . . i [duct-taped] his head to a high back chair and loaded him in a private sub, great fun," and he later listed the conference among his top five professional achievements. In 2012 someone whose name is redacted told Epstein they were "rehas[h]ing an article . . . on the gravity conference," and a press release on the six-year-old event followed the next month.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
't Hooft told *[[BuzzFeed News]]* he had had no contact with Epstein since 2006; Wilczek said, "I did not receive financial support from Mr. Epstein. I did attend conferences and events which he financed in part." Epstein foundation websites nonetheless listed Wilczek as a funding recipient, and MIT's investigators found no such donation.[^6][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ relations:
|
|||
fn: 1
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 to January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] who co-founded the [[MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory]] and was a central figure in the founding of [[artificial intelligence]] as a field. He received funding from [[Jeffrey Epstein]] and organized a 2002 conference financed by Epstein in the U.S. Virgin Islands; in 2019 an unsealed deposition by [[Virginia Giuffre]] named Minsky, an allegation his widow [[Gloria Rudisch]] disputed.[^1][^2]
|
||||
Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 to January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] who co-founded the [[MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory]] and was a central figure in the founding of [[artificial intelligence]] as a field. He received funding from [[Jeffrey Epstein]] and organized a 2002 conference financed by Epstein in the [[U.S. Virgin Islands]]; in 2019 an unsealed deposition by [[Virginia Giuffre]] named Minsky, an allegation his widow [[Gloria Rudisch]] disputed.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### MIT and the Founding of Artificial Intelligence
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -45,13 +45,13 @@ Epstein donated $100,000 to Minsky in 2002, several years before Epstein's 2008
|
|||
|
||||
After Minsky's death in 2016, Negroponte and Ito discussed whether Epstein could attend an on-campus memorial; Negroponte said Epstein would be welcome, but Ito instructed Epstein to stay away from the memorial and an associated reception. A Media Lab staff member later circulated memorial photographs with a note asking that they be posted only "as long as Jeffrey Epstein does not appear in any of the photos."[^2][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
In April 2002 Minsky organized a three-day artificial-intelligence meeting, the St. Thomas Common Sense Symposium, held April 14 to 16, 2002, on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands and funded by Epstein. The proceedings were published by Minsky, [[Push Singh]], and [[Aaron Sloman]] as "The St. Thomas Common Sense Symposium: Designing Architectures for Human-Level Intelligence" in *AI Magazine* in 2004. Around twenty scientists attended, most of them men, including [[Roger Schank]], [[Doug Lenat]], [[Ken Forbus]], [[Henry Lieberman]], [[Vernor Vinge]], and [[Linda Stone]]. Schank later recalled that Epstein "walks into the conference with two girls on his arm" and sat "in the back, on a couch, hugging and kissing these girls." Epstein separately funded "Confronting Gravity," a March 2006 physics conference at the Ritz-Carlton in St. Thomas convened by [[Lawrence Krauss]], which drew physicists including [[Stephen Hawking]] and ended with a barbecue on Epstein's island, [[Little St. James]].[^6][^7][^8]
|
||||
In April 2002 Minsky organized a three-day artificial-intelligence meeting, the St. Thomas Common Sense Symposium, held April 14 to 16, 2002, on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands and funded by Epstein. The proceedings were published by Minsky, [[Push Singh]], and [[Aaron Sloman]] as "The St. Thomas Common Sense Symposium: Designing Architectures for Human-Level Intelligence" in *AI Magazine* in 2004. Around twenty scientists attended, most of them men, including [[Roger Schank]], [[Doug Lenat]], [[Ken Forbus]], [[Henry Lieberman]], [[Vernor Vinge]], and [[Linda Stone]]. Schank later recalled that Epstein "walks into the conference with two girls on his arm" and sat "in the back, on a couch, hugging and kissing these girls." Epstein separately funded "Confronting Gravity," a March 2006 physics conference at the Ritz-Carlton in [[St. Thomas]] convened by [[Lawrence Krauss]], which drew physicists including [[Stephen Hawking]] and ended with a barbecue on Epstein's island, [[Little St. James]].[^6][^7][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Giuffre Allegation and the Dispute
|
||||
|
||||
In a deposition given on May 3, 2016 in her defamation suit against [[Ghislaine Maxwell]], and unsealed in stages from August 2019, Virginia Giuffre testified that she was directed to have sex with Minsky when he visited Epstein's compound in the U.S. Virgin Islands, when she was seventeen and Minsky was in his seventies. Giuffre's claim named Minsky among several prominent men she said she was instructed to have sexual contact with. Minsky, who had died in January 2016, never had an opportunity to respond.[^1][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
The transcript pages filed in December 2022 record Maxwell's counsel, [[Laura Menninger]], summarizing Giuffre's testimony and asking, with Giuffre's lawyer [[Bradley Edwards]] objecting to the form: "another prince, the large hotel chain owner and Marvin Minsky, is there anyone else that Ghislaine Maxwell directed you to go have sex with?" Giuffre answered: "I am definitely sure there is. But can I remember everybody's name? No." Under further questioning she said she had kept notes of the men's names, begun around 2011 or 2012 and not at her lawyers' instruction, and had burned them "in a bonfire when I lived at Titusville." A separate witness testified in the same litigation that Minsky and Giuffre were both passengers on a March 2001 flight from Teterboro to Santa Fe and Palm Beach with Epstein, Maxwell, the chef [[Adam Perry Lang]] and the shipping heir [[Henry Jarecki]], when Giuffre was seventeen and Minsky seventy-three.[^10][^11]
|
||||
The transcript pages filed in December 2022 record Maxwell's counsel, [[Laura Menninger]], summarizing Giuffre's testimony and asking, with Giuffre's lawyer [[Bradley Edwards]] objecting to the form: "another prince, the large hotel chain owner and Marvin Minsky, is there anyone else that Ghislaine Maxwell directed you to go have sex with?" Giuffre answered: "I am definitely sure there is. But can I remember everybody's name? No." Under further questioning she said she had kept notes of the men's names, begun around 2011 or 2012 and not at her lawyers' instruction, and had burned them "in a bonfire when I lived at Titusville." A separate witness testified in the same litigation that Minsky and Giuffre were both passengers on a March 2001 flight from Teterboro to Santa Fe and [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]] with Epstein, Maxwell, the chef [[Adam Perry Lang]] and the shipping heir [[Henry Jarecki]], when Giuffre was seventeen and Minsky seventy-three.[^10][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
Minsky's widow, the pediatrician Gloria Rudisch, disputed the allegation, telling the *[[New York Post]]* that she and her husband "were always together" when visiting Epstein. Minsky was never charged. The accusation of sexual contact rests on Giuffre's testimony; the flight testimony places the two on the same aircraft. In a 2015 deposition [[Alan Dershowitz]] said the young women around Epstein "were seen by [[Larry Summers]], they were seen by [George] Church, they were seen by Marvin Minsky," and that "there was no hint or suggestion of anything sexual or improper."[^11][^12]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ The 2019 MIT review and records reported in 2025 and 2026 indicated that Minsky
|
|||
|
||||
### The 2011 Conference and the Websites
|
||||
|
||||
The 2002 gift was the only Epstein donation MIT recorded for Minsky, and it was the one Epstein gift MIT did not reclassify as anonymous in 2013. Epstein's support continued outside MIT's books. Justice Department files show that he funded a second Minsky conference in 2011, addressing "future disasters that may arise in the face of growing populations, new technologies and new social network systems"; a 2012 Epstein foundation press release placed it on Epstein's island in December 2011. From at least August 2014 the website jeffreyepstein.net stated that "Jeffrey Epstein AI sponsors many leading scientists at the forefront of AI research, including Marvin Minsky and Seth Lloyd at MIT," and another page claimed support for "Marvin Minsky and MIT's AI and Media Labs." In a 2017 text message Epstein wrote: "I funded the father of AI marvin minsky for 20 years. I know the subject well."[^8][^11][^13]
|
||||
The 2002 gift was the only Epstein donation MIT recorded for Minsky, and it was the one Epstein gift MIT did not reclassify as anonymous in 2013. Epstein's support continued outside MIT's books. Justice Department files show that he funded a second Minsky conference in 2011, addressing "future disasters that may arise in the face of growing populations, new technologies and new social network systems"; a 2012 Epstein foundation press release placed it on Epstein's island in December 2011. From at least August 2014 the website jeffreyepstein.net stated that "Jeffrey Epstein AI sponsors many leading scientists at the forefront of AI research, including Marvin Minsky and [[Seth Lloyd]] at MIT," and another page claimed support for "Marvin Minsky and MIT's AI and Media Labs." In a 2017 text message Epstein wrote: "I funded the father of AI marvin minsky for 20 years. I know the subject well."[^8][^11][^13]
|
||||
|
||||
When Epstein asked in February 2016 whether he could attend Minsky's memorial, Joi Ito offered two options: "get in a private room at the Lab where he can 'hold court' and people . . . could see him out of the public eye," or "let him participate since we have a good story around it. BTW, will press be at the event?" Nicholas Negroponte answered, "Of course he can come and would be welcome .... I would make absolutely no fuss over his coming and welcome home [sic] 100%." After discussion with Minsky's family, Epstein was kept in Ito's office during the March 17, 2016 event.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
87
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Matthew Menchel.md
Normal file
87
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Matthew Menchel.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,87 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
- NonProsecutionAgreement
|
||||
- Prosecutor
|
||||
- DepartmentOfJustice
|
||||
- RevolvingDoor
|
||||
- KobreAndKim
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Matthew Menchel
|
||||
- Matthew I. Menchel
|
||||
- Matt Menchel
|
||||
summary: "Criminal Division chief in the Miami U.S. Attorney's Office who conveyed the 2007 two-year state plea offer to Jeffrey Epstein's lawyers, left for Kobre & Kim weeks later, and later dined with Epstein."
|
||||
location: "Miami, Florida"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Manhattan District Attorney]]"
|
||||
role: "Assistant District Attorney"
|
||||
end: 1998
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida]]"
|
||||
role: "Assistant U.S. Attorney; Chief, Major Crimes Section; Chief, Criminal Division"
|
||||
start: 1998
|
||||
end: 2007-08
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Kobre & Kim]]"
|
||||
role: "partner"
|
||||
start: 2007-08
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Office of Professional Responsibility]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2019-02-06
|
||||
end: 2020-11
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
created: 2026-09-25
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-25
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Matthew I. Menchel is an American trial lawyer who was chief of the Criminal Division of the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida]] from October 2006 to August 2007, the months in which the office declined to approve an indictment of [[Jeffrey Epstein]] and offered him instead a two-year state plea, the offer that became the [[Epstein non-prosecution agreement]]. Menchel communicated the offer to Epstein's lawyers and left the office in August 2007 for the firm [[Kobre & Kim]], before the agreement's terms were negotiated. The [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s [[Office of Professional Responsibility]] later found that he had dated, in 2003, a former deputy who by 2007 was one of Epstein's defense lawyers, that his supervisors did not know it, and that it "would have been prudent" for him to tell them. Epstein's records released in 2025 showed appointments, telephone calls and dinners between the two men in 2011, 2013 and 2017; Menchel denied any business relationship with Epstein.[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Manhattan and Miami
|
||||
|
||||
Menchel served eleven years as an Assistant District Attorney in the [[Manhattan District Attorney|New York County District Attorney's Office]] in [[Manhattan]], where according to his firm biography he was director of legal training. He joined the Miami office in 1998, became chief of its Major Crimes Section after several years as a line prosecutor, and was named chief of the Criminal Division by [[Alexander Acosta]] in September 2006, taking office that October alongside the new First Assistant, [[Jeffrey Sloman]].[^1][^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Charging Decision
|
||||
|
||||
The line prosecutor, [[Ann Marie Villafana|A. Marie Villafaña]], submitted her prosecution memorandum on May 1, 2007. On May 14 she asked Menchel and [[Andrew Lourie]] whether she could file charges the next day, as Epstein flew from the [[U.S. Virgin Islands|Virgin Islands]] to [[New Jersey]]. Menchel answered: "[y]ou will not have approval to go forward tomorrow," explaining that Acosta "has your [prosecution] memo" and "wants to take his time making sure he is comfortable before proceeding," and that he had "trouble understanding" her "rush" "given how long this case has been pending." In his OPR interview Menchel described her as "out over her skis a little bit" and "ahead of Acosta in terms of his analysis of the case," and said, "This [was] not a case [we were] going to review in two weeks and make a decision on." In a July 5, 2007 email he rebuked her for having "led the agents to believe that [filing charges in] this matter was a foregone conclusion." Villafaña's immediate supervisor told OPR that it appeared "Miami didn't want the case prosecuted." OPR recorded that Menchel and Villafaña gave contradictory accounts of several events.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Two-Year Offer
|
||||
|
||||
The office's first plea overture came before June 26, 2007, when Menchel spoke with Epstein's lawyer [[Lilly Ann Sanchez]] about resolving the federal case with a state plea requiring jail time and sex-offender registration; according to an email, "[i]t was a non-starter" for the defense. Menchel told Villafaña in early July that he had raised the state resolution with Acosta's "full knowledge." At a July 26, 2007 meeting, according to Villafaña, Menchel announced that "Alex has decided to offer a two year state deal," and on July 31 the office delivered the terms to the defense. Menchel told OPR that he did not recall how the office arrived at two years. OPR itself was "unable to determine the reasoning underlying the decision to offer two years as the term of incarceration, as opposed to any other term of years," and concluded that Acosta knew of and approved it.[^6][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Shortly after the offer was extended in early August 2007, Menchel left the office for private practice. OPR noted in its findings that the three supervisory subjects other than Acosta "left the USAO, were transitioning to other jobs, or were absent at critical junctures" during the negotiations that followed.[^1][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Relationship with Defense Counsel
|
||||
|
||||
OPR found that "Epstein's wealth enabled him to hire multiple attorneys who had preexisting personal connections to some of the government attorneys involved in his case," and that Epstein "retained Lilly Ann [Sanchez], a former AUSA who had been Menchel's deputy and with whom he had socialized." Menchel told OPR that he and the former colleague had had a social relationship in the office that included, in 2003, "a handful of dates over a period of two to three weeks. We decided that . . . this was probably best not to pursue, and we mutually agreed to not do that." He said they had remained "close" and "hung out," that this was known in the office, and that by 2007 their contact was "most likely" at office events and at his wedding; his Outlook records showed at least one scheduled lunch with her in early 2006, after she left the office. "[T]hat was three and a half years [prior] for a very brief period of time," he said, "and I don't think I gave it a moment's thought."[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Acosta, Sloman and Lourie each told OPR that in 2007 they did not know Menchel had dated her. The office's Professional Responsibility Officer told OPR that he would have expected Menchel to raise it with Acosta, and that "[g]iven the sensitivity of the [Epstein] matter, [my advice] would probably have been to tell him to step back and let somebody else take it over." OPR did not conclude that the relationship influenced the investigation, but assessed that "it would have been prudent for Menchel to have informed his supervisors so they could make an independent assessment as to whether his continued involvement in the Epstein investigation might create the appearance of a loss of impartiality." Menchel told OPR that the relationship did "[n]ot at all" affect his handling of the case, that prior ties gave defense lawyers credibility but did not "move the needle in any major way," and that he and his colleagues viewed Epstein's attempt to exert influence through his choice of counsel as "ham-fisted" and "clumsy."[^6][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
In a December 2018 email, Villafaña wrote that Sloman had once told her Sanchez "asked Mr. Menchel to 'do her a solid' and convince Mr. Acosta to offer two years." Sloman did not recall the remark, Villafaña could not recall its exact words, and OPR concluded "that there is no evidence to support the statement in Villafaña's 2018 email that Menchel had extended a two-year plea deal as a favor to one of Epstein's attorneys."[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Kobre & Kim
|
||||
|
||||
Menchel joined the litigation firm Kobre & Kim in August 2007. He became a partner in its government enforcement defense practice, a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and head of the firm's trial advocacy program. The firm credits him with the "landmark acquittal" of the [[UBS]] banker [[Raoul Weil]] and with a defense verdict "against the CFTC on all causes of action" for the trading firm DRW. In 2015 the Chambers guide quoted clients describing him as "strategic, smart, attentive to detail and [having] outstanding common sense." Lourie, the West Palm Beach manager on the Epstein case, joined Kobre & Kim after leaving the Justice Department, and the firm's 2015 announcement quoted the guide as saying that his "skills are extraordinary, and his judgment is first-rate."[^3][^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Contacts with Epstein
|
||||
|
||||
Documents from Epstein's estate released by the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform|House Oversight Committee]] in October 2025 showed that Menchel had appointments, phone calls and dinners with Epstein in 2011, 2013 and 2017, beginning four years after he left the office. At Acosta's September 19, 2025 transcribed interview, members of the committee asked about a photograph said to show Epstein skiing with Menchel, possibly in the early 2000s, but did not produce it. Menchel had earlier denied having business relationships with Epstein "at any point, not before, during or after my tenure at the U.S. attorney's office," referred the [[Miami Herald]] to that denial, and after publication denied ever skiing with Epstein; he did not deny meeting him after leaving the office.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284, Prior DOJ Disclosures, report, Office of Professional Responsibility, "Investigation into the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida's Resolution of Its 2006-2008 Federal Criminal Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and Its Interactions with Victims during the Investigation," November 2020, pp. 5 to 7 (EFTA02847314 to EFTA02847316). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Prior%20DOJ%20Disclosures/Memos.%20&%20Correspondence/EFTA02847284.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: Debra Cassens Weiss, "Jeffrey Epstein had dinners with top criminal prosecutor following favorable deal, documents show," *ABA Journal,* October 20, 2025, summarizing Miami Herald reporting on the House Oversight Committee's release of Epstein estate documents. https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/jeffrey-epstein-had-dinners-with-top-criminal-prosecutor-in-years-following-favorable-deal-documents-show
|
||||
[^3]: Kobre & Kim, "Matthew I. Menchel" (firm biography). https://kobrekim.com/people/matthew-i-menchel ; Debra Cassens Weiss (see note 7).
|
||||
[^4]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284 (see note 1), p. 18 n. 21 (EFTA02847327).
|
||||
[^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284 (see note 1), pp. 29 to 30 and nn. 44 to 45 (EFTA02847338 to EFTA02847339).
|
||||
[^6]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284 (see note 1), pp. 150 to 155 and nn. 226 to 228 (EFTA02847459 to EFTA02847464).
|
||||
[^7]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00224943, DataSet 9, "Epstein Investigation Timeline," Exhibit A-1, privileged chronology of the federal investigation, May 2006 to August 2011, entry recording the meeting "where Criminal Chief Menchel announces that USA Acosta will offer a two-year state plea." https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00224943.pdf
|
||||
[^8]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284 (see note 1), Executive Summary, pp. vi, x (EFTA02847291, EFTA02847295).
|
||||
[^9]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284 (see note 1), pp. 151 to 152 (EFTA02847460 to EFTA02847461).
|
||||
[^10]: Kobre & Kim, "Kobre & Kim Receives Top Rankings in the 2015 Edition of Chambers & Partners," May 19, 2015. https://kobrekim.com/news/accolades/kobre-and-kim-receives-top-rankings-in-the-2015-edition-of-chambers-and-partners
|
||||
71
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Nicole Junkermann.md
Normal file
71
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Nicole Junkermann.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Business & Finance"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- NicoleJunkermann
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
- Carbyne
|
||||
- EhudBarak
|
||||
- NJFCapital
|
||||
- NHS
|
||||
- VentureCapital
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- nicole junkerman
|
||||
- Nicole Junkerman
|
||||
summary: "German investor and founder of NJF Holdings who co-invested with Jeffrey Epstein and Ehud Barak in Carbyne, sat on a UK health technology advisory board, and lost a Lancaster University post in 2026."
|
||||
location: "London, United Kingdom"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[NJF Holdings]]"
|
||||
role: "founder"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Healthtech Advisory Board]]"
|
||||
role: "member"
|
||||
start: 2018-11-19
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: appointed
|
||||
with: "[[Lancaster University]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "visiting professor in practice for technology, innovation and entrepreneurship"
|
||||
start: 2025-09
|
||||
end: 2026-02-10
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
created: 2026-09-25
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-25
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Nicole Junkermann is a German investor, founder of the investment company NJF Holdings and of NJF Capital, the renamed Montilla International Corporation, through which she invested alongside [[Jeffrey Epstein]] and the former Israeli prime minister [[Ehud Barak]] in the Israeli emergency-response company [[Carbyne]]. Epstein called her "my great friend" in 2010, and their correspondence continued until 2019, long after his 2008 Florida conviction. In November 2018 the [[United Kingdom|British]] government named her to a Healthtech Advisory Board reporting directly to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, [[Matt Hancock]]. [[Lancaster University]] terminated her visiting professorship on February 10, 2026, after the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s release of the [[Epstein Files|Epstein files]].[^1][^2][^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Carbyne
|
||||
|
||||
Junkermann's investment firm took part in Carbyne's Series A round. *[[Forbes]]* reported in February 2026 that Carbyne's website had listed her as a director until 2020; Carbyne's chief executive, [[Amir Elichai]], said that "she is not and was never a board member," attributed the listing to a mistake by the company's marketing team, and said she no longer held a stake.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
Epstein's stake was held through an Israeli limited partnership, SUM (E.B.) Limited Partnership, whose general partner was Ergo (E.B. 2014) Ltd. On February 28, 2019 the partnership's lawyer, [[Tomer Toor]] of the [[Tel Aviv]] firm Furth, Wilensky, Mizrachi, Knaani, wrote to Epstein's lawyer [[Darren Indyke]], to NJF Capital's finance officer and to Junkermann that SUM held warrants to buy 61,251 additional Preferred A shares of Carbyne for 3.5 million dollars, which would raise its holding "from about 13% to about 26.33%, on a fully diluted basis." The limited partners' shares of the 3.6 million dollar call were set at 66.67 percent, or 2.4 million dollars, for Epstein's [[Southern Trust Company]] and 33.33 percent, or 1.2 million dollars, for Montilla International Corporation, renamed NJF Capital Corp in 2018, to be wired to Ergo at [[Bank Leumi]]. Toor confirmed on March 11, 2019 that the full amount had arrived.[^2][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
When the Israeli bank asked, under its anti-money-laundering rules, for the controlling person and citizenship of each limited partner, Indyke wrote to Epstein on March 12, 2019: "I thought we did not want your name associated with this Investment?" Barak had replied to the same request on March 11: "That's the Israeli banks paranoia after they paid the penalties they've paid to the US authorities for past mistakes. According to our experience it was never leaked out of the banks." On March 14 Epstein confirmed that Indyke could name him as the controlling person of Southern Trust.[^2][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### The China Matter
|
||||
|
||||
On February 18, 2019, four and a half months before his arrest, Epstein wrote to Junkermann that he had "litle idea of carbyne results to date" and asked to be told "how much we are giving up. how much we would have made." Junkermann answered in a numbered list: "You are my friend and I do not have a lot of them so lets try to find a fair solution for all of us"; "You are right I see it differently, you are a billionaire I am not and I am a mother you are not.. so I have to care about her future and I do not have a choice... and as you know China is difficult if not we would not have this conversation"; "Carbyne invested 1.5 m (1m you and 0.5m me) net of fees is 3.9m your share, Ehud carry 1.5 m and my share 2m"; "China is valued from FSB 1.2 to 1.5b if I can get at least 250m out of there"; and "Can Ehud help? Lets speak." The message does not define "FSB."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Earlier Correspondence
|
||||
|
||||
On June 15, 2010, replying to a note from a son of the arms dealer [[Douglas Leese]], Epstein wrote: "Definitely, my great friend, nicole junkerman is considering moving to Singapore. May I have her call you."[^7] According to *[[The Lancaster Tab]]*, which reviewed the released files, an email from Junkermann to Epstein in November 2013 read, "You make me smile, you are in my heart :)"; in January 2014 Epstein wrote to her, "Paris on the 29th, coming to interview for chief of staff. Hope to see you. Don't you know any girl in their 20s good family, trustworthy, multilingual?", and the newspaper found nothing to suggest that she acted on the request; and in 2017, the year of her marriage, she wrote, "I am so happy to see you, [her husband] says always when I speak about you I have a smile on my face." The *Lancashire Telegraph* reported that the files record gifts she bought Epstein, including a cashmere bathrobe and jewelry.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Public Appointments
|
||||
|
||||
The Department of Health and Social Care announced on November 19, 2018 the first meeting of the Healthtech Advisory Board, created to advise Hancock on "his technology vision for health and social care" and to "report directly to the Secretary of State." It was chaired by [[Ben Goldacre]] of the [[University of Oxford]]; Junkermann, listed as "founder of NJF Holdings, an international finance and investment company," sat with the chief executive of [[UK Research and Innovation]], Sir [[Mark Walport]], the chair of the Human Tissue Authority, [[Nicola Blackwood]], the chair of the [[Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation]], Roger Taylor, and [[Daniel Korski]] of the venture firm PUBLIC.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Lancaster University appointed her in September 2025 as visiting professor in practice for technology, innovation and entrepreneurship. After the files were released the university said, "Nicole Junkermann is not an employee of Lancaster University and our connection with her is currently being reviewed," and on February 10, 2026 confirmed that her "post as a visiting professor has been terminated." A spokesperson for Junkermann said: "The scale Jeffrey Epstein's crimes is appalling. As a woman and a mother, Nicole was completely deceived and misled by him and deeply regrets their conversations regarding personal and professional matters. These conversations took place at a time in her life when she was vulnerable, and she was manipulated into trusting him." She has not been accused of any crime.[^4][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02630791, DataSet 11, email exchange between Jeffrey Epstein and Nicole Junkermann, February 18, 2019. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02630791.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02634615, DataSet 11, email chain "Carbyne warrants" among Tomer Toor, NJF Capital, Darren Indyke and Jeffrey Epstein, February 28 to March 14, 2019. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02634615.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: Department of Health and Social Care. "Health technology expert panel meets for the first time." GOV.UK, November 19, 2018. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/health-technology-expert-panel-meets-for-the-first-time
|
||||
[^4]: "Lancaster University visiting professor named 3,475 in the Epstein files leaves position." *The Lancaster Tab,* February 11, 2026. https://thetab.com/2026/02/11/lancaster-university-visiting-professor-who-was-named-3475-in-epstein-files-leaves-position
|
||||
[^5]: Brewster, Thomas. "Epstein Could Have Made $100 Million On A Secret Police Tech Investment With Ehud Barak." *Forbes,* February 10, 2026. https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2026/02/10/epstein-police-surveillance-investments-with-ehud-barak/
|
||||
[^6]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02632339, DataSet 11, email from Ehud Barak to Jeffrey Epstein, "Re: Carbyne warrants," March 11, 2019, with forwarded correspondence of Tomer Toor, Darren Indyke, and NJF Capital, February 28 to March 11, 2019. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02632339.pdf
|
||||
[^7]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02412487, DataSet 11, email exchange, "My boy," June 15-16, 2010. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02412487.pdf
|
||||
[^8]: "Lancaster University visiting professor mentioned 3,475 times in the Epstein files." *The Lancaster Tab,* February 9, 2026. https://thetab.com/2026/02/09/lancaster-university-visiting-professor-mentioned-3475-times-in-the-epstein-files
|
||||
|
|
@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ Starmer named him ambassador in Washington at the start of Trump's second term,
|
|||
|
||||
### JPMorgan's "Project Jeep" Review
|
||||
|
||||
After Epstein's July 2019 arrest, JPMorgan's compliance staff reviewed his correspondence with the bank's executives under the code name "Project Jeep." Its October 2019 summary, quoted by the [[United States Virgin Islands]] in its 2023 suit against the bank, stated: "Jeffrey Epstein appears to maintain a particularly close relationship with Prince Andrew the [Duke] of York and Lord Peter Mandelson, a senior member of the British Government. He also appears to have a close relationship with [[Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem|Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem]] who is a senior [[United Arab Emirates|UAE]] official involved in ownership of the Dubai Ports." The Virgin Islands told Judge [[Jed Rakoff]] that the summary confirmed "more than four pages of Epstein referrals to JPMorgan," including [[Andrew Farkas]], [[Boris Nikolic]], [[Bill Gates]], and Mandelson; JPMorgan's chief executive, [[Jamie Dimon]], had said at deposition: "We did not need introductions to anybody."[^3]
|
||||
After Epstein's July 2019 arrest, JPMorgan's compliance staff reviewed his correspondence with the bank's executives under the code name "Project Jeep." Its October 2019 summary, quoted by the [[United States Virgin Islands]] in its 2023 suit against the bank, stated: "Jeffrey Epstein appears to maintain a particularly close relationship with Prince Andrew the [Duke] of York and Lord Peter Mandelson, a senior member of the British Government. He also appears to have a close relationship with [[Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem|Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem]] who is a senior [[United Arab Emirates|UAE]] official involved in ownership of the [[DP World|Dubai Ports]]." The Virgin Islands told Judge [[Jed Rakoff]] that the summary confirmed "more than four pages of Epstein referrals to JPMorgan," including [[Andrew Farkas]], [[Boris Nikolic]], [[Bill Gates]], and Mandelson; JPMorgan's chief executive, [[Jamie Dimon]], had said at deposition: "We did not need introductions to anybody."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Dismissal as Ambassador
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ Morgenthau's investigation also targeted [[Kamal Adham]], who eventually pleaded
|
|||
|
||||
Morgenthau, at seventy years old during the BCCI investigation, was described as a lean figure with silver hair and a patrician manner.[^11] He was soft-spoken and considered one of the most important men in New York.[^12] His family had been part of the political establishment since 1886, with his great-grandfather immigrating from Bavaria and his father serving as [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|Franklin Roosevelt]]'s secretary of the Treasury.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
Morgenthau's reputation as a crusader was built during his time as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, a position he held after being appointed by [[John F. Kennedy|Kennedy]] in 1960.[^14] He was known for his independence and his willingness to pursue cases against powerful figures.[^15]
|
||||
Morgenthau's reputation as a crusader was built during his time as U.S. attorney for the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]], a position he held after being appointed by [[John F. Kennedy|Kennedy]] in 1960.[^14] He was known for his independence and his willingness to pursue cases against powerful figures.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Senate Account
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
79
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Seth Lloyd.md
Normal file
79
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Seth Lloyd.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Scientists & Researchers"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- SethLloyd
|
||||
- MIT
|
||||
- QuantumComputing
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
- ScienceFunding
|
||||
- GoodwinProcter
|
||||
- EdgeFoundation
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Professor Seth Lloyd
|
||||
- seth lloyd
|
||||
summary: "MIT mechanical engineering professor and quantum computing theorist who took a personal gift and post-conviction donations from Jeffrey Epstein and was disciplined by MIT in 2020 for not disclosing Epstein's conviction."
|
||||
location: "Cambridge, Massachusetts"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]"
|
||||
role: "professor of mechanical engineering"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Jeffrey Epstein]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "60,000 dollar personal gift, unreported to MIT"
|
||||
start: 2005
|
||||
end: 2006
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Jeffrey Epstein]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "two 50,000 dollar donations to MIT for Lloyd's research"
|
||||
start: 2012
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Goodwin Procter]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "fact-finding for MIT on Epstein's donations"
|
||||
end: 2020-01-10
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
created: 2026-09-25
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-25
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Seth Lloyd is a professor of mechanical engineering at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] and a theorist of quantum computing. He met [[Jeffrey Epstein]] in 2004 at a dinner organized by the literary agent [[John Brockman]], received a 60,000 dollar personal gift from him in 2005 or 2006, and after Epstein's 2008 conviction brought 225,000 dollars of Epstein's money into MIT for his research. The report MIT commissioned from [[Goodwin Procter]] concluded in January 2020 that he had "purposefully failed to inform MIT" that Epstein, a convicted sex offender, was the source of the 2012 donations; MIT placed him on paid administrative leave the day the report was released and imposed five years of restrictions in December 2020.[^1][^2][^3][^4]
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### Epstein's Science Circle
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Lloyd told *[[The New York Times]]* that he met Epstein in 2004 at a dinner Brockman organized; Brockman's gatherings and his [[Edge Foundation]] were the setting in which several scientists first encountered Epstein.[^4] On April 27, 2009, while Epstein was still serving the sentence that followed his 2008 Florida guilty plea in the custody of the [[Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office]], he wrote an email saying that a woman named in it "can meet have dinner lunch a weekend with any of the following," listing "seth lloyd mit quantum computing," [[Murray Gell-Mann]] of the [[Santa Fe Institute]], [[Brian Greene]] of [[Columbia University]], [[Leonard Susskind]], [[Lawrence Krauss]] of the Origins Institute in [[Phoenix, Arizona|Phoenix]] and [[Lee Smolin]] of the [[Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics|Perimeter Institute]], and adding, "she can see the large hadron collider in switzerland. private tour." The copy produced by [[JPMorgan Chase]] and filed in the [[Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank|Virgin Islands suit against the bank]] shows it addressed to the JPMorgan email account of [[Jes Staley]].[^5] Lloyd visited Epstein at his office during his work release.[^1]
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Photographs from a 2012 lunch at [[Martin Nowak]]'s [[Program for Evolutionary Dynamics]] at [[Harvard University]], posted on an Epstein foundation website, showed Epstein with Lloyd, [[Leon Black]], [[George Church]], [[Eric Lander]], [[David Gergen]], [[Howard Gardner]], [[Ted Kaptchuk]] and [[Henry Rosovsky]].[^6] From at least August 2014 the website jeffreyepstein.net stated that "Jeffrey Epstein AI sponsors many leading scientists at the forefront of AI research, including Marvin Minsky and Seth Lloyd at MIT," referring to [[Marvin Minsky]].[^7]
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### The Donations
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The Goodwin Procter investigation, based on 73 interviews and more than 610,000 emails and documents, found that Epstein made ten donations to MIT totaling 850,000 dollars between 2002 and 2017. After the first, 100,000 dollars for Minsky's research in 2002, the nine post-conviction gifts went to the [[MIT Media Lab]] (525,000 dollars) or to Lloyd (225,000 dollars): two donations of 50,000 dollars in 2012 and one of 125,000 dollars in 2017. The report found that Epstein's post-conviction visits and gifts were driven by the Media Lab's director, [[Joi Ito]], or by Lloyd, and that the 2012 gifts served Epstein as "a trial balloon" to test MIT's willingness to take his money.[^1][^2]
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On June 7, 2012, Lloyd told MIT staff to expect a donation without naming the donor, giving only the name of Epstein's assistant [[Lesley Groff]] as the person "taking care of the donation from the donor's end." The investigators wrote that "the only reasonable inference is that Professor Lloyd did this to obscure the fact that Epstein was the donor," and that "Professor Lloyd knew that donations from Epstein would be controversial and that MIT might reject them. We conclude that, in concert with Epstein, he purposefully decided not to alert the Institute to Epstein's criminal record." A presidential acknowledgment letter bearing [[L. Rafael Reif]]'s signature, dated August 16, 2012, thanked Epstein for the gift.[^1][^2] Lloyd acknowledged that the earlier 60,000 dollar gift had been deposited in a personal bank account and not reported to MIT.[^2]
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### Lloyd's Account
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In a post of January 16, 2020 Lloyd wrote that "The accusation that I accepted money from Epstein is true," but that "The accusation that I hid Epstein's identity from MIT ... is completely false." He said that in 2012 he had put "the donor's agent" in touch with his departmental administrator and that MIT officers "considered the donation with full knowledge that Epstein was the donor," quoting an email: "Jeffrey Epstein intends to make a gift in the amount of $100,000 in two tranches of $50,000 for the discretionary research for the support of Seth Lloyd." He wrote that on June 1, 2017 MIT's Office of the Recording Secretary had noted that Epstein's past gifts were "recorded anonymously." Of the 2005 or 2006 money he wrote that Epstein had suggested he "set up a 501c3 corporation as a vehicle for the grant" and in the end gave it as a gift, "on which I paid gift tax."[^8]
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### Discipline
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President Reif placed Lloyd, a tenured professor, on paid administrative leave on January 10, 2020.[^2] The physics department head, [[Peter Fisher]], suspended Lloyd's secondary appointment in physics, writing on February 4 that he "will no longer be able to supervise new graduate students, attend Departmental events or serve on Departmental committees."[^9]
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Provost [[Martin A. Schmidt]] announced on December 18, 2020 the result of a two-stage faculty review. A panel of five senior faculty chaired by the dean of science, [[Nergis Mavalvala]], and including [[Daron Acemoglu]], found by majority that in accepting the 2012 donations Lloyd had violated MIT's conflict of interest policy "by failing to inform MIT that Epstein was a convicted sex offender," and thereby its policy on faculty misconduct. The full panel found that he had not violated MIT policy in accepting the 2005 or 2006 gift or the 2017 donation, did not find "that Professor Lloyd tried to circumvent the MIT vetting process nor that he sought to conceal the name of the donor," but concluded that he "failed to reveal crucial information about Epstein's background to anyone at MIT." For five years MIT limited his compensation, "his ability to engage in solicitation of donors and foundations, and his involvement in first-year undergraduate advising," and required training on professional conduct before he resumed certain activities, including teaching. Schmidt wrote: "These steps cannot undo the harm done. Professor Lloyd's failure to share what he knew about Epstein's conviction when he accepted his 2012 donations was unacceptable."[^3]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Goodwin Procter LLP. *Report Concerning Jeffrey Epstein's Interactions with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.* January 10, 2020, pp. 3-5, 10, 20-21 and nn. 5, 22-24. https://facultygovernance.mit.edu/sites/default/files/20200121GoodwinProcterReport.pdf
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[^2]: "MIT releases results of fact-finding on engagements with Jeffrey Epstein." *MIT News,* January 10, 2020. https://news.mit.edu/2020/mit-releases-results-fact-finding-report-jeffrey-epstein-0110
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[^3]: Schmidt, Martin A., Provost. "Decision on Professor Seth Lloyd." Massachusetts Institute of Technology, December 18, 2020. https://orgchart.mit.edu/letters/decision-professor-seth-lloyd
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[^4]: Aldhous, Peter. "Jeffrey Epstein's Links To Scientists Are Even More Extensive Than We Thought," *BuzzFeed News,* August 27, 2019. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/jeffrey-epstein-science-donations-apologies-statements
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[^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01256065, DataSet 9, email from Jeffrey Epstein, April 27, 2009 (JPMorgan production, SDNY_GM_00077146); EFTA02816457, Court Records, Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 1:22-cv-10904 (S.D.N.Y.), Exhibit 270, ECF No. 285-97 (filed August 15, 2023). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01256065.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Court%20Records/Government%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Virgin%20Islands%20v.%20JPMorgan%20Chase%20Bank%2C%20N.A.%2C%20No.%20122-cv-10904%20(S.D.N.Y.%202022)/EFTA02816457.pdf
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[^6]: Aldhous, Peter. "Jeffrey Epstein's Links To Scientists Are Even More Extensive Than We Thought," *BuzzFeed News,* August 27, 2019, on the 2012 photographs from an archived Epstein foundation website. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/jeffrey-epstein-science-donations-apologies-statements
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[^7]: Goodwin Procter LLP. *Report Concerning Jeffrey Epstein's Interactions with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.* January 10, 2020, pp. 27-28, on the jeffreyepstein.net website claims. https://facultygovernance.mit.edu/sites/default/files/20200121GoodwinProcterReport.pdf
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[^8]: Lloyd, Seth. "What I told MIT about Epstein's donations." *Medium,* January 16, 2020 (archived January 21, 2020). https://web.archive.org/web/20200121034304/https://medium.com/@sqlloyd/what-i-told-mit-about-epsteins-donations-feec0beb26a
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[^9]: "Physics department suspends Seth Lloyd's secondary appointment." *The Tech,* February 13, 2020. https://thetech.com/2020/02/13/seth-lloyd-secondary-appointment-suspended
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@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ Towers Financial Corporation operated as a debt-collection business that bought
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To finance attempted corporate takeovers, Hoffenberg directed Towers to acquire, through a controlling interest in [[United Diversified Corporation]], two Illinois insurance companies, United Fire Insurance Co. and Associated Life Insurance Co., in 1987, and prosecutors later found their reserves were looted in the broader fraud.[^1][^2] The Illinois Department of Insurance, then directed by [[James Schacht]], placed the insurers into liquidation and brought a 1991 civil suit that named Jeffrey Epstein in connection with checks drawn on the companies' accounts.[^1]
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The scheme operated between roughly 1988 and 1993; Hoffenberg later described it to CBS News as "a billion dollars in raising money. And it was criminal."[^1] The SEC charged Towers, Hoffenberg, [[Mitchell Brater]] and [[Arthur J. Ferro]] in February 1993 (93 Civ. 0744 (WK), S.D.N.Y.), later obtaining a consent judgment against Hoffenberg, and the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 1993.[^3][^5] He was indicted in the Northern District of Illinois on April 19, 1994 and in the Southern District of New York on April 20, 1994, and on April 20, 1995 he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud, mail fraud, conspiracy to obstruct justice and tax evasion (94 Cr. 213 (RWS), 95 Cr. 321 (RWS)). Judge [[Robert W. Sweet]] issued his sentencing opinion on March 4, 1997 and entered judgment on March 7, 1997: 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, a one million dollar fine and restitution of 475,157,340 dollars, the total of noteholder and bondholder claims the Bankruptcy Court had validated in April 1996.[^2][^7] The prosecution was led by Daniel Nardello, who went into private practice soon afterward.[^1] He served about 18 years and was released from federal custody on October 11, 2013.[^3][^7]
|
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The scheme operated between roughly 1988 and 1993; Hoffenberg later described it to CBS News as "a billion dollars in raising money. And it was criminal."[^1] The SEC charged Towers, Hoffenberg, [[Mitchell Brater]] and [[Arthur J. Ferro]] in February 1993 (93 Civ. 0744 (WK), S.D.N.Y.), later obtaining a consent judgment against Hoffenberg, and the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 1993.[^3][^5] He was indicted in the Northern District of Illinois on April 19, 1994 and in the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]] on April 20, 1994, and on April 20, 1995 he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud, mail fraud, conspiracy to obstruct justice and tax evasion (94 Cr. 213 (RWS), 95 Cr. 321 (RWS)). Judge [[Robert W. Sweet]] issued his sentencing opinion on March 4, 1997 and entered judgment on March 7, 1997: 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, a one million dollar fine and restitution of 475,157,340 dollars, the total of noteholder and bondholder claims the Bankruptcy Court had validated in April 1996.[^2][^7] The prosecution was led by Daniel Nardello, who went into private practice soon afterward.[^1] He served about 18 years and was released from federal custody on October 11, 2013.[^3][^7]
|
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|
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Hoffenberg swore in 2018 that "during the course of my criminal trial, Prosecutors offered me a reduced sentence in exchange for information about Epstein's role. However, I did not disclose any details about Epstein's involvement." His lawyer [[Gary Baise]] said Sweet asked him, "Why did he not give up Epstein?", and told the [[The Philadelphia Inquirer|Philadelphia Inquirer]], "The judge asked me the same question. I couldn't answer that." Epstein's lawyers wrote in 2016 that at a December 2013 conference in the criminal case "Judge Sweet stated he was unaware of Epstein." Hoffenberg told CBS News in 2019: "I didn't take that opportunity and I was wrong," saying he had not wanted to fight Epstein because of his powerful relationships and political connections.[^1][^2][^8][^9]
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