Whitney Webb Links to her Articles

[admin]

Tongsun Park's Club: How the Korean Built His Georgetown Base
by Phil McCombs
Washington Post
October 16, 1977
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... edirect=on

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

FRANCIS COLT DE WOLF JR., Washington insurance man, gazed into the distance and recalled the days, more than a decade ago, when Tongsun Park wanted to start a new Washington social club.

"Well, he just started moving around socially in town," recalled de Wolf. "People used to ask me what the heck this kid is doing. He was a rich kid, you know. I just said, "Well, I don't know. Some rich kids like to buy yachts, some like to start clubs . . . In retrospect, I think he had something in mind."

Indeed. According to a federal indictment, Park "set up and operated" Washington's exclusive George Town Club with the aid of Korean Central Intelligence Agency officials as a primary means in an illegal effort to influence U.S. politicians and officials.

With money, boldness and charm for credentials it appears that Park was able to harness for his own use, in part by means of this club, the enormous social energies of a world capital where the cocktail and dinner party is stock-in-trade.

How did he do it?

Interviews with eight of the club's 14 founders, 12 of its 15 present board members and others tell this story.

More than a decade ago, Park contacted a few friends and acquaintances and began putting together a founding group that was in tone predominantly Republican, conservative and social old-guard. At least one founder, the late Marine Gen. Graves B. Erskine, had been closely linked with high-level national intelligence activities.

These founders, in snowball fashion, then contacted their friends to be founding members. The club now has about 330 members and its leadership emphasizes that this group is separate from Park, who, they say, merely owns the club premises and runs and rents it for the members under contract.

According to records and interviews, Park acquired the club premises at 1530 Wisconsin Ave. NW under a lease in 1961, purchasing the property in 1965. The club opened in the spring of 1966.

It appears that what Park did was take advantage of the normal social and professional instincts of at least some of the persons named in this article, who, with one exception, are free of any charges in the case.

Park acquired the lease on the club premises after returning from Korea to resume his studies at Georgetown University. After entering Georgetown as a freshman in 1956, Park had been suspended for "academic deficiencies" and had gone to Seoul in 1960 where, according to a knowledgeable American source, he apparently had made some powerful friends among the men closest to the new South Korean president, Park Chung Hee.

After several years of developing the club premises and preparing to open it - years when Tongsun Park was also engaged in complex worldwide business dealings often allegedly linked to the Korean Central Intelligence Agency - he set out in search of a founding group. His hope was apparently that the club would fly on its own, with no overt link to Korea other than himself.

COLT DE WOLF remembers meeting Park for the first time in 1959 through a relative of his wife's who had roomed with Park at Georgetown University.

"I was a founder of The George Town Club but I didn't know I was a founder," said de Wolf. "Park approached me when he was getting ready to open the club . . . In the back of my mind I said, "I need another club like a hole in the head. I was a member of three clubs already. Basically his approach was, 'Can you help me, help me find prospective members?' I was born and raised in this town, I know this town.

"His secretary would come down and we'd look at lists, the social register and so on, and work up prospective members. Mailings went out. He always did things well: a whole bunch of engraved invitations. Before I knew it, people I met on the street said, 'I see you're a founding member of a new club,' I said, 'I didn't know that.' Then I got the bill."

De Wolf said he never paid and that he was, legally, "never a member." Gradually, de Wolf and his wife cooled in their friendship with Park and stopped inviting him to parties - a move that was reciprocated, de Wolf said.

Another club founder and source of members, according to interviews, was Anna Chennault, the Chinese-born widow of Maj. Gen. Claire Chennault of World War II's Flying Tigers.

A Washington hostess and proponent of U.S. support for the non-Communist Republic of China on Taiwan, Anna Chennault has been characterized in press reports as having introduced Park to many powerful persons in Washington and showing him how to make his views felt.

Chennault was a club founder, according to the list of founders provided by the club manager Norman Larsen, who took that job in the early days of the club, working directly for Park. Larsen, formerly with H.L. Hunt's rightwing educational "Life Line Foundation," said he still reports directly to Park.

Chennault did not return repeated phone calls. Three other club founders who could not be reach for interviews were:

Thomas G. Corcoran, known as "Tommy the Cork," the former FDR braintruster who is now a widely influential Washington attorney. Corcoran, who did not return phone calls from The Washington Post, was quoted in other press reports as saying that Park called him "Papa Tom," although Corcoran was not associated with Park in business or lobbying. Nevertheless, Corcoran has been characterized in press accounts as having taught Park a good deal about how to operate in Washington. Corcoran has also been an escort of Anna Chennault at social functions.

Air Force Gen. Fred M. Dean, now officially listed as retired. Dean commanded the U.S. Air Task Force on Taiwan from 1957 to 1960, then went on to key staff and command positions in Washington and Europe.

Marine General Erskine, deceased, who commanded the Third Marine Division at Iwo Jimma. From 1953 to 1961 Erskine was assistant for special operations to the Secretary of Defense. "His responsibilities," according to a press release of the period. . . . included the areas of intelligence, counter-intelligence, communications security, CIA relationships and special operations, and psychological warfare operations."

De Wolf recalled that club board meetings were at first held in the office of another founder, Robert K. Gray, who is now president of The George Town Club.

GRAY HEADS the Washington office of the large public relations firm, Hill & Knowlton. A man of influence who likes to keep a low profile, Gray was President Eisenhower's cabinet secretary and has been a noted Republican fund-raiser.

Gray said Park called in 1965 on public relations business and, in the course of their meetings, Park asked how to start a social club - a subject naturally interesting to Gray, who attends several parties a week as a matter of professional duty. (Gray said he and Park never did do business but had a purely social relationship.)

Gray said he suggested that Park pick several people and have them call their friends, and so on. In their discussions, Gray said, the idea developed of having a "cross-section of people" in a club with a "congressional overtone."

Gray said Park suggested Anna Chennault as a founder. He said he himself suggested Geroge Murphy, Clark W. Thompson and Mrs. Robert McCormick. All three became founders.

"I think I was invited for window-dressing," said Murphy, the actor-turned-conservative-politician who was then serving his one term in the Senate. Murphy had met Gray in 1952 when they both worked at the Republican convention that nominated Eisenhower.

Murphy said he was asked to be a club founder by Gray and by Lawrence C. Merthan, who at the time worked for Hill & Knowlton here and who is now with the Carpet and Rug Institute. Merthan, also a club founder, could not be reached for an interview.

Murphy said that at the time he was already a member of the 1925 F Street Club and was unimpressed with plans for The George Town Club but agreed to be a founder anyway. "Then they sent me a bill for $300. I said, 'Please take my name off the scorecard.' I never met the Korean gent [Park]."

After Murphy left the Senate in 1970 he said he worked briefly for Hill & Knowlton here and later established his own PR firm.

Clark W. Thompson was for 22 years a well-known conservative Democrat in the House until his retirement in 1966. He remembers that Gray suggested he become a club founder but can't remember how he met Park.

"I didn't know Park particularly well," said Thompson. "I often wondered why, when he was doing all this rice buying, he never did discuss it with me. He never discussed politics. It was just social." Thompson said his Texas district was a big rice producer and that he was concerned with rice matters in Congress.

According to the indictment, part of the Korean influence-peddling conspiracy involved Park's being designated as the sellers' agent for the purchase of all rice by South Korea from the U.S. Park then used his agent's commissions to pay off congressmen and senators to influence them, the indictment charges. (Thompson was not named in the indictment and has not been connected with the case in any way.)

Mrs. Robert McCormick, wife of the late Chicago Tribune publisher, said she met Park through Anna Chennault. "I liked him, he was very hospitable," said Mrs. McCormick, recalling that Park was sometimes referred to as "the Onassis of the Far East" because of oil tankers he owned.

Mrs. McCormick said that she used to have "a lot of fun" at the club even though there were "an awful lot of tacky politicians in there, mostly Democrats."

Milton G. Nottingham Jr. was another founder. A 1944 graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy who after 1949 held various government marine posts in Korea and the United States, Nottingham then went into the ship chartering and brokerage business. He said he was once "the maritime adviser" to Tongsun Park.

"I'd known him a year when he asked me to be a founding member, then to be president," said Nottingham. "I thought it was a short-term matter. I served for a year or so. It was more of an honorary thing than anything else. It didn't call for management decisions . . .

"Like many organizations of a social nature, it was socially a success but not financially. In any event, he got behind in his [financial situation]. One day I received a summons to the Corporation Counsel's office. I explained I had nothing to do with the management of the club. Park appeared with an attorney and agreed with that. At that point in time I thought, "I don't really need this."

ANOTHER FOUNDER was Louise Gore, who was for eight years a member of the Maryland legislature and who in 1974 ran unsuccessfully for governor of Maryland. Gore said she first met Park in the late 1950s when he and another young man called upon her to promote Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative youth group.

Gore remembers hearing at one point that the woodframe townhouse at 1530 Wisconsin Ave., thought by some to be at or near the site of the historic Suter's Tavern that George Washington used to visit, was for sale.

As a history buff, she said, she was interested, but because she was busy opening The Jockey Club restaurant at the time she couldn't do anything about it but try to interest her friends and acquaintances, including Park, in the property.

"I took him by there," she said. "I can't remember when the idea of . . . a club came up, but I used to say Washington is a very transient town and it was too bad there's notsomething that transient people could join . . . The next thing I hear is that [Park] wanted to go ahead with a club."

Later, she said, "Someone called. Tongsun Park or maybe Bob Gray, and asked me to join as a founder." She did, although she was too busy to ever attend a meeting, she said.

Henry Preston Pitts Jr. was also a founder. Pitts, a longtime Washingtonian, had worked for Hill & Knowlton at about the time the club was founded and then as a PR man for a large holding company. He is now a spokesman for the U.S. Information Agency.

"I was introduced to Tongsun at the time of the founding of the club," he said. "Bob (Gray) called me and asked me to have lunch and meet a young Oriental gentleman who was founding a club, and I did, and I liked Tongsun. He's a charming, charming person. Subsequently, when the founding board was being put together, I was invited to be a founder."

It was the job of the founders, Pitts said, to draw up membership lists for the club, to "get the snowball rolling." Club manager Larsen said that the founders suggested most of the original 160 or so club members.

Gray, Gore, Thompson and Pitts are still club officers. All the other living founders continue to be listed as members except Murphy, de Wolf and Mrs. McCormick. Park himself was a founder, according to Larsen, and is still listed as a member.

YEARS BEFORE Park began rounding up founders and launching the new social club, he had prepared an elegant clubhouse. This preparation was the object of an entirely separate operation that had required more than deft socializing. Park had needed money, decorating and construction talent, and legal advice.

This part of the story begins in 1960 with J. Francis Harris III, a Washington real estate broker and builder who was part owner of the townhouse at 1530 Wisconsin Ave.

Harris had wanted to start a tavern there and early in 1960 has set up a corporation called Suter's Tavern Inc. However, as Harris recalled it, the effort did not succeed. His hands were full with construction elsewhere.

Meantime, Harris said, he had met Tongsun Park socially, somehow the idea had hatched of Park taking over the tavern effort, and Harris and his co-owner had leased the place to Park with an option to buy for four years and had then sold it to him.

The record shows the sale of the $90,000 property took place June 22, 1965, with Park obtaining a 15 year, $325,000 mortgage from Philadelphia Life Insurance Co.

Henry A. Meinzer, a private attorney near Philadelphia who was Philadelphia Life's mortgage officer at the time, recalled nothing unusual about the transaction.

The difference betwen $90,000 and $325,000 would have allowed Park to finish work on the club and get it going, Meinzer said. Land records show that security for the mortgage loan included the premises, an insurance policy on Park's life, and "all fixtures and personal property" on the premises.

According to his testimony this June before a congressional subcommittee, ex-KCIA Director Kim Hyung Wook let Park use $3 million in South Korean government funds in 1967 as collateral to help finance the club as a way of gaining access to and influencing U.S. politicians and officials.

If so, then why do so amy people recall Park's financial difficulties during the late 1960s?

"Like any new business it took a long time to get in the black," said Lawrence D. Huntsman, an attorney who represented Park during the late 1960s. "I know of no $3 million or heavy financing from the outside. Everything came from leasing companies, banks, the life insurance company . . . club membership grew and patronage grew, the leases were negotiated and renegotiated. Each time a default would build up we'd say, 'You're businessmen and we're businessmen and if you pull out the equipment (you won't get paid).' Finally everyone got paid.I'm telling you, it was nip and tuck for a long time."

On the other hand, there was widespread impression that Park was getting a lot of money from somewhere and sinking it into the club. "He spent an awful lot of money," said Mrs. McCormick. De Wolf thought Park must have spent about $600,000 redoing the building.

"There were times when we couldn't pay the rent and Tongsun didn't throw us out," said one club officer who asked not to be identified.

"It was generally perceived," said another club officer, "that he had a lot of money behind him, much of which he didn't have his hands on." This same person, who also asked for anonymity, conceded that there were times when it was said that the club's cook paid for food with his own money because Park couldn't come up with operating cash.

"In the early days of the club it was quite obvious to all of us that it was not a financial success for [Park] at all," said Gray. "At one point I've heard he had $500,000 in it . . . Knowing what we paid, we knew it didn't balance out at all. He seemed to have all kinds of personal funds - so far as I know they were personal funds.I believe that those early monies were his own. It was very easy not to notice the financial end of it because it was to our benefit."

IN 1976 PARK was able to purchase the adjoining properties at 1532 and 1534 Wisconsin for $300,000. The five year mortgage for $225,000 is held by Montgomery Federal Savings and Loan, according to records. Much of this space had been rented by Park previously. Its purchase allowed for renovation and expansion, according to Larsen.

At one point before the club opened, the office of International Youth Federation for Freedom, a nonprofit anti-Communist group of whicn Park was an incorporator, a director and the president, had moved into part of this space. In those early days, Larsen took over the management of IYFF, which from time to time was visited by CIA officials who wanted to check on its activities, according to two of Park's former IYFF associates. Larsen said he played no substantive role other than to preside over IYFF's dying days.

City records show that Park and others had become th directors and officers of Suter's Tavern Inc., apparently taking it over from Harris and his associates, during the four years they leased the premises.

The others associated with Park in developing the club appear to have been, on the basis of available records and interviews, only peripherally involved.

During most of the time Park was working to open the club and then to keep it open he was, as has been previously reported in The Washington Post, simultaneously engaged in activities as an "agent of influence" for the Korean CIA.

For example, at a time when Park was listed as a director and vice president of Suter's Tavern Inc., he was helping plan the October, 1962, visit to Washington by KCIA chief Kim Jong Pil, the strongman who had helped put President Park Chung Hee in power in a 1961 coup d'etat.

In 1969, Tongsun Park was receiving cabled instructions from a senior official on President Park's staff - instructions which, at least once, were coordinated with the head of the KCIA, Lee Hu Rak.

IT WAS NOT LONG after the club opened before the Republican, conservative, somewhat old-guardish tone set by the founding group gave way to broader-based activity.

In the summer of 1966, just months after the club opened, Luci Johnson's wedding rehearsal dinner was held there. (Bess Abell, White House social secretary at the time, said recently that a routine selection process would have been used to select the club. She could recall little beyond this. A society page item at the time said the Johnson "catering plum" fell to the club because older clubs were booked).

Park sponsored many lavish parties at the club in the years that followed. Guests included such prominent politicians as then-House Speaker Carl Albert (D-Okla.) then-Majority Leader Thomas P. ((Tip) O'Neill Jr. (D-Mass.), scores of other representatives and senators and administration leaders such as former Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird, Attorney General William B. Saxbe and then-Vice President Gerald R. Ford.

A club member who asked not to be identified recalled these affairs:

"Other members gave parties and had 10 or 12 people. Mr. Park would take over the entire club - the whole place was filled with 75 or 80 people. There were interesting people, not a lot of Koreans. It was never, never a Korea night . . .

"The guest list would be old Washington society, several attractive young ladies, single men, people from government, say two or three senators and two or three congressmen. Congressman Hanna was nearly always there [Former Rep. Richard T. Hanna (D-Calif.) was indicted Friday on federal charges of bribery, conspiracy and failure to register an agent of the Korean government. The indictment charged that as part of the alleged conspiracy to influence U.S. officials. Hanna "did assist Tongsun Park in the development, operation and financing of the Georiga Town Club," and that Park paid Hanna's initiation fee and the costs of a 1969 fun-raising dinner for Hanna at the club] . . .

"There would be a long, embassy-type French menu . . . Tongsun would talk, tell some jokes. Congressman Hanna would sing in his dismal tenor voice. Tommy the Cork would tell some stories. He was usually there with Anna Chennault. Then it would drag on, and end."

THE SCANDAL, Park's flight to London last fall, the indictment - all this has left many members of the club dazed and realizing they may not have known Park very well at all.

Park, they point out, merely rents the building, staffs it with 19 employees, and runs it through manager Larsen. Club officers said they are taking further steps to give the club "a new face," to "restructure" it in order to "get out from under the criticism that it's a Tongsun Park club."

Club treasurer Frank Spinetta, who is head of Colonial Mortgage Corp., said he spoked by telephone with Park in London and worked out a "verbal agreement" for sale of the club premises to the members.

Spinetta would not discuss the tentative sale price, and said the issues would be presented to the membership.

Spinetta and others said that the scandal has not hurt the club, that revenues are high and that there is a long waiting list for membership.

At one time, Spinetta said, as many as eight congressmen and senators were members. Now there is only one, Rep. Fortney Stark (D-Calif.). Club officials said the decline in such membership has nothing to do with the scandal, but was the natural result of retirements.

"I probably should resign," said Stark, "then I could tell you I resigned. My staff thinks I should."

Stark said he joined the club, which he uses only a few times a year, about four years ago. "I just picked it out of a list of clubs that allow minorities," he said.

The club had a policy. Spinetta said, of extending honorary memberships to the President, Vice President, cabinet officers and - in the past three years - members of the Supreme Court. The policy has now been discontinued, he said. While it was in effect those offered honorary memberships could either accept or decline, and no response was taken as a declination. Spinetta said.

However, it appears that there remains some confusion on the point.

"He's not a member, doesn't pay any dues and he's never been in the club," said the secretary of Supreme Court Justice William J. Brenna Jr., whose name appears on the most recent membership list.

Justice Harry A. Blackmun is also listed as a member. "He has never joined the club, never been inside the place and has no expectation of going," said his secretary.

Justice Potter Stewart is also listed, and his secretary said that Stewart, extended an honorary invitation in 1973, had said he would be glad to accept on the understanding that he couldn't use the club frequently. He never has used it, the secretary said.

A spot check of other names on the list, including ambassadors from several countries, showed that they were dues-paying members.

Club dues are $450 annually for married couples and $350 for single persons. Spinetta said. The initiation fees for new members are $800 and $600 respectively, he said.

Besides Gray, Gore, Thompson, Pitts and Spinetta, current members of the board of governors are listed in the most current club bulletin as: Marion H. Smoak, an attorney who was formerly the State Department's chief of protocol; the socially prominent Mrs. James McS. Wimsatt; stockbroker Kenneth M. Crosby; builder Antonio M. Marinelli; attorney Edward L. Merrigan; Georgetown University professor John H. McDonough; attorney William F. Ragan; Robert L. Shafer, Washington vice president of Pfizer Inc.; Lucien J. Sichel, retired former vice president of Abbott Laboratories, and attorney Hobart Taylor Jr.

Although Park is still listed as a member, Spinetta said he is "not exactly" a member. "We wouldn't throw him out if he walked in," said Spinetta.

"I think very few people really knew Tongsun Park." mused one club officer who asked not to be identified. "I often wonder if we had treated him differently if things would have turned out the way they did. It's like the Great Gatsby in a way: if we could have sort of pierced the veil . . ."

[admin]

V.I. Releases New Exhibits Detailing JPMorgan’s Epstein Ties
by Sian Cobb
June 20, 2023

New exhibits filed Tuesday in the V.I. government’s lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase reveal how the bank’s top brass continued to court Jeffrey Epstein for his ties to some of the world’s wealthiest individuals even as its compliance arm warned that he was a growing liability as a felon under investigation for sex crimes.

The exhibits include a June 7 letter to Judge Jed Rakoff of Manhattan federal court that was previously filed under seal, seeking to allow the V.I. Attorney General’s Office to reopen depositions in light of information it received after questioning key witnesses in the case, including JPMorgan’s billionaire CEO Jamie Dimon.

Rakoff on Friday denied that motion, and on Tuesday the government unsealed 10 exhibits offering a closer look at JPMorgan’s relationship with Epstein, the wealthy financier who died by apparent suicide in August 2019 while in custody in New York on federal child sex trafficking charges. His primary residence was Little St. James, his private island estate of St. Thomas.

The government’s complaint, filed Dec. 27 in Manhattan federal court, claims JPMorgan violated the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act in its services to Epstein, whom it kept as a client even after his 2008 conviction for procuring a minor for prostitution in Florida. The case is scheduled for trial on Oct. 23.

“Jeffrey Epstein connected JPMorgan Chase’s executives with some of the world’s most high profile and wealthy individuals,” the V.I. Attorney General’s Office said in a statement following Tuesday’s filing. “The USVI’s complaint alleges that, in return for bringing valuable new clients into the bank, JPMorgan Chase, through its senior executives, including Mary Erdoes, ignored the evidence of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and traded victims’ public safety for its own profits.”

Friends in High Places

According to the government’s filing, Epstein offered JPMorgan access to such high-profile individuals as Prince Andrew of Great Britain, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, American billionaire and private equity investor Leon Black, former U.S. presidential adviser David Gergen, Israeli general and politician Ehud Barak, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the children of former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, Lord Peter Mandelson of the British government, the Agnelli family of Fiat Motor Company fame, and the ruling sheiks of Kuwait, Bahrain, Dubai, and the United Arab Emirates, among many others.

Meanwhile, employees with the bank’s compliance arm were sounding alarms that Epstein was under federal investigation for child sex trafficking, which was drawing press attention, and that the bank should drop him as a client, according to the filings.

JPMorgan’s top officials eventually ordered an internal investigation into the bank’s Epstein ties in 2019 — a probe that became known as “Project Jeep.” It released an unredacted summary of those findings to the government on May 30, the last day for discovery in the case, according to Tuesday’s filing.

According to the summary — a 22-page bulleted list detailing emails between Epstein, Jes Staley, the former CEO of investment banking, Erdoes, the CEO of asset and wealth management, and occasionally others dating back to 2008 — Epstein was actively involved in the business of JPMorgan, particularly through Staley.

JPMorgan in March filed a third-party lawsuit against Staley, alleging he thwarted its efforts to sever ties with Epstein and should pay if the V.I. government prevails in its suit. Rakoff in April denied Staley’s motion to dismiss the suit.

According to the “Project Jeep” summary, the pair had a close relationship, with Staley maintaining communications even while Epstein was serving time in Florida on the child prostitution charges.

Staley consulted Epstein on everything from his compensation package and his dealings with the Federal Reserve, to the bank’s real estate portfolio and his promotion to CEO of investment banking in 2009, to asset acquisitions and JPMorgan’s forays into China, according to the exhibit.

In an October 2009 email, Epstein wrote to Staley, “feel free to call often, it is difficult for the quarterback to see the playing field. That’s why he calls up to the box.”

A few days later, he wrote to Staley, “my suggestion Your first Great move, should be a new CHina, initiative. first it was alternative investments now china. , you should have a dedicated china entity , with its own board of advisors, should include china politicos. they love to travel. you should be their link to treasury .. or you can issue credit default swaps, for their investment in us co , and you can ask the treasury to be the third party – just an example.”

“Brilliant!” Staley replied.

Epstein went on to organize a tutorial for Staley on doing business in China, according to the summary, and wrote an extensive email laying out the steps for JPMorgan to expand its business in the country, “down to details surrounding the culture, office locations and suggestions for approaching government officials.”

Epstein also suggested Staley “might want to approach abu dhabi, and say as a key player in the world financial system, you will advise them for free. If and only if they decide to implement your advicei.e. sale of assets. thats how you will be compensated. just an idea.”

A day later, on Nov. 29, 2009, Staley forwarded Esptein what appeared to be an internal email regarding discussions with senior officials in the Dubai and Abu Dhabi departments of finance, according to the summary. Two days later, Epstein wrote to Staley, “The first most elegant deal that you can do. is to have China buy Dubai World Ports. They want turnkey, ops where they can then use their worldwide construction cos for building. would be a first great deal for the new ceo of the IB.”

A Close Friendship

On Dec. 3, 2009, Staley wrote to Epstein, “I realize the danger in sending this e-mail. But it was great to be able, today, to give you, in New York City, a long heartfelt, hug. To my friend, thanks. Jes.” According to the summary, it appears that at the time Epstein was not permitted to leave the state of Florida based on the terms of his sentence, “which provides context to the preface of Staley’s email.”

The relationship extended to the U.S. Virgin Islands, which Staley appears to have visited with some frequency, including on his sailboat Bequia, according to the court filings. On Dec. 26, 2009, he wrote to Epstein, “Fun tonight. What do we do next?????” Epstein replied, “my car and driver ,, former dea armed. will pick you up in st thomas we have all the on field permits.. helicopter also available for a tour around , … remember I own the two big marinas.. yacht haven grand, in st thomas and the marina at red hook… you can use my atv’s jet ski gym etc. , i will organize the harbor at Norman island if you like, in the bvil . as well as lunch at guana.”

On Jan. 14, 2010, Staley wrote to Epstein, “Arrived at your harbor. Someday we’ll have to do this together.”

By March 5, 2011, as news of investigations into Epstein was taking hold in the press, he emailed Staley, “more bad press. Ignore it.” Staley replied, “The post?” Epstein replied, “no,, english papers have gone berserk,, claiming fbi re opening investigation. not true,, publishing a phonebook that is not mine , but was stolen by my houseman cuurently in prison for doing so.”

The same day, Staley wrote to Epstein that he and his wife “were talking tonight about what you have meant to me and to [redacted]. You have paid a price for what has been accused. But we know what you have done for us. And we count you as one of our deepest friends. And most honest of people. Thanks, Jes.” Epstein replied, “family.”

Three days later, Vanity Fair published an article about Epstein and his onetime girlfriend and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for her role in his sex-trafficking scheme.

Trouble on the Horizon

Beginning in 2011, Staley and Erdoes were having regular communications with Epstein relating to certain strategic initiatives and business proposals, including a donor advised fund involving Bill Gates that he proposed could be worth $2 billion within two years, according to the exhibit.

Meanwhile, employees with JPMorgan’s compliance arm held a “Rapid Response meeting” in early January 2011 regarding Epstein and were conducting a review of the bank’s relationship with him amid reports that he was under investigation for allegedly trafficking young girls, according to emails.

Again, Epstein’s personal friendship with Staley was at the center of the discussion.

“He is also an alleged personal associate of the CEO of the Investment Bank (Jes Staley),” the email from Phillip DeLuca, then managing director for the bank’s Financial Intelligence Unit, to two other employees stated. “[Anti Money Laundering] Operations went to a PB risk meeting late last week requesting that we exit this relationship.” It said a meeting was arranged with Staley to discuss the bank’s recent human trafficking initiative with him.

It was two more years before the bank severed its ties with Epstein, though it kept close tabs on his activity as a “high-risk” private bank customer, including annual reviews, according to two exhibits detailing conversations in 2012 and 2013.

JPMorgan has called the V.I. government’s suit a “masterclass in deflection.” Key to their argument is the fact that the V.I. government, through its Economic Development Commission, granted Epstein lucrative tax and other benefits during the same period that it is accusing JPMorgan Chase of helping to further the wealthy financier’s sex trafficking scheme.

The bank contends that, having won a $105 million settlement in its lawsuit against Epstein’s estate in November, the V.I. Attorney General’s Office “now casts afield for deeper pockets.”

On June 12, JPMorgan asked the court to order the government to withdraw confidentiality designations over public records it produced in response to the bank’s document requests. On Friday, Judge Rakoff granted that request, ordering the USVI to de-designate as confidential the annual reports filed by Epstein’s companies to the USVI, as well as his sex-offender file.

[admin]

Jeffrey Epstein, My Very, Very Sick Pal. A very weird interview with Stuart Pivar about Epstein, his science parties, his “pathology,” and the industrial scale of it all.
by Leland Nally
Mother Jones
August 23, 2019
https://www.motherjones.com/criminal-ju ... -sick-pal/

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Stuart Pivar, 89 years old, is an art collector and a controversial scientist who says Jeffrey Epstein was his “best pal for decades” until the two fell out, he told me, over allegations of Epstein’s sexual misconduct. Still, when we spoke last week, Pivar was in mourning for his old friend, who days earlier had killed himself in jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Pivar was angry, too, with the shallow coverage of the Epstein case. “Jeffrey was profoundly sick,” he said, ascribing Epstein’s sexual compulsions to a case of satyriasis.

Pivar, an industrialist who made his money in plastics, acted as a sort of art consultant to Epstein. In 1982 Pivar helped found the New York Academy of Art alongside Andy Warhol; Epstein would later serve on the academy’s board, which is how he came to meet, in 1995, an aspiring artist named Maria Farmer, who was 25 at the time. In an affidavit filed in April, Farmer said she and her 15-year-old sister were sexually assaulted by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite accused of soliciting young girls on Epstein’s behalf. (Maxwell has repeatedly denied accusations of sexual abuse and sex trafficking.)

Pivar was also present for a number of Epstein’s science summits. Epstein himself was no scientist, said Pivar, the author of Lifecode: The Theory of Biological Self-Organization and an advocate of non-Darwinian models of evolution. (This was borne out in a recent New York Times story that described Epstein’s interest in cryonics and eugenics and his wish to “seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women” at his New Mexico ranch.) Epstein was a dilettante, and easily distracted. But he pulled so many prominent thinkers into his social circle, using the promise of his money to create “some kind of a mini university of thought,” that in Pivar’s view he did “amazing, incredible, amazing, remarkable things for science.” There were lavish dinner parties with the likes of Steven Pinker and Stephen Jay Gould during which Epstein would ask provocatively elementary questions like “What is gravity?” If the conversation drifted beyond his interests, Epstein was known to interrupt, “What does that got to do with pussy?!”

Pivar was close enough to Epstein that the financier put him “in charge of Ghislaine while she was profoundly depressed from the death of her father,” the media mogul Robert Maxwell. Despite their friendship, Pivar said, he was “insulated” from the lurid aspects of Epstein’s personal life. “I don’t know anything about that,” he said, “because I was never invited to the Isle of Babes,” Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean.

In his telling, Pivar ended his friendship with Epstein after learning from Farmer of her sexual assault. Some evidence of the tension between Pivar and Epstein is lying in public view. In August 2007, Pivar sued a science blogger named P.Z. Myers and Seed Media Group, which hosted his blog, alleging defamation. Myers had lit into Pivar’s work, calling him “a classic crackpot.” In his complaint, Pivar made a point of mentioning by name two prominent members of SMG’s board: Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The lawsuit was later dropped.

Pivar and I spoke by phone last week, a bizarre but occasionally illuminating exchange that ended with a half-joshing threat to sue me. The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.

Q. I’m a writer doing a story on Jeffrey Epstein. I was wondering if maybe you wanted to talk, if you had any interactions with him or ever met him?

A. Jeffrey who?

Q. Jeffrey Epstein.

A. Oh, that Jeffrey. Oh, I’ve heard of him. [Laughs] Who are you?

Q. I’m writing for Mother Jones right now—

A. Mother Jones. That is some kind of uh—

Q. It’s a publication, a political magazine.

A. I’ve heard of it, from way back, right?

Q. Yeah, they’ve been around since the ’70s. The reason I’m calling is because you were listed as a contact in his contact book.

A. I was? Oh, I thought he knew my telephone number by heart.

Q. Oh, really? So you did know him well?

A. Jeffrey Epstein was my best pal for decades.

Q. Really?

A. Yeah. Jeff, I adored him.

Q. How did you guys meet?

A. One day in the early ’70s a friend of mine brought me to Jimmy Goldsmith’s mansion on the east side. And I walked in, and there in the grandiose lobby was a grand piano, and there was somebody playing the piano with great virtuosity. And it was Jeffrey Epstein. That’s how I met him. Did you know that Jeffrey was a piano virtuoso?

Q. I heard that he played the piano. I never heard the word “virtuoso.”

A. Yeah, he was a major talent, among his other talents.

Q. So you guys were friends since then?

A. For a very long time. Daily pals.

Q. So I’ve got to ask right off the bat: What’s your take about the current scandal? The allegations?

A. Listen, I’m in mourning for Jeffrey.

Q. I understand.

A. The way he died is very immaterial.

Q. Do you think he would be the type of person to take his own life?

A. Those kind of things are trivia to me, with respect to Jeffrey and what he was and all that kind of stuff. That’s not the issue.

Q. I understand.

A. That’s not of any interest, really. Jeffrey was an important person. The detail of he happened to kill himself is completely immaterial and profoundly sad.

Q. What do you think you know about Jeffrey that the broader public might not know? You know, about who he is as a person?

A. Everything, everything, everything.

Q. Okay. Would you ever like to talk in more detail about your relationship with him?

A. What do you want to know?

Q. Well, he’s obviously at the center of a lot of attention right now.

A. No kidding.

Q. The allegations are very severe. They’re very alarming. And it’s—

A. No kidding. But they’re totally, totally, totally, totally misunderstood.

Q. So you don’t think he’s guilty of any of the allegations against him right now?

A. Let’s put it this way. What’s the difference between the punishment which befalls a murderer and a serial murderer? It’s the same. If Jeffrey Epstein was found guilty of fooling around with one 16-year-old trollop, nobody would pay any attention. The trouble is, what he did was quantitative and not qualitative.

What Jeffrey did is nothing in comparison to the rapes and the forceful things, which people did. Jeffrey had to do with a bunch of women who were totally complicit. For years, they went, came there time and time and time again. And if there was only one of them who did it, no one would have noticed—except he made an industry out of it. And why did he make an industry out of it? Because Jeffrey was a very, very, very sick man. For some reason that doesn’t get understood. Did you ever hear of nymphomania? Do you know what that is?


Stuart Pivar with Mary McFadden at the opening of the Andy Warhol Museum in 1994. Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com

Q. Vaguely, yes.

A. What do you mean “vaguely”? Everybody knows what a nymphomaniac is. It’s a girl who is insatiable in her sexual appetite, right?

Q. Yes.

A. Yeah. There are men who are like that, and it’s a disease. It’s called satyriasis, and Jeffrey was afflicted with that.

Some pocket-size books express nothing but the pornography of violence, which derives from crime comics directly or indirectly....Here is one endorsed by an "Internationally Famed Psychiatrist." The endorsement says that this book also is an "educational experience," that it shows a disease "medically known as satyriasis ... based on one or more emotional traumas occurring in early life" and that such a person "will stop at nothing to gain his ends, not even murder." (Even medically that is entirely false.) In this book, girls are murdered, but the high point here is when the hero beats the heroine. She "enjoys the blows." "It was like the time she had watched the Negro being beaten and stoned and what she had felt then she was experiencing again." Sadism (or masochism) as sexual fulfillment -- that is the "educational experience" in these books.

-- Seduction of the Innocent, by Fredric Wertham, M.D.

The most horrible execution, perhaps of all time, was that of unfortunate Robert François Damiens who made an attempt on the life of Louis XV and on March 21 of that year was tortured to death. Thomas Carlyle in his The French Revolution cries out: "Ah, the eternal stars look down as if shedding tears of compassion down on the unfortunate people." We believe that a thousand executions by the guillotine cannot balance the terrible execution such as that of poor Damiens, who merited the sympathy of heaven and the stars. This shameful deed of the ancien régime could not have been washed away by all the blood that fell during the Revolution.

And when the individual details are given, the cruelty in Marquis de Sade's works seems entirely conceivable and heralds the passionate bloodthirstiness of the Revolution.

We possess the following account of the execution of Damiens by an eyewitness, de Croy, which we follow in the main. The same judgment was carried out on Damiens as on the murderer of Henry IV, François Ravaillac, on May 27, 1610. On the morning of March 28, 1757 Damiens was put on the rack; with glowing hot forceps his breasts, arms, legs and calves were torn out and in the wounds were poured molten lead, boiling oil, burning pitch mixed with red hot wax and sulphur. At three o'clock in the afternoon the victim was first brought to Notre Dame and then to the Place de Grève. All the streets that he had to pass by were packed with people who showed "neither hate nor pity." Charles Manselet reported: "Wherever one turns one's eyes one sees only crowds in Rue de la Tannerie! The crowds at the intersection of Rue de I'Épine and Rue de Mouton! The crowds in every part of the Place de Grève. The court itself was a compact mass, consisting of all possible classes, particularly the rabble."

At half past four that dreadful spectacle began. In the middle of the court was a low platform upon which the victim, who showed neither fear nor wonder but asked only for a quick death, was bound fast with iron rings by the six executioners so that his body was completely bound. Thereupon his right hand was extended and was placed in a sulphurous fire; the poor fellow let loose a dreadful outcry. According to Manselet, while his hair was burning, they stood on end. Thereupon his body was again attacked with glowing tongs and pieces of flesh were ripped from his bosom, thighs and other parts; molten lead and boiling oil were again spilled on the fresh wounds, the resulting stench (declared Richelieu in his Memoirs), infected the air of the entire court. Then four horses on the four sides of the platforms pulled hard on the heavy cables bound to his arms, shoulders, hands and feet. The horses were spurred on so that they might pull the victim apart. But they were unused to acting as the handmaids of executioners. For more than a hour they were beaten to strain away so that they might tear off the legs or arms of the victim. Only the wailing cries of pain informed the "prodigious number of spectators" of the unbelievable sufferings that a human creature had to endure. The horses now increased to six, were again whipped and forced to jerk away at the cables. The cries of Damiens increased to a maniacal roaring. And again the horses failed. Finally the executioner received permission from the judges to lighten the horrible task of the horses by cutting off the chains. First the hips were freed. The victim "turned his head to see what was happening," he did not cry but only turned close to the crucifix which was held out to him and kissed it while the two father-confessors spoke to him. At last after one and one-half hours of this "unparalleled suffering" the left leg was torn off. The people clapped their hands in applause! The victim betrayed only "curiosity and indifference." But when the other leg was torn off he started anew his wailing. After the chains on his shoulders had been cut off his right arm was the first to go. His cries became weaker and his head began to totter. When the left arm was ripped off the head fell backwards. So there was only left a trembling rump that was still alive and a head whose hair had suddenly become white. He still lived! As the hair was cut off and his legs and hands collected and dropped into a basket, the father-confessors stepped up to the remainder of Damiens. But Henry Sanson, the executioner, held them back and told them that Damiens had just drawn his last breath. "The fact is" wrote trustworthy Rétif, "that I saw the body still move about and the lower jaw move up and down as if he wanted to speak." The rump still breathed! His eyes turned to the spectators. It is not reported if the people clapped their hands a second time. At any rate during the length of the entire execution none moved from their places in the court or from the windows of adjoining buildings. The remainder of this martyr was burnt at a stake and the ashes strewn to the four winds. "Such was the end of that poor unfortunate who it may well be believed—suffered the greatest tortures that a human being has ever been called upon to endure." So concluded the Duke de Croy, an eyewitness, whose report we have almost literally translated. We will give a few more accounts by eyewitnesses of that fateful day when an entire populace greedily waited through few hours for the most dreadful tortures that the world had ever seen.

"The assemblage of people in Paris at this execution was unbelievable. The citizen of near and far provinces, even foreigners, came for the festival. The windows, roofs, streets were packed head on head. Most surprising of all was the dreadful impatient curiosity of women who strained for closer views of the torturings." Madame du Hausset tells in her memoirs that gambling went on during the execution and that wagers were made on the length of the duration of the tortures by Damiens.

Casanova, one of those who came from a foreign country to see the execution, reported a scene that was an excellent if terrible example of the theory of de Sade, that the tortures of another spur on real pleasure. He writes: "On March 28, the day of the Martyrdom of Damiens, I called for the ladies at Lambertini's and since the carriage could scarcely hold us all, I placed my charming friend on my lap without much difficulty and so amused ourselves until we came to the Place de Grève. The three ladies pressed as close to each other as they could so that they could all look through the window. They rested on their arms so we could see over their heads.

"We had the patience to maintain our uncomfortable position for four hours of this horrible spectacle. The execution of Damiens is too well-known for me to write about it. Also because the description would take too long and because nature revolts at such atrocities. During the execution of this sacrifice of the jesuits (his execution was said to have been done by order of the jesuits), I had to turn my eyes and hold my ears so that I might not hear that heart-rending cry when he had but half of his body. But Lambertini and her old friend made not the slightest movement; was that because of the cruelty of their souls? I had to pretend that I believed them when they said that his crime had prevented them from feeling sympathy for his plight. The fact is that Tiretta occupied herself during the execution in a most peculiar manner. She lifted her skirt high because, she said, she didn't want it dirtied. And her friend obliged her in the same way. Their hands were busily engaged during all the tortures."

Commentaries to Casanova's account are superfluous. That it was not an isolated case of satyriasis but one of the phases accompanying the horrible execution and calling forth passionate ecstasies was shown clearly by the fact that this charming sexual maneuver lasted two hours as expressly mentioned by Casanova later. "The action was repeated and without a resistance.” That Louis XV told the embassies all the details of the execution with great satisfaction is not strange. The execution of the poisoner Desrues who, on May 6, 1772, was placed on the wheel and then burnt alive, was also "well attended by a distinguished crowd."

-- Marquis De Sade: His Life and Work, by Dr. Iwan Bloch, 1889

I see.

He couldn’t help himself.

And this is something—

I know that.

This is something that you observed with him personally, as his friend?

At close range.

You saw him struggle with this?

Yeah.

Was it a struggle for him? Did he ever—

I wouldn’t say struggle. He didn’t struggle with it. He was in a position financially to yield to it, big time. But nevertheless, he could not help himself. I’ve seen him do things which he couldn’t—couldn’t help himself, he was afflicted with it. If he had tuberculosis it wouldn’t be called a perversion, would it? Because he coughed too much?

Right. So you’re not disputing whether he did these actions or not?

I know what he did except I know the cause of it and other people simply can’t conceive of the idea that what Jeffrey did—that he was beset with a pathology, like a disease. I watched it happen.

So were you ever around for any instances of these?

Of course! No, I never saw him fool around with—in fact, Jeffrey was a very, very close friend of mine. And he shielded me. I never saw what he did until finally I did notice certain things, and that was the end of me having to do with him. But for a very long time, for years and years and years, Jeffrey did amazing, incredible, amazing, remarkable things for science and all kinds of stuff. He was a very, very good friend to me.

He never invited me to the “Isle of Babes,” luckily. I never knew it was even there.

Really? So you ended your relationship? You said when—

Well, I ended my relationship when I began to realize that he was doing things that I didn’t know about.

What were some of those things—

One day at the flea market there was Maria Farmer there, and I said, “What are you doing here?” And she told me this bizarre story, and then Jeffrey shows up, and I realized oh my god something was happening after years and years, which he didn’t tell me.

He was very scrupulous about leaving me out of that stuff. He never invited me to the Isle of Babes.

[Editor’s note: Attempts to reach Farmer were unsuccessful.]

So you never went there or anything like that?

No, of course I didn’t. For a while I was annoyed that he didn’t invite me. ’Cause all kinds of—see, I was involved in his scientific affairs.

I see. So—

I’m a scientist, and I saw all the incredible, wonderful things he did for science, which nobody’s managed to have the intellect to understand.

Right. Interesting.

Damn right, it’s interesting.

What were some of the signs that led you to end your relationship with him?

I told you.

So that was the main one, Maria Farmer, who you saw when—

Right, when one day at the flea market there’s Maria Farmer, who I knew ’cause she was a student at the New York Academy of Art, and I [asked], “What are you doing here?” And she started to tell me about some terrible thing, too terrible to utter, having to do with Jeffrey Epstein. And then a minute later, he shows up. And I began to put two and two together. And I realized that something was going on, which I didn’t know about. And at that point, I knew that he had a different life that I was not aware of.

The press coverage of this—what Jeffrey did was quantitative, not qualitative.

So what you’re saying—

Anyone who did one thing, let us say, to some 16-year-old trollop who would come to his house time after time after time and then afterwards bitch about it— why, no one would pay attention. Except Jeffrey made an industry out of it.

When you say he made an industry out of it—

Apparently he went beyond. This got out of hand. What’s the name of that girl? I forget. Time after time after time after time she comes there for I don’t know what length of time, and then after it’s all done, she has things to say—why did you stay there? In other words, what I’m saying is, what Jeffrey did in comparison with other people is only different in the fact that he made an industry out of it.

And when you say industry, do you mean bringing—

Industry! He did stuff with underage girls who knew what the hell they were doing. By the hundreds. If he only did one, no one would pay attention. Nor, on the other hand, did he actually rape any of them or anything like that, which happens, you know. If you want to make a list of, let us say, in the past several years, of the kind of stuff going on of sexual abuse of children and what the hell not—you want to compare that with what Jeffrey did? What Jeffrey did in comparison with the kind of stuff which gets exposed every day of people who are abusing children left and right and all kinds of institutions? Jeffrey never did anything like that. Everything he had to do with these girls was complicit. And it was just interesting to the rest of the world who doesn’t understand that Jeffrey was a very sick man. He had a case of what is called satyriasis. Did you hear of that?

No, I haven’t, actually. First time.

Let me elucidate you then. You ever hear of nymphomania?

Yes.

That’s girls who can’t, who are, how would you describe it? Nymphomania is a known sexual aberration, which is described scientifically in works on that subject. Another subject is called satyriasis. This is men who are afflicted with a similar—I hate to use the word “perversion,” because what does “perversion” mean? Perversion is, I mean, there are pathologies of all kinds. People get sick and do all kinds of weird things. Some of them are called perversions because they’re peculiar.

And you think Jeffrey had a perversion?

Jeffrey was ill. Jeffrey was born with a case of satyriasis. Somebody like you, incidentally, who wants to be writing on the subject, should know a thing like that.

Okay. This is the first time I’ve heard it in connection with him.

What do you mean? Isn’t it quite obvious that Jeffrey was pathological?

There are plenty of people with satyriasis like there are plenty of nymphomaniacs, except very few of them have the money to, let us say, treat themselves to sex three times a day with young girls. That was what he had to do. Other people, there are plenty of cases, presumably, if you want to read up on the subject—it’s called satyriasis, right? It’s the male version of—did you ever meet a nymphomaniac?

No, but I understand the concept.

Do you know what a nymphomaniac is?

Yeah.

These are many women who are possessed with an uncontrollable need for sex. I actually once sort of knew one, as a matter of fact. She told me she was abused by her father. And as a result of this, the poor thing had an uncontrollable need for sex to the point that it was embarrassing. She was what’s called a nymphomaniac.

You told me you heard something terrible that Maria told you.

Jeffrey brought her there, and what he did to Maria was inexcusable, of course. He locked her up, and she couldn’t get away, and her father had to come and rescue her. That’s a story she told. And, of course, that’s the least of what she told me. Forget that, her little sister, for Christ’s sake, the guy actually brought her to his place and did those kind of things, which, of course, is inexcusable and that’s the kind of thing which satyriasists do because they can’t help themselves.

And this is Maria Farmer you’re talking about, who you knew? How’d you know her?

She was a student at the New York Academy of Art. Jeffrey was on the board of trustees of the New York Academy of Art. That’s how come he knew her.

How do you think they met?

Jeffrey used to go to the functions of that institution. She was there. She was an artist, and Jeffrey used to buy drawings and what the heck not. My guess is that he was there only for the purpose of meeting…it wouldn’t surprise me.

So this was when you started to—

The story of Maria Farmer and her sister is already in print. You don’t need me to tell you that, and if you don’t know it, you’re not qualified to write this story.

No, I understand. But it’s interesting hearing it from your perspective. You had a really interesting moment, to hear that directly from her.

I saw that he did that, and I was horrified. It was the last I ever saw of the guy.

So you believed her when she told you that story?

Well, of course!

And were there any other moments like that where you became aware of things Jeffrey was doing—

Yes, yes, yes.

Would you care to share any of those details?

Yeah, one time—the point is, Jeffrey was a sick man. Like people are sick with all kinds of diseases of every kind, especially behavioral ones. There are all kind of nuts running around. They get guns, and they kill people and all that kind of stuff, due to behavioral aberrations.

It’s interesting to hear from someone who knew Jeffrey Epstein—

I knew him quite well, for years and years and years and years and years.

—who is bringing this perspective that he was a sick individual, that he couldn’t help himself.

I observed that Jeffrey Epstein was a very important person in the scientific world. Jeffrey brought to science something which nobody else did.

What was that?

He brought together scientists for the sake of trying to inculcate some kind of a higher level of scientific thought, even though he himself didn’t know shit from Shinola about science.

He never knew nothing about anything. Nevertheless—

How do you think he got so successful if he didn’t know anything? That’s one big question around Jeffrey Epstein—

No, no, no, he didn’t know anything about science.

Okay.

He knew plenty about how to make money.

What were some of his passions in science? What did he talk to you about in the realm of science?

Jeffrey—how to put this? Jeffrey came into the concept of thought and science and all with no knowledge whatsoever about anything. He really didn’t know a goddamn thing. I don’t even believe that he taught math. I can’t—oh, Jeffrey once told me that he studied math with the Unabomber. Did you know that?

Really?

Yeah. Jeffrey told me that he studied math at UCLA with the Unabomber, who was a math teacher.

Wow, that’s interesting.

That’s what he says, I don’t know. You might want to track that down.

But Jeffrey didn’t know anything about science. Nevertheless, in his peculiarly inquiring mind, let’s say, like a child who is fresh to the world—because he has no compunction about approaching people—he brought together the most important scientists like Stephen Gould, like Pinker, like all of those people, and myself even, at dinners, and would propose interesting, naive ideas. Steve Pinker describes that. He would say, “Oh, what is gravity?” Which of course is an unanswerable thing to present at a dinner to a bunch of scientists. And because he was Jeffrey, why, they would—and as the founder of the feast—they would listen to him and try to give [answers]. He was attempting, somehow, in his ignorant and scientifically naive state, to do something scientifically important. He had no compunctions about inviting people, and since he had money, they would listen. He would promise money to people and, of course, never come across, by the way. That’s what’s called a dangler. Didn’t he promise $15 million to Harvard? I don’t know if they got two cents.

So people would come to his dinners, including myself. I even had them. Take a look at Steven Pinker’s essay. Jeffrey brought these people together and thought that he was causing basic thought processes to happen, which he sort of was, even though they were sort of irrelevant. I mean, to bring together a bunch of scientists and say, what is gravity? Which is ridiculous in a way, even though it’s a question nobody can answer. But he would do that kind of stuff. Just for the sake of, I don’t know what. And Jaron Lanier and all that group, the greatest thinkers that they were, he brought together with a purpose of thinking, rightfully or wrongfully, that he was going to introduce some kind of logic or something—some special kind of a thought process, which others hadn’t thought of, which of course is absurd.

While everybody was watching, we began to realize he didn’t know what he was talking about. Then after a couple of minutes—Jeffrey had no attention span whatsoever—he would interrupt the conversation and change it and say things like, “What does that got to do with pussy?!”

Really?

That was his favorite expression. It was a subject changer. And it revealed what was really in his mind. Of course, that was the only thing that was going on in his mind. The poor guy had—it’s hard to, you can’t describe Jeffrey. And because he had dough, he was able to realize the weirdest situations, which he would convoke by bringing brilliant people together and proposing silly ideas at dinner, and everyone would listen because he was handing out dough. And it was an indescribable situation—trying to create some kind of a mini university of thought while he himself knew zero.

You said he brought up these crazy ideas. Can you remember any of his own ideas?

He would propose the fundamental questions of science. What’s up? And what’s down? And what’s gravity? And then when I knew him at the very, very beginning, before he was Jeffrey—I knew Jeffrey before he was Jeffrey.

And when he brought Ghislaine [Maxwell] to this country, he put me in charge of her because she was a total wreck. It was my job to try to amuse her.

And that was when you first met Jeffrey, he handed her off to you because—

No, that was much later. I knew Jeffrey a long time before that. But when she arrived, after her father jumped off the boat or whatever happened, she was a total wreck. And my job was to amuse her, take her to dinner and lunch and what have you until she finally came around, and then was okay.

When I watched this happen, I had no idea what the hell it was all about. And the idea that no one has recognized that Jeffrey was profoundly sick, with a male counterpart of nymphomania, which he could not control…

What was his relationship to—

Look, it wouldn’t surprise me—probably a lot of men have that for all I know. But none of them have the dough to have underage girls three times a day to work it out. So instead, God knows what they do. The peculiar thing is, let’s put it this way, now that you’ve got me thinking: Jeffrey had a severe case of what’s called satyriasis, the male counterpart of nymphomania. Except that he had the money and the wherewithal to work it out, to manage to supply himself with three underage girls every single day.

Who knows how many men have that? And the difference is that if there are other ones who have it, I don’t know, they probably go around raping or God knows what they do. Jeffrey had the money to do it politely—namely, by getting complaisant young girls.

Now what was his relationship like to Maxwell? Because you knew them both.

It annoys me that that the whole thing is dealt with so superficially. Why doesn’t somebody talk to a psychologist?

For example, I was a sort of an art consultant, furnishing his numerous houses, and at one point I took him to a very prominent art dealer to buy furniture and what have you. I brought along an assistant I had who was a very attractive young girl, and there we were in those precincts of art and Renaissance furniture and what have you. He grabbed her up from behind and lifted her up and squeezed the hell out of her and she screamed. I said, “Jeffrey put her down! What are you doing?”

And the three or four of us who were watching were horrified, and he put her down. He was out of control. Have you ever seen anyone do a thing like that?

No, never. Where were you guys when he did that?

As a matter of fact, it was at the gallery of Ruth Blumka.

Ruth is dead now. But the point is, I saw Jeffrey do a thing I’d never seen in my life anyone do. And when I saw him do that, I said, oh my god. This is a screw loose. To do an uncontrollable thing like that.

Was there anything else like that? You mentioned him interrupting, talking about pussy at scientific dinners and—

You need to talk to Steven Pinker, who characterizes very well what Jeffrey’s mind was, how he couldn’t concentrate on a subject for more than two minutes before having to change the subject because he didn’t know what anyone was talking about and would blurt out the dumbest things.

Jeffrey is being dealt with as—the word “pervert” comes up. What’s a pervert? There are all kinds of behavioristic aberrations, obviously, including mass murderers. You don’t call mass murderers “perverts,” do you? “Perversion” is a word which is restricted, I suppose, to a certain kind of behavioral aberration having to do with sex. But the guy had this incredible sickness. You put that together with somebody with the kind of dough to pursue it, big time…

And you said he made an industry out of this. Do you know of any other people that Jeffrey knew that took part?

No of course not. Do you? Nobody—there was only one, only, only Jeffrey.

Okay, so you don’t think he roped anyone else into this or any of his friends or colleagues or whatever took part in these parties where these kinds of things would happen?

I don’t know anything about that because I was never invited to the Isle of Babes.

And you never heard anything? You never heard stories secondhand?

No. I didn’t even know it existed because Jeffrey insulated me from it.

What do you think about the allegations around that this was sort of a pedophile ring that had a very large scope, that had lots of people involved. Do you see that as a possibility?

Jeffrey had lots and lots and lots of dough. Scientists are always looking for lots and lots of dough, because most scientists spend most of their time writing grant proposals to raise money. Jeffrey didn’t require a grant proposal. Jeffrey would promise money and so they crowded around, and he also was an extremely personable, amusing kind of person to talk to. He was full of incredible ideas. He was charming in the extreme, and that’s why everyone paid attention to him.

You said he’s full of incredible ideas. What kind of ideas do you remember of Jeffrey’s?

He used to come up with all kinds of interesting—it’s hard to even put my finger on it. Haven’t you spoken to the other scientists who went to his various dinners? Or else went down to the Isle of Babes, which I did not do, and have them describe to you how come he was so fascinating? He is a very, very brilliant guy and has a very—how should I say—charming way of expressing himself, which everybody knows. And on top of that, promising all kinds of dough to scientists who were starving to get funded is a powerful combination. So they all listened. And of course, some of them may or may not have succumbed to whatever the hell they did down there at the Isle of Babes, ’cause I don’t know.

Sure, but you didn’t know of anyone who took part in the stuff that Jeffrey was doing on that island?

I knew perfectly well—I knew the people involved. But I didn’t know that they were doing, that they were—I didn’t know if or whether they partook in those kinds of things. Jeffrey used to appoint me in charge of Ghislaine while she was profoundly depressed from the death of her father. And other people, he would introduce me to wives of some of them and all that, I had no idea why that was. Jeffrey had numerous residences. And he used to rely on me to help him furnish them with art. I was sort of his art consultant, you might say, not that he ever took my advice. Because he pretended to be interested in art, but he was really more interested with—Jeffrey was so perverse. “Perverse,” that word, haha. You have to use it. What is perversion? You want to examine that.

Jeffrey was amused to have in his house fake art which looked like real art. Because of the fact that he was putting one over, so to speak. He thought that he was—how do you describe that? When you walked into this house, for example, there was a Max Weber or something like that, and it was a fake. And it amused him that people didn’t realize that. He was able to furnish his house with the fake paintings. Jeffrey had a collection of underage Rodins, for example, because what difference does it make if it’s real or not real? And if the real one costs nothing and the expensive one—it doesn’t make a difference. He was amused to put one over on the world by having fake art. He thought that he was seeing through the fallacy.

So would you say this was a pattern with him, that he would sort of pretend to be interested in science and pretend to be interested in art, but it was really all surface level?

Yeah. Let’s put it that way.

And in your perspective, is the reason for that—

You know, I just realized something. Why the hell am I talking to you and getting involved with Jeffrey Epstein when I shouldn’t? I regret everything I just told you, by the way.

Oh god, when journalists talk you’re supposed to not talk to them. Now, I’ve told you those interesting things, and they are interesting things. And, you know—by the way, is he going to have a funeral? Is there going to be a eulogy?

I imagine so.

Hey, why don’t you find that out? That’ll be interesting.

Would you attend?

Why don’t you try to find out if there’s going to be a funeral for Jeffrey or the eulogy or something like that.

I will do that.

In other words, the Jeffrey thing is profoundly deep, and all we see is a superficial thing. While underneath it is a kind of human aberration, which should be interesting to science rather than to trivial journalism. And sensational journalism. No one is paying attention to what he was afflicted with, with the possibility that other people are afflicted with it, too, and don’t have the money to do it quantitatively like he did. Who knows what lurks out there? How many Jeffreys are there—who don’t have the dough to do what he does, but instead do whatever the hell they do? Who examines sex crimes to determine if they’re really cases of Jeffreyism?

There’s so much there. It is a disgrace to science that what afflicted Jeffrey is not being investigated.

So that’s what you wish people knew about Jeffrey?

I’m saying this to you, that it’s a disgrace to science that what afflicted Jeffrey is not being discussed scientifically, in the event that there are plenty other Jeffreys who don’t have money. It’s an interesting question.

The business of sexual attraction, the attraction of males and females in its natural state, is not the same as what happens when civilization puts [up] all kinds of rules. Because sexual attraction starts at a very, very young age. When I was 14, I had to deal with a girl who was only 13. And somehow, I remember, it was at summer camp. And I stopped having to do with her because of the tremendous age gap. Girls at the age of 12, 13, and 14 have sexual attraction to 14- and 15-year-olds. But it’s not supposed to be that way. And so, all kinds of rules get made. And nature is not allowed to take its course on account of civilization. Jeffrey broke those rules, big time. But what he was pursuing was the kind of, I suppose, sexual urges which would—why am I telling you this stuff for? Leave me alone. Go away.

This is all very interesting—

I know it’s very interesting, but I’m just realizing something. I have just gotten myself into terrible trouble and everyone who knows is going to be mad at me—why the hell did I pick up the phone?

I appreciate you giving me your perspective on this. And—

No, you don’t. You’re going to misinterpret everything I just said, and you are about to get me into big-time trouble!

I had no idea of what the hell Jeffrey was doing in all the years I knew him until it became clear, and then I divorced myself from having anything to do with him. But before that happened, for years and years and years, I watched Jeffrey do all kinds of interesting and amazing things, scientifically and so on.

Yeah. And you said that from the very beginning. And I understand that, and I appreciate you giving me your perspective. The fact that you heard that story firsthand from Maria—

No, you don’t. I am suddenly—I am mad at myself for even talking to you. What’s the name of your publication?

I’m writing for Mother Jones right now.

Yeah, that’s been around for a very long time, since the ’70s, am I right? Or ’60s even?

Yeah, ’70s.

Isn’t that an outgrowth of Woodstock?

No. It’s very politically focused right now and environmentally as well.

What have I done? I have just shot myself in the foot.

Is there anything else that you think—

I am mad at myself! What have I—oh, dammit.

Is there anything—

I don’t trust you. You’re a journalist, and you’re not gonna take time to figure out what I really said.

I have now put myself into terrible trouble when I actually have no idea what the hell Jeffrey was ever doing. Except his scientific things and his supposed art things, I used to help him furnish his house with art. That’s all. And while that was going on—oh boy. What have I done?

I understand, and you spending time with Jeffrey was—

How much do you want to forget this whole conversation?

I’m not gonna take any money.

[Laughing] I know, I’m sorry I said that.

Did you ever spend any time with Jeffrey that wasn’t in a science dinner or in the art world—did you ever have any one-on-one time?

Only those kind of things, and the reason all the kind of people had to do with him—look at the list, it’s incredible. Why? Because Jeffrey was a fascinating guy. He promised money to scientists. I don’t need money because I have money, and I was just a pal of his, but I saw that happen. Scientists spend 50 percent of the time trying to raise money. And Jeffrey was an easy way out.

If you want to know what satyriasis is, get a copy of Psychopathia Sexualis, by Krafft-Ebing. You know that work?

I don’t know that work. But I know the condition you’re talking about.

You ever heard of Krafft-Ebing and Psychopathia Sexualis?

No, but I’m familiar with the term you’re using to say that Jeffrey was afflicted with. You described it as the male counterpart to nymphomania, correct?

Yeah, but if you were a person with any kind of literary knowledge or background, you would have heard of Robert [sic] Krafft-Ebing, the great contemporary of Sigmund Freud, who made an encyclopedia of sexual aberrations.

And that’s your thesis that he was—

Before you write, why don’t you equip yourself with what you’re supposed to know, but don’t, of the background of sexual perversion. Which was studied thoroughly at the time of Freud by Robert Krafft-Ebing, which most educated people know about. You don’t. A shame.

Is there anything—

Excuse me, but that’s the truth of it. You should know that if you had any kind of background. He had a copy, Jeffrey had a copy of that book.

I can tell that you are—

Why don’t you get a copy of it? Read the thing. Very thick. It talks about all imaginable, mad things. All the sexual perversions known to mankind. Before you write, why don’t you look at that, and in one page you’re going to find a thing called satyriasis—these are people who, like Jeffrey, are afflicted. I read some place the other day that he had to have an orgasm three times a day. Did you read that?

I’ve heard that. Yes.

Do you mean you’ve read it?

Yeah. Well, yes.

You’re not equipped to write what you’re writing. You’re not.

I really urge you—before you write, don’t make a fool of yourself and read what’s already written.

I appreciate it.

Because the point is that Jeffrey was afflicted with a disease. And if it was tuberculosis, you wouldn’t call it a perversion because someone coughs too much. Instead, he was uncontrollable, and he had the dough to yield to it and then, by chance, had a partner in it, Ghislaine, who was a basket case. The story is more bizarre than people begin to realize. All you read in the press is the superficiality of the scandalousness of it without realizing that underneath it is the science of the pathology and the medicine of it. I’ve got a great idea for you. Why don’t you look in the Yellow Pages, if there is still such a thing. You know what I mean by Yellow Pages?

Yes, of course.

For some type of sex pathologist or doctors or something, and ask them what their opinion is of people who uncontrollably did what he did, and get a medical background of the thing, and you might begin to write something intelligent on the subject.

I think that’s a good idea. Do you think Maxwell was—

And in exchange for telling you this, why don’t you leave me out of it?

I’m not trying to drag you into anything.

Why did I talk to you! I’m a dead fish, and you’re going to ruin me. Luckily, I don’t know anybody who reads the Mother Jones anymore. I can’t believe it still existed. How many years has this thing been published. Forty?

Just about 50. So you said Maxwell was his partner. Do you think she was pathological as well?

She arrived a dysfunctional wreck from what happened to her on account of her father. And the last thing that should’ve happened to someone like that is to fall in to the care of the likes of Jeffrey. He molded her into being complicit with his aberrations.

What was Maxwell’s role in the operations?

You know as much as I do about that.

So you were never privy to anything?

Jeffrey was a very good friend of mine. And never let on to me as to what was going on, until I finally found out when I saw the Maria Farmer thing, and then I realized that I wanted nothing to do with him.

Did you ever talk to him about that? Did you ever confront him and say, “Hey, I heard this thing”—or did you just cut ties with him? Did you ever confront him?

I can’t remember that, but in any case I stopped having to do with him when I realized the catastrophe that he had done. I couldn’t believe he did that kind of stuff.

So you never talked to him about it?

While, incidentally, everybody he has—what am I saying? What about all these guys like Dershowitz?

Yeah. There were many people who stayed friends with him after that first allegation.

I knew Alan Dershowitz, and Jaron Lanier was a good friend of mine. No, Jaron had nothing to do with it. I’m sure of that.

I knew these guys. Jeffrey introduced me to the scientists. And Steve Gould, who of course had nothing whatever to do with it. Do you know who Steve Gould is?

Yes.

What?

Yeah, I’ve heard the name in regards to Epstein.

You’ve heard the name—he’s one of the greatest scientists of the age, and you heard his name, oh bravo, you’re very qualified. You’re so full of shit, it’s terrible. You should not be writing about this. You’re not qualified.

Oh boy. Why did I pick up the phone? Why wasn’t I out to dinner?

Do you think Dershowitz—

What have I done? You’re going to distort everything I said. I just know it.

You’re being very clear in what you’re saying, and it’s very easy to understand your point of view here.

I never knew what the hell he was doing. On the other hand, however, I was instrumental—I hung out with the scientists. He introduced me to a lot of scientists I otherwise would not have known.

I’m curious what you said about Dershowitz.

How could I possibly know what Alan Dershowitz—I don’t know what Alan Dershowitz did.

Okay, so your point is, you have no clue—

In fact, I can’t believe that anyone as smart as Alan Dershowitz would get involved in anything like that at all. I don’t believe that Alan Dershowitz or any of these other important people were dumb enough to go along with Jeffrey’s—and I believe that that was all the kind of calumnies and lies which this girl—what’s her name? That trollop, who, for months, or whatever the hell she did. What the hell was she doing all this time? And she has made an industry for herself out of inventing calumnies against all of these respectable people.

[Editor’s note: He’s apparently referring to Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre has accused Epstein and Maxwell of sexually abusing her and lending her out for sex to the financier’s powerful friends, among them the lawyer Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz has adamantly denied the allegations, accusing Giuffre of trying to extort him. Giuffre in turn has sued Dershowitz for defamation.]

So—

None of which can she substantiate. And none of which I believe, because those people she’s talking about—do you think the guy with the intelligence of Alan Dershowitz would dare to compromise himself?

Well, you know, you said Epstein was a smart guy, too, you know?

All right. Who knows. Human nature.

Now, do you think there were parties at the Isle of babes, as you called it?

I’ve heard it called that. I was never invited there.

He insulated me. I was a very close friend, and he insulated me totally. And never let me know that until, to my horror, I realized, and then I had nothing whatever to do with him after that.

Right. So do you know anybody who did go to the island?

No.

No, nobody?

All I know—let’s put it this way. All I know is what I read in the papers.

I had no idea what the hell was going on. Jeffrey had, let us say, two separate worlds going. Do you think his financial friends knew? Of course they didn’t. Could you imagine having all kinds of financial dealings with people if they had any idea what he was doing? They wouldn’t have touched him with a hot potato. He insulated totally those two lives of his.

I see. So what I’m curious about is, we talked about how some people remained friends with him after that first allegation, and you didn’t. Were there any friends of yours who also cut ties with Jeffrey around that time? Or who stayed friends? Did you have any conflicts with people who decided to keep in touch with Jeffrey or go to his dinners, etc.?

No. Boy am I glad that nobody I know reads Mother Jones. I mean, I stopped reading that about 40 years ago.

I see.

Why did I pick up the phone? Listen, I’m going to be mad at you if you misquote me one iota.

I promise you I won’t. I have no interest.

Let’s put it this way: If you misquote me, I’ll raise hell with you. I am not a poor guy.

Okay.

And if you contort anything I told you in good faith—

I have no interest in doing so.

Do you know what I’m saying?

Yeah, you’ve been very clear in the things that you said.

You inveigled me, so to speak, into yapping pointlessly because I have nothing else to do for the moment, and I’m relying on you to understand what I say. If you misquote me or anything like that, I will sue your magazine until the end of the Earth.

I understand. You’ve been very clear in what you’ve said. I will absolutely not distort or misquote you.

Tell me your name again so I can start writing a complaint to sue you.

My name is Leland. But we can go ahead and end the conversation here. I appreciate you offering me your point of view.

Look, it’s been fun, but for heaven’s sakes, please don’t screw me over.

You have my word and you got—

I’ve done you a big favor by telling you a lot of stuff, and I don’t expect you to stab me in the back.

I absolutely have no intention of doing so. You also have—

Otherwise I will stab you in other places.

Okay, you also have my number. So if you feel the need—

Oh, I’ve got your number.

You’ve got it. I appreciate you giving me your perspective on this.

No, you don’t, you’re a journalist. Journalists don’t appreciate nothing. They’re like lawyers.

I’m insulted, but that’s okay. All right. Well, you have a great night.

Ok, have a nice evening. You’ve ruined mine.

You can reach Leland Nally at [email protected].

[admin]

The Talented Mr. Epstein. Lately, Jeffrey Epstein’s high-flying style has been drawing oohs and aahs: the bachelor financier lives in New York’s largest private residence, claims to take only billionaires as clients, and flies celebrities including Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey on his Boeing 727. But pierce his air of mystery and the picture changes. Vicky Ward explores Epstein’s investment career, his ties to retail magnate Leslie Wexner, and his complicated past.
By Vicky Ward
March 1, 2003
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2003/03 ... hxdlBYu1MU

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

On Manhattan’s Upper East Side, home to some of the most expensive real estate on earth, exists the crown jewel of the city’s residential town houses. With its 15-foot-high oak door, huge arched windows, and nine floors, it sits on—or, rather, commands—the block of 71st Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues. Almost ludicrously out of proportion with its four- and five-story neighbors, it seems more like an institution than a house. This is perhaps not surprising—until 1989 it was the Birch Wathen private school. Now it is said to be Manhattan’s largest private residence.

Inside, amid the flurry of menservants attired in sober black suits and pristine white gloves, you feel you have stumbled into someone’s private Xanadu. This is no mere rich person’s home, but a high-walled, eclectic, imperious fantasy that seems to have no boundaries.

The entrance hall is decorated not with paintings but with row upon row of individually framed eyeballs; these, the owner tells people with relish, were imported from England, where they were made for injured soldiers. Next comes a marble foyer, which does have a painting, in the manner of Jean Dubuffet … but the host coyly refuses to tell visitors who painted it. In any case, guests are like pygmies next to the nearby twice-life-size sculpture of a naked African warrior.

Despite its eccentricity the house is curiously impersonal, the statement of someone who wants to be known for the scale of his possessions. Its occupant, financier Jeffrey Epstein, 50, admits to friends that he likes it when people think of him this way. A good-looking man, resembling Ralph Lauren, with thick gray-white hair and a weathered face, he usually dresses in jeans, knit shirts, and loafers. He tells people he bought the house because he knew he “could never live anywhere bigger.” He thinks 51,000 square feet is an appropriately large space for someone like himself, who deals mostly in large concepts—especially large sums of money.

Guests are invited to lunch or dinner at the town house—Epstein usually refers to the former as “tea,” since he likes to eat bite-size morsels and drink copious quantities of Earl Grey. (He does not touch alcohol or tobacco.) Tea is served in the “leather room,” so called because of the cordovan-colored fabric on the walls. The chairs are covered in a leopard print, and on the wall hangs a huge, Oriental fantasy of a woman holding an opium pipe and caressing a snarling lionskin. Under her gaze, plates of finger sandwiches are delivered to Epstein and guests by the menservants in white gloves.

Upstairs, to the right of a spiral staircase, is the “office,” an enormous gallery spanning the width of the house. Strangely, it holds no computer. Computers belong in the “computer room” (a smaller room at the back of the house), Epstein has been known to say. The office features a gilded desk (which Epstein tells people belonged to banker J. P. Morgan), 18th-century black lacquered Portuguese cabinets, and a nine-foot ebony Steinway “D” grand. On the desk, a paperback copy of the Marquis de Sade’s The Misfortunes of Virtue was recently spotted. Covering the floor, Epstein has explained, “is the largest Persian rug you’ll ever see in a private home—so big, it must have come from a mosque.” Amid such splendor, much of which reflects the work of the French decorator Alberto Pinto, who has worked for Jacques Chirac and the royal families of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, there is one particularly startling oddity: a stuffed black poodle, standing atop the grand piano. “No decorator would ever tell you to do that,” Epstein brags to visitors. “But I want people to think what it means to stuff a dog.” People can’t help but feel it’s Epstein’s way of saying that he always has the last word.

In addition to the town house, Epstein lives in what is reputed to be the largest private dwelling in New Mexico, on an $18 million, 7,500-acre ranch which he named “Zorro.” “It makes the town house look like a shack,” Epstein has said. He also owns Little St. James, a 70-acre island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the main house is currently being renovated by Edward Tuttle, a designer of the Amanresorts. There is also a $6.8 million house in Palm Beach, Florida, and a fleet of aircraft: a Gulfstream IV, a helicopter, and a Boeing 727, replete with trading room, on which Epstein recently flew President Clinton, actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey, supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, Lew Wasserman’s grandson, Casey Wasserman, and a few others, on a mission to explore the problems of AIDS and economic development in Africa.

Epstein is charming, but he doesn’t let the charm slip into his eyes. They are steely and calculating, giving some hint at the steady whir of machinery running behind them. “Let’s play chess,” he said to me, after refusing to give an interview for this article. “You be white. You get the first move.” It was an appropriate metaphor for a man who seems to feel he can win no matter what the advantage of the other side. His advantage is that no one really seems to know him or his history completely or what his arsenal actually consists of. He has carefully engineered it so that he remains one of the few truly baffling mysteries among New York’s moneyed world. People know snippets, but few know the whole.

“He’s very enigmatic,” says Rosa Monckton, the former C.E.O. of Tiffany & Co. in the U.K. and a close friend since the early 1980s. “You think you know him and then you peel off another ring of the onion skin and there’s something else extraordinary underneath. He never reveals his hand…. He’s a classic iceberg. What you see is not what you get.”

Even acquaintances sense a curious dichotomy: Yes, he lives like a “modern maharaja,” as Leah Kleman, one of his art dealers, puts it. Yet he is fastidiously, almost obsessively private—he lists himself in the phone book under a pseudonym. He rarely attends society gatherings or weddings or funerals; he considers eating in restaurants like “eating on the subway”—i.e., something he’d never do. There are many women in his life, mostly young, but there is no one of them to whom he has been able to commit. He describes his most public companion of the last decade, Ghislaine Maxwell, 41, the daughter of the late, disgraced media baron Robert Maxwell, as simply his “best friend.” He says she is not on his payroll, but she seems to organize much of his life—recently she was making telephone inquiries to find a California-based yoga instructor for him. (Epstein is still close to his two other long-term girlfriends, Paula Heil Fisher, a former associate of his at the brokerage firm Bear Stearns and now an opera producer, and Eva Andersson Dubin, a doctor and onetime model. He tells people that when a relationship is over the girlfriend “moves up, not down,” to friendship status.)

Some of the businessmen who dine with him at his home—they include newspaper publisher Mort Zuckerman, banker Louis Ranieri, Revlon chairman Ronald Perelman, real-estate tycoon Leon Black, former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold, Tom Pritzker (of Hyatt Hotels), and real-estate personality Donald Trump—sometimes seem not all that clear as to what he actually does to earn his millions. Certainly, you won’t find Epstein’s transactions written about on Bloomberg or talked about in the trading rooms. “The trading desks don’t seem to know him. It’s unusual for animals that big not to leave any footprints in the snow,” says a high-level investment manager.

Unlike such fund managers as George Soros and Stanley Druckenmiller, whose client lists and stock maneuverings act as their calling cards, Epstein keeps all his deals and clients secret, bar one client: billionaire Leslie Wexner, the respected chairman of Limited Brands. Epstein insists that ever since he left Bear Stearns in 1981 he has managed money only for billionaires—who depend on him for discretion. “I was the only person crazy enough, or arrogant enough, or misplaced enough, to make my limit a billion dollars or more,” he tells people freely. According to him, the flat fees he receives from his clients, combined with his skill at playing the currency markets “with very large sums of money,” have afforded him the lifestyle he enjoys today.

Why do billionaires choose him as their trustee? Because the problems of the mega-rich, he tells people, are different from yours and mine, and his unique philosophy is central to understanding those problems: “Very few people need any more money when they have a billion dollars. The key is not to have it do harm more than anything else…. You don’t want to lose your money.”

He has likened his job to that of an architect—more specifically, one who specializes in remodeling: “I always describe [a billionaire] as someone who started out in a small home and as he became wealthier had add-ons. He added on another addition, he built a room over the garage … until you have a house that is usually a mess…. It’s a large house that has been put together over time where no one could foretell the financial future and their accompanying needs.”

He makes it sound as though his job combines the roles of real-estate agent, accountant, lawyer, money manager, trustee, and confidant. But, as with Jay Gatsby, myths and rumor swirl around Epstein.

Here are some of the hard facts about Epstein—ones that he doesn’t mind people knowing: He grew up middle-class in Brooklyn. His father worked for the city’s parks department. His parents viewed education as “the way out” for him and his younger brother, Mark, now working in real estate. Jeffrey started to play the piano—for which he maintains a passion—at five, and he went to Brooklyn’s Lafayette High School. He was good at mathematics, and in his early 20s he got a job teaching physics and math at Dalton, the elite Manhattan private school. While there he began tutoring the son of Bear Stearns chairman Ace Greenberg and was friendly with a daughter of Greenberg’s. Soon he went to Bear Stearns, where, under the mentorship of both Greenberg and current Bear Stearns C.E.O. James Cayne, he did well enough to become a limited partner—a rung beneath full partner. He abruptly departed in 1981 because, he has said, he wanted to run his own business.

Thereafter the details recede into shadow. A few of the handful of current friends who have known him since the early 1980s recall that he used to tell them he was a “bounty hunter,” recovering lost or stolen money for the government or for very rich people. He has a license to carry a firearm. For the last 15 years, he’s been running his business, J. Epstein & Co.

Since Leslie Wexner appeared in his life—Epstein has said this was in 1986; others say it was in 1989, at the earliest—he has gradually, in a way that has not generally made headlines, come to be accepted by the Establishment. He’s a member of various commissions and councils: he is on the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Institute of International Education.

His current fan club extends to Cayne, Henry Rosovsky, the former dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Larry Summers, Harvard’s current president. Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz says, “I’m on my 20th book…. The only person outside of my immediate family that I send drafts to is Jeffrey.” Real-estate developer and philanthropist Marshall Rose, who has worked with Epstein on projects in New Albany, Ohio, for Wexner, says, “He digests and decodes the information very rapidly, which is to me terrific because we have shorter meetings.”

Also on the list of admirers are former senator George Mitchell and a gaggle of distinguished scientists, most of whom Epstein has helped fund in recent years. They include Nobel Prize winners Gerald Edelman and Murray Gell-Mann, and mathematical biologist Martin Nowak. When these men describe Epstein, they talk about “energy” and “curiosity,” as well as a love for theoretical physics that they don’t ordinarily find in laymen. Gell-Mann rather sweetly mentions that “there are always pretty ladies around” when he goes to dinner chez Epstein, and he’s under the impression that Epstein’s clients include the Queen of England. Both Nowak and Dershowitz were thrilled to find themselves shaking the hand of a man named “Andrew” in Epstein’s house. “Andrew” turned out to be Prince Andrew, who subsequently arranged to sit in the back of Dershowitz’s law class.

Epstein gets annoyed when anyone suggests that Wexner “made him.” “I had really rich clients before,” he has said. Yet he does not deny that he and Wexner have a special relationship. Epstein sees it as a partnership of equals. “People have said it’s like we have one brain between two of us: each has a side.”

“I think we both possess the skill of seeing patterns,” says Wexner. “But Jeffrey sees patterns in politics and financial markets, and I see patterns in lifestyle and fashion trends. My skills are not in investment strategy, and, as everyone who knows Jeffrey knows, his are not in fashion and design. We frequently discuss world trends as each of us sees them.”

By the time Epstein met Wexner, the latter was a retail legend who had built a $3 billion empire—one that now includes Victoria’s Secret, Express, and Bath & Body Works—from $5,000 lent him by his aunt. “Wexner saw in Jeffrey the type of person who had the potential to realize his [Jeffrey’s] dreams,” says someone who has worked closely with both men. “He gave Jeffrey the ball, and Jeffrey hit it out of the park.”

Wexner, through a trust, bought the town house in which Epstein now lives for a reported $13.2 million in 1989. In 1993, Wexner married Abigail Koppel, a 31-year-old lawyer, and the newlyweds relocated to Ohio; in 1996, Epstein moved into the town house. Public documents suggest that the house is still owned by the trust that bought it, but Epstein has said that he now owns the house.

Wexner trusts Epstein so completely that he has assigned him the power of fiduciary over all of his private trusts and foundations, says a source close to Wexner. In 1992, Epstein even persuaded Wexner to put him on the board of the Wexner Foundation in place of Wexner’s ailing mother. Bella Wexner recovered and demanded to be reinstated. Epstein has said they settled by splitting the foundation in two.

Epstein does not care that he comes between family members. In fact, he sees it as his job. He tells people, “I am there to represent my client, and if my client needs protecting—sometimes even from his own family—then it’s often better that people hate me, not the client.”

“You’ve probably heard I’m vicious in my representation of my clients,” he tells people proudly; Leah Kleman describes his haggling over art prices as something like a scene out of the movie Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Even a former mentor says he’s seen “the dark side” of Epstein, and a Bear Stearns source recalls a meeting in which Epstein chewed out a team making a presentation for Wexner as being so brutal as to be “irresponsible.”

One reporter, in fact, received three threats from Epstein while preparing a piece. They were delivered in a jocular tone, but the message was clear: There will be trouble for your family if I don’t like the article.

On the other hand, Epstein is clearly very generous with friends. Joe Pagano, an Aspen-based venture capitalist, who has known Epstein since before his Bear Stearns days, can’t say enough nice things: “I have a boy who’s dyslexic, and Jeffrey’s gotten close to him over the years…. Jeffrey got him into music. He bought him his first piano. And then as he got to school he had difficulty … in studying … so Jeffrey got him interested in taking flying lessons.”

Rosa Monckton recalls Epstein telling her that her daughter, Domenica, who suffers from Down syndrome, needed the sun, and that Rosa should feel free to bring her to his house in Palm Beach anytime.

Some friends remember that in the late 80s Epstein would offer to upgrade the airline tickets of good friends by affixing first-class stickers; the only problem was that the stickers turned out to be unofficial. Sometimes the technique worked, but other times it didn’t, and the unwitting recipients found themselves exiled to coach. (Epstein has claimed that he paid for the upgrades, and had no knowledge of the stickers.) Many of those who benefited from Epstein’s largesse claim that his generosity comes with no strings attached. “I never felt he wanted anything from me in return,” says one old friend, who received a first-class upgrade.

Epstein is known about town as a man who loves women—lots of them, mostly young. Model types have been heard saying they are full of gratitude to Epstein for flying them around, and he is a familiar face to many of the Victoria’s Secret girls. One young woman recalls being summoned by Ghislaine Maxwell to a concert at Epstein’s town house, where the women seemed to outnumber the men by far. “These were not women you’d see at Upper East Side dinners,” the woman recalls. “Many seemed foreign and dressed a little bizarrely.” This same guest also attended a cocktail party thrown by Maxwell that Prince Andrew attended, which was filled, she says, with young Russian models. “Some of the guests were horrified,” the woman says.

“He’s reckless,” says a former business associate, “and he’s gotten more so. Money does that to you. He’s breaking the oath he made to himself—that he would never do anything that would expose him in the media. Right now, in the wake of the publicity following his trip with Clinton, he must be in a very difficult place.”

According to S.E.C. and other legal documents unearthed by VANITY FAIR, Epstein may have good reason to keep his past cloaked in secrecy: his real mentor, it might seem, was not Leslie Wexner but Steven Jude Hoffenberg, 57, who, for a few months before the S.E.C. sued to freeze his assets in 1993, was trying to buy the New York Post. He is currently incarcerated in the Federal Medical Center in Devens, Massachusetts, serving a 20-year sentence for bilking investors out of more than $450 million in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history.

When Epstein met Hoffenberg in London in the 1980s, the latter was the charismatic, audacious head of the Towers Financial Corporation, a collection agency that was supposed to buy debts that people owed to hospitals, banks, and phone companies. But Hoffenberg began using company funds to pay off earlier investors and service a lavish lifestyle that included a mansion on Long Island, homes on Manhattan’s Sutton Place and in Florida, and a fleet of cars and planes.

Hoffenberg and Epstein had much in common. Both were smart and obsessed with making money. Both were from Brooklyn. According to Hoffenberg, the two men were introduced by Douglas Leese, a defense contractor. Epstein has said they were introduced by John Mitchell, the late attorney general.

Epstein had been running International Assets Group Inc. (I.A.G.), a consulting company, out of his apartment in the Solo building on East 66th Street in New York. Though he has claimed that he managed money for billionaires only, in a 1989 deposition he testified that he spent 80 percent of his time assisting people recover stolen money from fraudulent brokers and lawyers. He was also not above entering into risky, tax-sheltered oil and gas deals with much smaller investors. A lawsuit that Michael Stroll, the former head of Williams Electronics Inc., filed against Epstein shows that in 1982 I.A.G. received an investment from Stroll of $450,000, which Epstein put into oil. In 1984 Stroll asked for his money back; four years later he had received only $10,000. Stroll lost the suit, after Epstein claimed in court, among other things, that the check for $10,000 was for a horse he’d bought from Stroll. “My net worth never exceeded four and a half million dollars,” Stroll has said.

Hoffenberg, says a close friend, “really liked Jeffrey…. Jeffrey has a way of getting under your skin, and he was under Hoffenberg’s.” Also appealing to Hoffenberg were Epstein’s social connections; they included oil mogul Cece Wang (father of the designer Vera) and Mohan Murjani, whose clothing company grew into Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans. Epstein lived large even then. One friend recalls that when he took Canadian heiress Wendy Belzberg on a date he hired a Rolls-Royce especially for the occasion. (Epstein has claimed he owned it.)

In 1987, Hoffenberg, according to sources, set Epstein up in the offices he still occupies in the Villard House, on Madison Avenue, across a courtyard from the restaurant Le Cirque. Hoffenberg hired his new protégé as a consultant at $25,000 a month, and the relationship flourished. “They traveled everywhere together—on Hoffenberg’s plane, all around the world, they were always together,” says a source. Hoffenberg has claimed that Epstein confided in him, saying, for example, that he had left Bear Stearns in 1981 after he was discovered executing “illegal operations.”

Several of Epstein’s Bear Stearns contemporaries recall that Epstein left the company very suddenly. Within the company there were rumors also that he was involved in a technical infringement, and it was thought that the executive committee asked that he resign after his two supporters, Ace Greenberg and Jimmy Cayne, were outnumbered. Greenberg says he can’t recall this; Cayne denies it happened, and Epstein has denied it as well. “Jeffrey Epstein left Bear Stearns of his own volition,” says Cayne. “It was never suggested that he leave by any member of management, and management never looked into any improprieties by him. Jeffrey said specifically, ‘I don’t want to work for anybody else. I want to work for myself.’” Yet, this is not the story that Epstein told to the S.E.C. in 1981 and to lawyers in a 1989 deposition involving a civil business case in Philadelphia.

In 1981 the S.E.C.’s Jonathan Harris and Robert Blackburn took Epstein’s testimony and that of other Bear Stearns employees in part of what became a protracted case about insider trading around a tender offer placed on March 11, 1981, by the Seagram Company Ltd. for St. Joe Minerals Corp. Ultimately several Italian and Swiss investors were found guilty, including Italian financier Giuseppe Tome, who had used his relationship with Seagram owner Edgar Bronfman Sr. to obtain information about the tender offer.

After the tender offer was announced, the S.E.C. began investigating trades involving St. Joe at Bear Stearns and other firms. Epstein resigned from Bear Stearns on March 12. The S.E.C. was tipped off that Epstein had information on insider trading at Bear Stearns, and it was therefore obliged to question him. In his S.E.C. testimony, given on April 1, 1981, Epstein claimed that he had found “offensive” the way Bear Stearns management had handled a disciplinary action following its discovery that he had committed a possible “Reg D” violation—evidently he had lent money to his closest friend. (In the 1989 deposition he said that he’d lent approximately $20,000 to Warren Eisenstein, to buy stock.) Such an action could have been considered improper, although Epstein claimed he had not realized this until afterward.

According to Epstein, Bear Stearns management had questioned him about the loan around March 4. The questioners, Epstein said, were Michael (Mickey) Tarnopol and Alvin Einbender. In his 1989 deposition Epstein recalled that the partner who had made an “issue” of the matter was Marvin Davidson. On March 9, Epstein said, he had met with Tarnopol and Einbender again, and the two partners told him that the executive committee had weighed the offense, together with previous “carelessness” over expenses, and he would be fined $2,500.

“There was discussion whether, in fact, I had ever put in an airline ticket for someone else and not myself and I said that it was possible, … since my secretary handles my expenses,” Epstein told the S.E.C. In his 1989 testimony he stated that the “Reg D” incident had cost him a shot at partnership that year.

What the S.E.C. seemed to be especially interested in was whether there was a connection between Epstein’s leaving and the alleged insider trading in St. Joe Minerals by other people at Bear Stearns:

Q: Sir, are you aware that certain rumors may have been circulating around your firm in connection with your reasons for leaving the firm?

A: I’m aware that there were many rumors.

Q: What were the rumors you heard?

A: Nothing to do with St. Joe.

Q: Can you relate what you heard?

A: It was having to do with an illicit affair with a secretary.

Q: Have you heard any other rumors suggesting that you had made a presentation or communication to the Executive Committee concerning alleged improprieties by other members or employees of Bear Stearns?

A: I, in fact, have heard that rumor, but it’s been from Mr. Harris in our conversation last week.

Q: Have you heard it from anyone else?

A: No.

A little later the interview focuses on James Cayne:

Q: Did you ever hear while you were at Bear Stearns that Mr. Cayne may have trader or insider information in connection with St. Joe Minerals Corporation?

Q: Did Mr. Cayne ever have any conversation with you about St. Joe Minerals?

Q: Did you happen to overhear any conversations between Mr. Cayne and anyone else regarding St. Joe Minerals?

And still later in the questioning comes this exchange:

Q: Have you had any type of business dealings with Mr. Cayne?

A: There’s no relationship with Bear Stearns.

Q: Pardon?

A: Other than Bear Stearns, no.

Q: Have you been a participant in any type of business venture with Mr. Cayne?

Q: Do you have any expectation of participating in any business venture with Mr. Cayne?

Q: Have you had any business participations with Mr. Theram?

A: No; nor do I anticipate any.

Q: Mr. Epstein, did anyone at Bear Stearns tell you in words or substance that you should not divulge anything about St. Joe Minerals to the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission?

Q: Has anyone indicated to you in any way, either directly or indirectly, in words or substance, that your compensation for this past year or any future monies coming to you from Bear Stearns will be contingent upon your not divulging information to the Securities and Exchange Commission?

A: No.

Despite the circumstances of Epstein’s leaving, Bear Stearns agreed to pay him his annual bonus—which he anticipated as being approximately $100,000.

The S.E.C. never brought any charges against anyone at Bear Stearns for insider trading in St. Joe, but its questioning seems to indicate that it was skeptical of Epstein’s answers. Some sources have wondered why, if he was such a big producer at Bear Stearns, he would have given it up over a mere $2,500 fine.

Certainly the years after Epstein left the firm were not obviously prosperous ones. His luck didn’t seem to change until he met Hoffenberg.

One of Epstein’s first assignments for Hoffenberg was to mastermind doomed bids to take over Pan American World Airways in 1987 and Emery Air Freight Corp. in 1988. Hoffenberg claimed in a 1993 hearing before a grand jury in Illinois that Epstein came up with the idea of financing these bids through Towers’s acquisition of two ailing Illinois insurance companies, Associated Life and United Fire. “He was hired by us to work on the securities side of the insurance companies and Towers Financial, supposedly to make a profit for us and for the companies,” Hoffenberg reportedly told the grand jury. He also alleged that Epstein was the “technician,” executing the schemes, although, having no broker’s license, he had to rely on others to make the trades. Much of Hoffenberg’s subsequent testimony in his criminal case has proven to be false, and Epstein has claimed he was merely asked how the bids could be accomplished and has said he had nothing to do with the financing of them. Yet Richard Allen, the former treasurer of United Fire, recalls seeing Epstein two or three times at the company. He and another executive say they had direct dealing with Epstein over the finances. And in his deposition of 1989, Epstein stated that he was the one who executed “all” Hoffenberg’s instructions to buy and sell the stock. He called it “making the orders.” He could not recall whether he had chosen the brokers used.

To win approval from the Illinois insurance regulators for Towers’s acquisition of the companies, Hoffenberg promised to inject $3 million of new capital into them. In fact, in his grand-jury testimony Hoffenberg claimed that he, his chief operating officer, Mitchell Brater, and Epstein came up with a scheme to steal $3 million of the insurance companies’ bonds to buy Pan Am and Emery stock. “Jeffrey Epstein and Mitch Brater arranged the various brokerage accounts for the bonds to be placed with in New York, and I think one in Chicago, Rodman & Renshaw,” Hoffenberg reportedly said. Then, said Hoffenberg, while making it appear as though they were investing the bonds in much safer financial instruments, they used them as collateral to buy the stock. “Epstein was the person in charge of the transactions, and Mitchell Brater was assisting him with it in coordination on behalf of the insurance companies’ money,” Hoffenberg claimed at the time.

At one point, according to Hoffenberg, a broker forged the documents necessary for a $1.8 million check to be written on insurance-company funds. The check was used to buy more stock in the takeover targets. Meanwhile, in order to throw the insurance regulators off, the $1.8 million was reported as being safely invested in a money-market account.

United Fire’s former chief financial officer Daniel Payton confirms part of Hoffenberg’s account. He says he recalls making one or two telephone calls to Epstein (at Hoffenberg’s direction) about the missing bonds. “He said, ‘Oh, yeah, they still exist.’ But we found out later that he had sold those assets … leveraged them … [and] used some margin account to take some positions in … Emery and Pan Am,” says Payton.

Epstein’s extraordinary creativity was, according to Hoffenberg, responsible for the purchase by the insurance companies of a $500,000 bond, with no money down. “Epstein created a great scheme to purchase a $500,000 treasury bond that would not be shown … [as] margined or collateralized,” he reportedly told the grand jury. “It looked like it was free and clear but it actually wasn’t,” he said.

Epstein has denied he ever had any dealings with anyone from the insurance companies. But Richard Allen says he recalls talking to Epstein at Hoffenberg’s direction and telling him it was urgent they retrieve the missing bonds for a state examination. According to Allen, Epstein said, “We’ll get them back.” He had “kind of a flippant attitude,” says Allen. “They never came back.”

Epstein, according to Hoffenberg, also came up with a scheme to manipulate the price of Emery Freight stock in an attempt to minimize the losses that occurred when Hoffenberg’s bid went wrong and the share price began to fall. This was alleged to have involved multiple clients’ accounts controlled by Epstein.

Eventually, in 1991, insurance regulators in Illinois sued Hoffenberg. He settled the case, and Epstein, who was only a paid consultant, was never deposed or accused of any wrongdoing. Barry Gross, the attorney who was handling the suit for the regulators, says of Epstein, “He was very elusive…. It was hard to really track him down. There were a substantial number of checks for significant dollars that were paid to him, I remember…. He was this character we never got a handle on. Again we presumed that he was involved with the Pan Am and Emery run that Hoffenberg made, but we never got a chance to depose him.”

“From the government’s discovery in the main sentencing against Hoffenberg it would seem the government was perhaps a bit lazy,” says David Lewis, who represented Mitchell Brater. “They went for what they knew they could get … and that was the fraudulent promissory notes [i.e., the much larger and unrelated part of Hoffenberg’s fraud, based in New York State]…. What they couldn’t get, they didn’t bother with.”

Another lawyer involved in the criminal prosecution of Hoffenberg says, “In a criminal investigation like that, when there is a guilty plea, to be quick and dirty about it, discovery is always incomplete…. They don’t have to line up witnesses; they don’t have to learn every fact that might come out on cross-examination.”

Epstein was involved with Hoffenberg in other questionable transactions. Financial records show that in 1988 Epstein invested $1.6 million in Riddell Sports Inc., a company that manufactures football helmets. Among his co-investors were the theater mogul Robert Nederlander and attorney Leonard Toboroff. A source close to this transaction claims that Epstein told Nederlander and Toboroff that he had raised his share of the money from a Swiss banker, whose identity they could not be allowed to know. But Hoffenberg has claimed the money came from him, and Towers’s financial statements for that year show a loan to Epstein of $400,000. (Epstein has said he can’t remember the details and has disputed the accuracy of the Towers financial reports.)

Around the same time, Nederlander and Toboroff let Epstein come in with them on a scheme to make money out of Pennwalt, a Pennsylvania chemical company. The plan was to group together with two other parties to take a substantial declared position in the stock. According to a source, Epstein was supposed to help Nederlander and Toboroff raise $15 million. He seemed to fail to find other investors, say those familiar with the deal. (Epstein has said he was merely an investor.) He invested $1 million, which he told his co-investors was his own money. But in his 1989 deposition he said that he put in only $300,000 of his own money. Where did the rest come from? Hoffenberg has said it came from him, in a loan that Nederlander and Toboroff didn’t know about.

Two things happened that alarmed Nederlander and Toboroff. After the group signaled a possible takeover, the Pennwalt management threatened to sue the would-be raiders. Epstein was reluctant initially to give a deposition about his share of the money, telling Toboroff there were “reasons” he didn’t want to. Then, after the opportunity for new investors was closed, co-investors recall Epstein announcing that he’d found one at last: Dick Snyder, then C.E.O. of the publisher Simon & Schuster, who wanted to put up approximately $500,000. (Neither Epstein nor Snyder can now recall the investment. Yet in the 1989 deposition Epstein said that he had recruited Snyder, whom he had met socially, into the deal.)

According to a source, Toboroff and Nederlander told Epstein that Snyder was too late, but, without their realizing it, Hoffenberg has claimed, Snyder wrote a check to Hoffenberg and bought out some of his investment. But then Snyder wanted out.

“Nederlander started to get these irate calls from [Snyder,] who wasn’t part of the deal, saying he was owed all this money,” says someone close to the deal. Toboroff and Nederlander were baffled.

Eventually, a source close to Hoffenberg says, Hoffenberg paid Snyder off.

Just as Nederlander and Toboroff were growing wary of Epstein, he became increasingly involved with Leslie Wexner, whom he had met through insurance executive Robert Meister and his late wife. Epstein has told people that he met Wexner in 1986 in Palm Beach, and that he won his confidence by persuading him not to invest in the stock market, just as the 1987 crash was approaching. His story has subsequently changed. When asked if Wexner knew about his connection to Hoffenberg, Epstein said that he began working for Wexner in 1989, and that “it was certainly not the same time.”

Wherever and whenever it was that Epstein and Wexner actually met, there was an immediate and strong personal chemistry. Wexner says he thinks Epstein is “very smart with a combination of excellent judgment and unusually high standards. Also, he is always a most loyal friend.”

Sources say Epstein proved that he could be useful to Wexner as well, with “fresh” ideas about investments. “Wexner had a couple of bad investments, and Jeffrey cleaned those up right away,” says a former associate of Epstein’s.

Before he signed on with Wexner, Epstein had several meetings with Harold Levin, then head of Wexner Investments, in which he enunciated ideas about currencies that Levin found incomprehensible. “In fact,” says someone who used to work very closely with Wexner, “almost everyone at the Limited wondered who Epstein was; he literally came out of nowhere.”

“Everyone was mystified as to what his appeal was,” says Robert Morosky, a former vice-chairman of the Limited.

Much of Epstein’s work is related to cleaning up, tightening budgets, and efficiencies. One person who worked for Wexner and who saw a contract drawn up between the two men says Epstein is involved in “everything, not just a little here, a little there. Everything!” In addition, he says, “Wexner likes having a hatchet man…. Whenever there is dirty work to be done he’d stick Jeffrey on it…. He has a reputation for being ruthless but he gets the job done.”

Epstein has evidently been asked to fire personal-staff members when needed. “He was that mysterious person that everyone was scared to death of,” says a former employee.

Meanwhile, he is also less than popular with some people outside Wexner’s company with whom he now deals. “He ‘inserted’ himself into the construction process of Leslie Wexner’s yacht…. That resulted in litigation down the road between Mr. Wexner and the shipyard that eventually built the vessel,” says Lars Forsberg, a lawyer whose firm at the time, Dickerson and Reily, was hired to deal with litigation stemming from the construction of Wexner’s Limitless—at 315 feet, one of the largest private yachts in the world. Evidently, Epstein stalled on paying Dickerson and Reily for its work. “It’s probably once or twice in my legal career that I’ve had to sue a client for payment of services that he’d requested and we’d performed … without issue on the performance,” says Forsberg. In the end the matter was settled, but Epstein claims he now has no recollection of it.

The incident is one of a number of disputes Epstein has become embroiled in. Some are for sums so tiny as to be baffling; for instance, Epstein sued investment adviser Herbert Glass, who sold him the Palm Beach house in 1990, for $13,444—Epstein claimed this was owed him for furnishings removed by Glass.

In 1998 the U.S. Attorney’s Office sued Epstein for illegally subletting the former home of the deputy consul general of Iran to attorney Ivan Fisher and others. Epstein paid $15,000 a month in rent to the State Department, but he charged Fisher and his colleagues $20,000. Though the exact terms of the agreement are sealed, the court ruled against Epstein.

Wexner offers some insight into his friend’s combative style. “Many times people confuse winning and losing,” Wexner says. “Jeffrey has the unusual quality of knowing when he is winning. Whether in conversations or negotiations, he always stands back and lets the other person determine the style and manner of the conversation or negotiation. And then he responds in their style. Jeffrey sees it in chivalrous terms. He does not pick a fight, but if there is a fight, he will let you choose your weapon.”

One case is rather more serious. Currently, Citibank is suing Epstein for defaulting on loans from its private-banking arm for $20 million. Epstein claims that Citibank “fraudulently induced” him into borrowing the money for investments. Citibank disputes this charge.

The legal papers for another case offer a rare window into Epstein’s finances. In 1995, Epstein stopped paying rent to his landlord, the nonprofit Municipal Arts Society, for his office in the Villard House. He claimed that they were breaking the terms of the lease by not letting his staff in at night. The case was eventually settled. However, one of the papers filed in this dispute is Epstein’s financial statement for 1988, in which he claimed to be worth $20 million. He listed that he owned $7 million in securities, $1 million in cash, zero in residential property (although he told sources that he had already bought the home in Palm Beach), and $11 million in other assets, including his investment in Riddell. A co-investor in Riddell says: “The company had been bought with a huge amount of debt, and it wasn’t public, so it was meaningless to attach a figure like that to it … the price it cost was about $1.2 million.” The co-investors bought out Epstein’s share in Riddell in 1995 for approximately $3 million. At that time, when Epstein was asked, as a routine matter, to sign a paper guaranteeing he had access to a few million dollars in case of any subsequent disputes over the sale price, Wexner signed for him. Epstein has explained that this was because the co-investors wanted an indemnity against being sued by Wexner. One of the investors calls this “bullshit.”

Epstein’s appointment to the board of New York’s Rockefeller University in 2000 brought him into greater social prominence. Boasting such social names as Nancy Kissinger, Brooke Astor, and Robert Bass, the board also includes such pre-eminent scientists as Nobel laureate Joseph Goldstein. “Epstein was thrilled to be elected,” says someone who knows him.

After one term Epstein resigned. According to New York magazine, this was because he didn’t like to wear a suit to meetings. A spokesperson for the Rockefeller board says Epstein left because he had insufficient time to commit; a board member recalls that he was “arrogant” and “not a good fit.” The spokesperson admits that it is “infrequent” for board members not to be renominated after only one term.

Still, the recent spate of publicity Epstein has inspired does not seem to have fazed him. In November he was spotted in the front row of the Victoria’s Secret fashion show at New York’s Lexington Avenue Armory; around the same time the usual coterie of friends and beautiful women were whisked off to Little St. James (which he tells people has been renamed Little St. Jeff) for a long weekend.

Thanks to Epstein’s introductions, says Martin Nowak, the biologist finds himself moving from Princeton to Harvard, where he is assuming the joint position of professor of mathematics and professor of biology. Epstein has pledged at least $25 million to Harvard to create the Epstein Program for Mathematical Biology and Evolutionary Dynamics, and Epstein will have an office at the university. The program will be dedicated to searching for nature’s algorithms, a pursuit that is a specialty of Nowak’s. For Epstein this must be the summit of everything he has worked toward: he has been seen proudly displaying Harvard president Larry Summers’s letter of commitment as if he can’t quite believe it is real. He says he was reluctant to have his name attached to the program, but Summers persuaded him. He rang his mentor Wexner about it, and Wexner told him it was all right.

An insatiable, restless soul, always on the move, Epstein builds a tremendous amount of downtime into his hectic work schedule. Yet there is something almost programmed about his relaxation: it’s as if even pleasure has to be measured in terms of self-improvement. Nowak says that, when he goes to stay with Epstein in the Caribbean, they’ll get up at six and, as the sun rises, have three-hour conversations about theoretical physics. “Then he’ll go off and do some work, re-appear, and we’ll talk some more.”

Another person who went to the island with Epstein, Maxwell, and several beautiful women remembers that the women “sat around one night teasing him about the kinds of grasping women who might want to date him. He was amused by the idea…. He’s like a king in his own world.”

Many people comment there is something innocent, almost childlike about Jeffrey Epstein. They see this as refreshing, given the sophistication of his surroundings. Alan Dershowitz says that, as he was getting to know Epstein, his wife asked him if he would still be close to him if Epstein suddenly filed for bankruptcy. Dershowitz says he replied, “Absolutely. I would be as interested in him as a friend if we had hamburgers on the boardwalk in Coney Island and talked about his ideas.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: The original version of this story stated that Jeffrey Epstein was a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. The academy has since notified Vanity Fair that it has no record of Epstein’s membership.

[admin]

Part 1 of 4

One Label Under Blackmail: The Early Intersections of Diddy and the Epstein Network
by C.Z. Means and by Whitney Webb
April 7, 2025
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/04/in ... n-network/

In Part I of this series on the overlap between the worlds of Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jeffrey Epstein, we examine Combs’ early years, his mentors and the industry figures who ensured their, as well as Combs’ own, commercial success. Ties to organized crime and intelligence are readily apparent and point toward a truly sinister reason behind this network’s patronage of Combs and his close associates, like Andre Harrell and Russell Simmons.



Beginning in late 2023, a series of startling and unsettling allegations against Sean Combs –– a record executive and rapper known over the years by stage names like “Puff Daddy,” “P. Diddy” and presently “Diddy” –– have emerged. As the allegations and lawsuits facing Combs have snowballed, so, too, has public interest in the case. The sheer amount of accusations suggests that Combs, in addition to being very sexually and physically violent, filmed many assault encounters and orgies that occurred at his now notorious “Freak Off” parties, sometimes with hidden or security cameras. He also now stands accused of “operating an empire of sexual crimes,” with federal agents having alleged that several of Combs’ victims were of “barely legal” or “barely illegal” age at the time of their abuse. Combs’ apparent documentation of these events strongly suggests that he was interested in keeping these records for more than his perverse enjoyment, as either a form of a protection or as a means to control those who appeared in these films, i.e. blackmail.

As a result, speculation has grown about who is allegedly on the “list” of people filmed by Combs in this way, prompting comparisons to the alleged “list” of sex trafficker, pedophile and intelligence asset Jeffrey Epstein. The comparisons between Epstein and Combs have only grown, with even the homeland security agents who raided Combs’ Miami home suggesting that Combs was “as bad as Epstein.”

However, as has long been a theme of Unlimited Hangout’s Epstein-related reporting, including the book One Nation Under Blackmail, the Jeffrey Epstein case has been poorly explored by the federal government, mainstream media outlets, and even many independent media outlets. A deeper examination of the Epstein case makes it clear that Epstein was not the sole mastermind or sole beneficiary of the sex trafficking and blackmail operation in which he engaged. Instead, Epstein served as an operator for a larger, monied network of oligarchs with extensive organized crime connections in addition to significant affiliations with intelligence agencies. He was also more than a sex trafficker for this group, having aided this network extensively in arms trafficking, money laundering and other crimes (many financial) that fall outside of the focus on his sex-related offenses.

It should come as no surprise upon closer examination of Sean Combs that, like Epstein, he was operating on behalf of a larger network that he did not ultimately control. Instead, it arguably controlled him. As this three-part series from Unlimited Hangout will endeavor to show, Combs was acting on behalf of an oligarch network that directly overlaps with that of Epstein. However, Combs used to influence a different industry and a different community for the benefit of these intelligence and organized crime-connected oligarchs.

In Part I of this series, we will examine the often overlooked early years of Combs and his entrance into the music industry. While Combs’ own rise (from birth to the founding of Bad Boy Records in 1993) is certainly chronicled, a major focus of this piece is on the mentors and figures who facilitated his rise into the upper echelons of hip hop celebrity, especially Andre Harrell and Clive Davis, as well as other figures who had a significant influence on Combs’ early career into the music industry, like Russell Simmons. Not only did these figures bring Combs into the music industry, they also stand accused of initiating Combs into the types of activities he is now in prison for, awaiting trial.

Also explored in this piece are the corporations behind the success of Combs’ mentors and later Combs himself, namely the Music Corporation of America (MCA) and Arista Records. When taken together with other claims from the period, namely about efforts to manipulate hip hop for the benefit of the private prison industry in the early to mid-1990s, it appears that this network’s interest in Combs, as well as his mentors, was part of something much larger that sought to target not just the hip hop industry itself, but the African-American community at large.

Subsequent installments of this series will examine Combs’ activities –– in music, in retail and beyond –– and how the same network detailed in Part I also enabled those activities, which notably parallel Combs’ deeper descent into acts of sexual violence and abuse. Another installment will examine how one close associate of Combs also connects very directly with the sex trafficking activities of Jeffrey Epstein, indicating that the overlap between the two cases is more significant than previous reporting and the current cases against Combs have suggested.

Sean Combs was born in Harlem, NY on November 4, 1969 to a schoolteacher and ex-model named Janice Combs (née Smalls) and Melvin Earl Combs, an Air Force serviceman and sometimes associate of American Gangster heroin kingpin Frank Lucas. Melvin Combs helped make ends meet by running a number of legal and less-than-legal operations; including a cab and limousine chauffeuring company, multiple bars Combs owned, and a portion of Harlem drug traffic.i A toddler-aged Combs tagged along with Melvin on visits to Lucas’ home, even playing with his daughter. According to an interview prior to his death, the aged gangster alleged that Combs didn’t share his toys.

A Bad Boy from Birth

“I learned early in life that there’s only two ways out of that [lifestyle]: dead or in jail,” explained Combs in 2013, speaking of his father’s lifestyle. “It made me work even harder… I have his hustler’s mentality.” According to contemporaries, Melvin was an immaculate dresser. While less flashy than Lucas, who once attracted the attention of the feds by sitting ringside at a Muhammad Ali –Joe Frazier bout in a $100,000 fur coat, Melvin still pulled out enough stops to be granted the street nickname “Pretty Melvin.”


Sean Combs as a toddler – Source

When Sean Combs was 3 years old, Melvin Combs was gunned down while sitting in a loitering car near Central Park West. Per Susan Traugh, Melvin was shot in the head, likely at point blank range considering he was seated in his Mercedes-Benz—this manner of a hit is consistent with an enforcer killing.ii According to an interview conducted by author Zack O’Malley-Greenburg, someone in Melvin Combs’ circle believed he was about to inform on a sensitive business deal to law enforcement and that this is what precipitated his murder.iii From this, former associates and law enforcement have speculated that Melvin Combs was a federal informant. If allegations from incarcerated contemporaneous label heads like Suge Knight and former bodyguards are to believed, Sean Combs may have done the same, allegedly informing for the FBI over the course of his career.

A recent article from journalist Legs McNeil lays out the Lucas-Combs criminal enterprise in greater detail than previously reported. It also shows that Melvin Combs, in addition to his dealings with Lucas, had an arguably deeper affiliation with the Gambino crime family near the end of his life. The Gambinos may have even put out his hit. McNeil writes:

Melvin Combs, a small-time hustler, was introduced to selling heroin when Lucas fronted him several kilos from his Golden Triangle connection. He joined the crew of Willie Abraham, the 42-year-old owner of the Harlem Gold Lounge and a convicted heroin dealer who’d already spent five years in jail. Unlike Lucas, Abraham was getting his heroin from the Mafia—specifically, the Gambino crime family.

In 1971, Melvin was arrested for possession of heroin and $45,000 in cash. When Abraham’s heroin‐cutting mill was raided later that year, and Abraham was charged with participating in an extensive conspiracy to distribute $5 million a year in heroin at the wholesale level in Harlem, the Bronx, and Westchester County, Melvin was suspected by Alphonse “Funzi” Sisca, head of the Gambinos’ New Jersey crew, of being a rat.

McNeil also noted that “The New York Times reported that the prosecutor in the Abraham case told the judge that law enforcement believed Melvin’s murder ‘might ultimately be traced to members of the heroin‐distributing conspiracy.’” A newspaper clipping from the Saturday, February 24th, 1973 edition of the New York Daily News reveals that the Gambino-backed Willie Abraham crew had plenty or reason to suspect Combs of informing or at least blamed him for the arrests. The article notes that their relationship to Combs appears to have led directly to Abraham and his collaborators’ convictionson conspiracy charges, including Gambino man Alphonso Sisca of New Jersey:

Willie Abraham […] was found guilty in Manhattan Federal Court yesterday of being a kingpin narcotics wholesaler whose ring flooded the metropolitan area with more than 1,000 pounds of drugs in 2 1/2 years.

A task force of federal, state and local cops smashed the ring in a series of raids in December 1971 as the result of information obtained through the court approved wiretaps on another big time narcotics dealer’s phone. The dealer, Melvin Combs, 31, of 1853 Central Ave., Yonkers, was found shot to death in January 1972 on Manhattan’s West Side.

This evidence of a reported “wiretap” supports the claim that Abraham and his Gambino Family backers had Combs murdered because they blamed him for the arrests, regardless of whether Combs had actually been an informant. Throughout this article, connections to the Gambino crime family, as well as the Genovese crime family, are a recurring theme.


NY Daily News article “Find an Average Joe Guilty As Dope King” That Details the Supposed “Wiretap” on Combs’ Phone that Led to the Abraham-Gambino Drug Bust – Source

In the earliest years of his life, Sean Combs lived in Esplanade Gardens. His mother Janice recognized the performative, attention-hungry character her son possessed early on. This led to Combs’ first advertising gig at the age of 2, when he starred in a Baskin-Robbins TV commercial. Later, Combs modeled alongside The Wiz actress Stephanie Mills in Essence magazine. Following in his mother’s footsteps, these early modeling jobs presaged Combs’ lifelong relationship with the modeling industry, which in comparable fashion to Jeffrey Epstein, would eventually become the hunting grounds which Combs would scour for victims for his orgiastic sexual blackmail parties and pathological predation.iv

During his middle school years, Combs’ mother Janice relocated the family to Westchester, a middle-class suburb of Mount Vernon. Combs enrolled in the prestigious Mount Saint Michael Academy (MSMA), a Catholic school located in the Bronx, where his popularity eventually soared due to his exploits on the varsity football team, which won a division title during his time there. Combs’ hopes of receiving a scholarship to play D1 in college came crashing down when he broke his leg during his senior year. Yet, it was already too late for his confidence. He was reportedly given the nickname “Puffy” due to the way he strutted around with his chest puffed out.v

Throughout his middle and high school years, Combs also exhibited an entrepreneurial streak, reportedly selling T-shirts and ties at Macy’s while working multiple newspaper routes simultaneously. This early relationship with Macy’s prefigures both his later merchandising deals with the department store, which saw his fragrance line Sean John stock the shelves nationwide, and the recent lawsuit filed by a John Doe from Ohio who alleges that Combs “orally raped” him in the stockroom of the flagship Macy’s in New York in 2008. His accuser alleges that Macy’s even endeavored to cover up the crime in order to preserve their lucrative business relationship. While speculative, there is a possibility that this may have even been the same Macy’s that had employed Combs as a minor.


A yearbook photo of Combs (left) with friends at MSMA – Source

Notably, while Combs attended the all-boys Mount Saint Michael’s Academy, a major sex abuse case involving minor victims that led to the indictments of two faculty members was brewing at the institution. Marist Brother Timothy Brady –– the principal of MSMA for the entirety of Combs’ high school career — was arrested, charged, and sentenced to prison in 1988 for the abuse of three minor boys at the Catholic Academy in the Bronx over the course of 1987, Combs’ senior year. Following the ‘86/’87 academic year, Br. Brady was quietly removed from his position and shipped off to a Marist retreat in Arizona. Despite his crimes, Brady was reinstated as a hockey moderator at a separate Marist Brothers institution in the 1990s, once again providing him access to minors, and was listed on the Marist Brothers website until 2010. For some inexplicable reason, the court records pertaining to Brady’s conviction and incarceration remain sealed.

Accusations of sexual impropriety appear to have been a constant in MSMA’s history. In 2011, a former assistant principal received a sweetheart no-jail sentence after pleading guilty to possession of child porn on an electronic device at the school. From 2009 to 2012, a lawsuit filed by Brian Elliott sought monetary damages for the routine abuse and rape he alleges he suffered at the hands of an MSMA employee named Br. Galligan between the ages of 8 and 13 over the years of 1977 through 1983. The case wound its way through various Delaware, New York, and appellate courts. If factual, Elliott’s victimization by Galligan would have ended around the time of Combs’ freshman year in high school, meaning Elliott and Combs were close in age.

More recently, multiple cases seeking redress of child sexual abuse suffered at the hands of the MSMA faculty have been filed pursuant to New York’s Child Victims Act and the “look-back window” that has enabled past victims previously barred from filing complaints by the statute of limitations to now pursue them. These include a torts CVA complaint filed on behalf of a John Doe suing the Academy & the Marist Brothers of the Schools for having enabled his abuse at the hands of Principal Brady, who allegedly fondled the plaintiff in the nurse’s office in 1985 when Doe was 16. It appears this unnamed potential victim would have been in the same class as Combs. Quoting from the complaint, “Upon information and belief, at all relevant times, Defendants knew that priests and brothers of the Catholic Church and within the Marist Brothers, under their supervision and control, were grooming and sexually molesting children with whom the priests and brothers would have contact in their ministry and pastoral functions.”

Another lawsuit accusing the Marist Brothers of protecting a pedophile faculty member named Brother Lee advanced in the Supreme Court of Bronx County in 2023, surviving multiple motions for dismissal & summary judgment, seemingly indicating that multiple members of the school’s faculty –– including its principal –– were perpetrating sex crimes against minors during Combs’ high school career. And once again, the complainant alleges that he was abused by Brother Lee between the years of 1984 and 1985, when he was 15-16 years of age, conclusively indicating that he also would have been in Combs’ class of 1987. Taking all of this information into account, it appears that sexual abuse was endemic and widespread at MSMA during Combs’ time there. While impossible to confirm, there is a possibility that Combs was groomed or among the victims or else somehow connected to these aforementioned cases. Certainly, those type of experiences early in life are statistically associated with a person offending in similar ways later in life.


Principal Brady’s Yearbook Photo – Mount Saint Michael’s Academy, 1987 – Source

Also, as an aside, the FBI and DA’s office appear to have used the fraught climate at MSMA to initiate a COINTELPRO-inspired smear and lawfare campaign against Fr. Bernard Lynch, the first gay married priest and Fordham-trained Irish psychotherapist, who inspired a “witch-hunt” organized by the Vatican, archdiocese, and the FBI in retaliation to his outspoken advocacy for gay rights. More specifically, Lynch had founded Dignity NY, the first gay ministry in New York City in 1982, bringing him to the attention of Mayor Ed Koch, who drafted him onto his AIDS Task Force.vi

While attending Mount St. Michael’s, a teenage Combs began frequenting several New York nightclubs, which reportedly led to his first encounter with the music industry and famous musicians like Michael Jackson. As detailed in an interview, given in 1994 shortly after launching Bad Boy Records, Combs seemingly claimed he was cast as a background dancer in one of Jackson’s videos as a teen:

“Around the age of 16 or 17, I started dancing, going to the various clubs, and that was during the time when somebody—(if) a big artist like Diana Ross, Fine Young Cannibals, or even Michael Jackson had a video—the directors would come into the clubs and see all the kids that were dancing and pick various dancers to be in the videos. So I got picked to be in some of those videos, and, um, as I was dancing in videos and stuff like that, I would see the behind the scenes. I was about to go to college at Howard University and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. So I saw the people behind the scenes, and I was like, ‘that’s maybe something I wanted to do’, so I started like asking questions and getting information on the music industry…”

Combs’ apparent encounter with Michael Jackson, while still only a teenage dancer on the NY club circuit, presages the significant relationship that later emerged between the music mogul and the King of Pop, which lasted for decades until Jackson’s premature and suspicious death. These interlocks between Combs and Jackson are worth mentioning for a few reasons: both artists have grappled with accusations of sexual abuse; both men have spent years surrounded by Zionist powerbrokers (within and outside of the music industry) who ingratiated themselves into their good graces or insinuated their way into their circles; and both Combs and Jackson cultivated close friendships with billionaire Epstein affiliate and Bill Clinton associate, Ron Burkle. For instance, Burkle, who will be a focus of Part II of this series for his ties to Combs, was close to Jackson and later purchased Jackson’s infamous Neverland Ranch estate for $22 million in 2020. Burkle is also reportedly the godfather to Combs’ children. While developing his ties to both Jackson and Combs, Burkle was a frequent flier on Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous private jet –– the “Lolita Express” –– particularly on flights including former President Bill Clinton, who he employed as an advisor to his firm, the Yucaipa Companies around the same period.

Moving Uptown

Following his graduation from Mount St. Michael Academy, Combs enrolled at the prestigious Howard University in Washington, DC to study business in 1987. He promptly set about further inflating his street cred as he expanded his horizons into a new popularity-maximizing enterprise –– party planning and promotion. His parties were described by classmates as offering a “once-in-a-lifetime type of vibe” and Combs spared no expense in spreading the word, driving around campus in his convertible to pass out fliers for events. Author Susan Traugh wrote that some of Combs’ collegiate parties attracted thousands of guests.


Combs poses at Howard University in 2023 after making a $1 million donation the school, announced during the university’s homecoming – Source

Comb’s entrance onto the hip hop scene began during his freshman year when Combs scored a side-gig as rapper-beatboxer Doug E. Fresh’s valet, where he “shuttl[ed] Fresh’s clothes to and from the dry cleaner in his Volkswagen Rabbit convertible.”vii All the while, Combs organized parties in and around the Beltway as well as back home in New York City on the weekends. He was also a background dancer in one of Fresh’s music videos around this time.

While at Howard, the darker, predatory side of Combs’ reputation also began to take shape, with accusations of belligerence, sexual harassment, and domestic violence following in his wake. Contemporaneous accounts provided by sources to Rolling Stone tell of Combs beating a girlfriend with his belt in full view of the public on the Howard quad. Another time, he tapped on the glass window of an English class in session to try and coax a woman into skipping. On another occasion, he non-consensually caressed a woman’s back and asked her if he could introduce her to “one of his friends.”

By age 20, Combs had begun focusing more of his attention on his nascent internship and career at Uptown Records, a job he had first secured in 1990 via his Mount Vernon neighbor, the rapper Heavy D. Combs’ initiative soon saw him become former Def Jam recordman Andre Harrell’s intern. He commuted from Howard to NYC via Amtrak in the mornings, stowing away in the bathroom to avoid paying fare. He also shadowed party promoter Jessica Rosenblum during the planning stages for Heavy D’s platinum-album celebration. Rosenblum “obliged his requests to take him to all the ‘freaky’ nightspots on the Lower East Side.”viii Rosenblum takes credit for having introduced Combs to some of the biggest names among NY scenesters and club kids — as well as updating his eyewear fashion. Rosenblum graduated from her hip hop party promoter career to become a NYC interior designer wedded to Steve Young, head of global litigation for one of the Big 4 Accounting firms, Ernst & Young.

In the late 1980s, while still a student at Howard, Combs learned that Uptown Records’ A&R (artists and repertoire) executive had vacated the company. Combs took his boss Andre Harrell out to lunch to press for the job and, after a successful schmooze, soon transformed himself into one of the youngest talent scouts in the industry.ix Combs later told Rolling Stone that, after joining Uptown, “Andre became like my big brother. He bought a mansion, gave me a room [. . .] Not a mansion, a big house. It was a mansion to me, though, and he had gave [sic] me a room in the house.”

Uptown’s Secret to Success: Andre Harrell & MCA

Prior to his mentorship of Sean Combs, Uptown’s Andre Harrell first broke into the nascent hip hop industry by way of his rap duo Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, which he and a friend had formed in high school. Harrell withdrew from Lehman College in 1983 to focus on his career as an account executive selling airtime for New York all-news AM station WINS. WINS was previously owned by radio pioneer J. Elroy McCaw, an ex-OSS agent and member of the Advisory Council to the US National Security Council.x McCaw hired trailblazing disc jockey Allan Freed to man the mic at the station, a deal that was brokered by record executive Morris Levy.xi

Per Potash, a US Assistant Attorney later claimed that Levy’s jazz label Roulette Records, boosted by his relationship with WINS’ Freed –– the most popular DJ in the country in the 1950s and 1960s –– was a “way station for heroin trafficking.” Levy and Roulette were also linked to organized crime, specifically the Genovese crime family. Levy was notably the main financierbehind the first hip hop record label, Sugar Hill. The zenith of Freed’s celebrity was exemplified by Paramount Pictures hiring him at a rate of $29,000 per day to make a teen movie in 1957. Shortly thereafter, Freed was targeted by a smear campaign, resulting in him being unceremoniously and inexplicably fired by McCaw in 1958. Freed was singled out by Orrin Hatch’s Congressional committee during the first “payola” scandal involving the bribing of radio stations in return for singles plays. As a result, Freed became the face of the scandal, his career in shambles. As Potash writes regarding Freed’s downfall, “Morris Levy, the source of much of the payola bribe money, was never called to testify.”xii

Months after joining WINS, Harrell’s job prospects experienced a dramatic upswing when he met Russell Simmons, co-founder of the Def Jam record label, who would later become very close to Sean Combs. Simmons soon offered Harrell a job with Def Jam. Within two short years (a rapid ascent mirroring Combs’ own), Harrell worked his way up to VP and general manager of the label. Def Jam’s early success was due in part to its 1984 distribution deal with CBS and its subsidiary Columbia Records. At the time, the label was run by Walter Yetnikoff, a close associate and friend of Clive Davis –– the man who would later become Sean Combs’ second mentor after Harrell that is a later focus of this piece. Appointed by Paley, Yetnikoff is heavily implicated in the Payola scandals of the 1980s that involved the “independent promotion” syndicate known as The Network, for which CBS Records was one of the biggest clients.xiii Yetnikoff went to some ends to protect the established payola system, firing his deputy president Dick Asher in 1983 and, per UPI, even quashing an investigation by the Recording Industry Association of America. By 1986, CBS Records had come under the control of Laurence Tisch, the billionaire head of Loews Corporation and a founding member of the Leslie Wexner and Charles Bronfman-brokered “Mega Group.”

Harrell’s success in management, contrary to music-making, seemed to have clarified things for Harrell, as his short-lived stint as a Profile Records artist came to a close when his high school rap duo with Alonzo Brown split up in 1986. That same year, Harrell struck out on his own to create Uptown.


From left to right: Lyor Cohen, Andre Harrell, Percy Sutton and Jam Master Jay at the Apollo Theater, 1986 – Source

However, before leaving Def Jam, Harrell was responsible for Def Jam’s hiring of Israeli-American Lyor “Little Lansky” Cohen, who would later force out Def Jam co-founder Rick Rubin in order to co-run the label with Simmons. Years later, upon leaving Def Jam, Cohen would team up with the family who had taken control of Def Jam in the 1990s, the Bronfmans, to become the top executive at Warner Music, an event that will be revisited in Part II of this series.

Not unlike Def Jam, Uptown’s early success (and the furtherance of Harrell’s career in the industry) was due to its distribution deal with a major entertainment conglomerate. In Uptown’s case, the company in question was the Music Corporation of American (MCA), an entertainment giant that dominated the American music and movie industry for many decades. Uptown’s early distribution deal with MCA began in 1987 and soon expanded into a formal partnership with the company a year later in 1988. Their ties grew even deeper in 1992, when MCA offered Uptown a $50 million deal whereby Uptown expanded into film and television.

In a Vanity Fair obituary for Andre Harrell, screenwriter and journalist Barry Michael Cooper describes an anecdote involving Harrell and a bust-up at the MCA Records Conference in Midtown Manhattan that demonstrates how Harrell employed street enforcers and drug dealers at Uptown, and that they even procured him a gun for protection:

There was a rumor going around the streets of New York that Teddy’s manager, former drug dealer and karate enthusiast Gene Griffin, had smacked Andre in the conference of MCA Records in Midtown Manhattan. Journalist and author Nelson George, gave me Andre’s telephone number, so I could confirm the story. I called Andre and identified myself, and asked him about the confrontation with Griffin. I also asked him about the story of two of his Uptown Record executives—Jimmy “Luv” Jenkins and George Harrell (no relation), two of the most respected street dudes from the Highbridge neighborhood of the Bronx, and 116th Street in Harlem, respectively—giving him a .45 automatic to keep for protection. Andre tried to place the gun in the back of his waistband. However, the .45 slipped through and down his pants, and landed on the floor of the elevator. Andre, Jimmy, and George jumped back, but the gun didn’t discharge. Andre didn’t respond for almost a minute, and then said to me, “Who are you supposed to be? Ed Bradley? Things happen.” We cracked up laughing, and became fast friends after that.

In addition to MCA being critical to Harrell’s career and MCA’s success, Uptown’s relationship with MCA also appears to align with one of Combs’ earliest known sex crimes. For instance, one of the earliest allegations against Combs asserts that Combs sexually assaulted a victim after an MCA event in New York in 1990 or 1991, a time when Combs was still an Uptown employee.

As Strictly Business scriptwriter Nelson George intimated in a Substack post eulogizing his friend Andre Harrell, Harrell was a known “party animal” who frequently threw house parties in the “work space/social club/temporary housing” that served as the nascent Uptown Records’ offices. In fact, one of these parties in 1990 served as the source of inspiration for Strictly Business, the film that George co-wrote with Pam Gibson and which Andre Harrell executive produced for Island World Pictures (a company then affiliated with Polygram, which took a significant stake in Def Jam in 1992). It was Harrell’s role in the film that reportedly led MCA to enter into its $50 million multimedia deal with Uptown in 1992 that saw Harrell’s company expand into film. Strictly Business concerns a young mail room clerk setting up a black middle manager at a real estate firm with a club chick played by the emerging starlet Halle Berry. Bobby the mail clerk is a party boy with aspirations of graduating from the trainee broker program, and so he agrees to help Waymon navigate seducing the attractive woman in return for his higher-up’s sponsorship of his candidacy. While the plot may seem like normal rom-com fare and relatively benign, when viewed within the context of the kinds of sexual quid pro quos that occur within the music industry and Harrell’s close ties to figures like Combs, Simmons, and their broader social networks, it starts to take on a distinctly different slant. Speaking of sexual quid pro quos in the music industry and questionable label romances, Andre Harrell left an indelible influence on Combs’ love life. He hired Uptown R&B singer Al B. Sure’s model girlfriend Kim Porter to work as a receptionist at the label. Combs’ was immediately smitten with her, loving what he couldn’t have. They would go on to have an on-and-off again relationship spanning the years from 1994 to 2018, the time of her mysterious death after contracting a virulent case of lobar pneumonia. We will return to Porter and Combs’ ties to the modeling industry in Part III of this series.


Andre Harrell (right) parties in St. Barthes with the mother of Diddy’s children, model Kim Porter (second from left) – Source

Andre Harrell was also a consultant for the film New Jack City. New Jack City’s screenwriter Barry Michael Cooper recalls how he and producer George Jackson called his close friend Andre Harrell into Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Productions compound to watch the dailies from New Jack City a week before production wrapped. Cooper and Jackson wanted to gauge Andre Harrell’s reaction to New Jack City’s narrative and the depictions of street life as it related to the crack epidemic. Per Cooper’s retelling, apparently Harrell raved and affectionately called the film “The Black Godfather.”

New Jack City’s narrative revolves around a Harlem gang called the Cash Money Brothers who ascend to the top of the drug-dealing food chain in the borough once crack cocaine is introduced to the streets. The film featured gangster rap mainstay Ice-T in a prominent role and christened the careers of Wesley Snipes and Chris Rock, seeing a healthy return of nearly $50 million on a budget of $8 million.

The controversial film was developed by Warner Brothers, which was then run by Steve Ross. Ross was able to build up his business empire, Kinney National Company (which later became Warner), largely through his association with New York crime lords Manny Kimmel and Abner “Longy” Zwillman. Zwillman was a close associate of Meyer Lansky and Sam Bronfman. Ross, as a Warner executive, later frequented Robert Maxwell’s yacht in the late 1980s, a time when Maxwell was deeply associated with a litany of organized crime figures across the globe. In addition, top Warner executives close to Ross personally were convicted for their roles in a mob-tied racketeering scheme that was also allegedly involved Ross, though he somehow evaded charges.

Considering his informal consultation on the film and the fact that Harrell had underwritten “new jack swing” — Uptown’s claim to fame and the genre from which the film took its name, which fused streetwise hip hop beats and melodic R&B for the first time — Harrell’s influence over the New Jack City production is clear. This is an important point, as it relates to mob-linked entertainment companies (in this case Warner Brothers) financing the glorification of drug dealing around 1991, a topic that we will return to in much greater detail near the end of this piece.

[admin]

Part 2 of 4

MCA: Mob Corporation of America

While MCA undoubtedly dominated much of American entertainment for decades, it was also deeply connected to organized crime and political power. In terms of MCA’s political power, this arguably peaked under the Reagan administration, which boasted extremely close ties to the company. MCA even played a role in covert operations that brought together organized crime interests and intelligence agencies during this period.

The most iconic executive in MCA’s history, Lew Wasserman, joined the company in 1936. By that point, Wasserman had established longstanding, close ties to Jewish mobster and Meyer Lansky-associate Moe Dalitz, having allegedly initiated those ties by having first served as the publicist for the Dalitz-controlled Mayfair Casino. However, some sources contend that Wasserman had joined Dalitz’s Mayfield Road Gang before working at the Mayfair. Wasserman later married the daughter of Dalitz’s long-time lawyer Henry Beckerman, who he had first met through his work at the casino.

Wasserman and MCA were also the forces chiefly responsible for the political career of former president Ronald Reagan. Reagan, previously an actor before becoming a politician, had been represented by MCA since 1940. Soon after, he became Wasserman’s first “million dollar client.” Wasserman later engineered Reagan’s campaign to lead the Screen Actors Guild, where Reagan made significant policy changes designed to give MCA an edge over other entertainment companies. Wasserman and other top MCA executives, such as Taft Schreiber and Jules Stein, played an intimate role in Reagan’s successful gubernatorial bid, as well as financing his later campaign for president of the United States. When Reagan was president, his Attorney General Edwin Meese notably quashed what had been an ongoing investigation into MCA’s organized crime ties. Meese later resigned following his involvement in the Bronx-based Wedtech scandal (see end note vi).


MCA’s Lew Wasserman (left) speaks with Nancy and Ronald Reagan at the White House in April 1988 – Source

That probe was initiated when evidence was found that MCA was engaged in business relations with the Gambino crime family. More specifically, MCA had hired a high-ranking Gambino associate, Salvatore Pisello, as an official representative of the company, even though Pisello had no experience in the music or movie business. At the time Pisello was doing business with MCA, he was also simultaneously a partner of Morris Levy, the Genovese family-linked record executive behind Roulette Records who financed the early hip hop label Sugar Hill. Levy’s connection to Andre Harrell’s early employer WINS was noted earlier in this article.

MCA kept Pisello around even though they lost money on every deal where Pisello had represented them and continued to work with him after his mob ties became publicly known. This was done at the behest of Wasserman, then chairman of the board of MCA, and Sidney Sheinberg, then president of MCA Inc., despite protests from other board members. One of the main MCA executives that had been closely involved with the company’s Pisello dealings, Irving Azoff, was subsequently promoted to become head of MCA’s Music Entertainment Division, the division that –– shortly thereafter –– entered into a distribution agreement with Andre Harrell’s Uptown Records. Azoff has long publicly praised Harrell and later eulogized him at his 2020 funeral. Irving Azoff was also Combs’ neighbor in the exclusive Beverly Hills enclave known as “Billionaires’ Row” up until Combs put the $60 million estate on the market in September 2024, not long after DHS raided the property.

The shuttered federal investigation into MCA also turned up evidence that the company was tied to the Genovese crime family. As noted earlier, the Genovese crime family had also been linked to Morris Levy (Levy was [url]also involved[/url] with some of Pisello’s dealings with MCA). In addition, during this same period, the mob-style murder of retail billionaire Leslie Wexner’s then-tax attorney, Arthur Shapiro, led Columbus police investigators to link both Shapiro’s death and Wexner himself to Genovese criminal interests. Shortly after Shapiro’s death, Jeffrey Epstein entered into Wexner’s inner circle, “tasked with getting [Wexner’s] finances in order.”

Special Report - MCA and The Mob (1988)
MOBFAX
Feb 3, 2022

KCBS-TV News Investigates MCA/Universal, one of the largest entertainment companies in the world, and its involvement with the Mafia, through a reputed Gambino Mafia soldier, Sal Pisello; the secret head of Northstar Graphics and Bufalino family underboss Ed Sciandra; and John Gotti, extremely powerful U.S. Mafia boss.

Transcript

this man is identified by the fbi as a
high-ranking soldier in the new york
gambino mafia family his name is sal the
swindler pacello recently sentenced to
four years in prison he evaded taxes on
nearly four hundred thousand dollars
income earned in business deals with mca
records pacello is headed for prison but
sources close to this case are still
asking what about this mafia soldiers
relationship with mca
a relationship that sparked a two-year
investigation by the justice
department's organized crime strike
force here in los angeles
former mca executive al bergamo told
action news pacello knew nothing about
the record business i couldn't
understand why he was there yet pasello
operated out of mca headquarters here in
universal city for nearly two years
this internal mca audit obtained by
channel 2 shows some mca monies were
paid to consultants for world records
inc a company owned by posello and his
partners rocco the butcher musachia and
federico fritzi giovanelli both reputed
high level members of the genovese mob
family
mca through its attorneys has claimed
that it was fooled duped by pasella that
it knew nothing of besello's organized
crime ties
duped or not this article to be
published next week in a washington
business magazine called regardies says
there was a hell of a fight over posello
at an mca board of directors meeting in
may of 1985.
writer dan moldaya the author of a book
entitled dark victory reports and
channel 2 confirms that an argument
broke out in an mca board meeting on one
side board member howard baker now
president reagan's chief of staff and
new york investment banker felix rohatin
both argued mca should rid itself of
posello demand mca executives tell
federal investigators what they know
about the posello deals and fire any
executive who wouldn't cooperate with
federal prosecutors on the other side
mca board chairman lou wasserman and
company president sydney scheinberg
defended mca's actions
and action news has learned federal
prosecutors issued subpoenas to six mca
executives to testify before a grand
jury including entertainment group
president irving azoff mca records
president myron roth and vice presidents
dan mcgill zach horowitz john burns and
dan westbrook
all of the executives with the exception
of irving azop wrote letters to the
justice department refusing to cooperate
in the pacello case exercising their
fifth amendment rights unless they were
granted immunity and when federal
prosecutor marvin rudnick in court on
the pacello case revealed two of those
executives took the fifth amendment
mca became indignant they formally
complained to the u.s attorney's office
accusing rudnick of misconduct
then los angeles strike force chief john
newcomer as first reported on channel
two answered mca with a letter that said
neither mca nor any of its executives
are targets of that case the posello
case and its attendant investigation
attorney will dwyer who represents three
former mca executives suing the company
was incensed i'm dumbfounded
here's a major crime buster great
reputation marvin rudnick prosecutor
here with the strike force
takes the testimony
with his agents with his investigators
of three former executives of mca
my clients testimony that in my
estimation professionally would support
probable cause that there's likely to be
some wrongdoing something further should
be looked into
and then rudnick's boss writes to mca's
leading lawyer
and says
well your clients clean mca is is not a
target of the investigation if anything
may be wrong it's rudnick run amok now
somebody's got to get to the bottom of
that
action news has learned prosecutor
rudnick was called back to washington
for a conference with justice department
superiors organized crime strike force
chief david margolis and deputy chief
michael defeo according to the
regardee's article told rudnick to
eliminate mca from the investigation not
to call certain mca executives as
witnesses not to determine the
relationship between mca and pacello and
in general don't cause mca any
embarrassment neither rudnick nor the
justice department will comment on the
matter nor will u.s attorney in los
angeles robert bonner nor strike force
chief john newcomer who also refused to
answer questions about rudnick at a
recent news conference well it's not
relevant to the
purposes of this meeting
it is not relevant to the purpose of the
meeting
i think we have no comment to that next
question
meanwhile action news has learned that
prosecutor rudnick has been taken off
two other major cases that he was
working
and among sources close to the
investigation these questions persist is
prosecutor rudnick being punished for
trying to move forward on an
investigation that raised questions
about mca's involvement with a known
mafioso if so why people close to the
investigation ask isn't the business mca
did with a mobster exactly the kind of
thing the federal strike force is
supposed to follow up on
meanwhile an attorney who represents mca
contacted by channel 2 says it is off
base that channel 2 continue to
characterize this as an mca probe when
it is in fact a prosecution of sal
pacello
this is ed chandra an underboss in the
buffalino mafia family of pennsylvania
in 1981 he was convicted of tax evasion
in connection with a kickback scheme
involving film lab work contracted to
mca universal
in this government sentencing memorandum
prosecutors said of chandra although he
was neither an employee nor authorized
agent for universal
chandra was able because of his
organized crime connections to dictate
to which companies universal sent its
film processing and film editing work
this man jean giaquinto was the head of
the mca universal non-theatrical film
division at the time however government
prosecutors at the time said no mca
people were involved in criminal
wrongdoing mca said they did not find
any evidence of employee misconduct
but in the same case
mafia underboss chandra also got
kickbacks from north star graphics
company according to these new jersey
state records
north star is run by michael delgado
in this pennsylvania crime commission
report delgazo is named as an associate
of the buffalino mafia family and a
close friend of mob underboss ed chandra
action news has learned people here at
mca are still doing business with mob
connected northstar
northstar has a deal with mca's home
video division to print millions of
boxes for mca home videotapes a
multi-million dollar contract and
there's more sources tell channel 2 mca
has paid northstar an inflated price to
do the work one former mca executive
tells action news i was embarrassed to
sign the bills another former mca
executive tells channel 2 mca could
negotiate a great rate because of the
volume they do
but they don't
a number of high level executives in the
video box printing business tell action
news i have tried to get mca home video
business but never got any another north
star seems to have the account locked up
we are always told says another it's
closed at mca home video
jean giaquinto is the man who runs mca
home video today
he also ran the film division when
mobster ed chandra used mca universal
business in his kickback scheme eight
years ago so as early as 1979 mca was
doing business with northstar graphics a
mob connected company as early as 1981
it was public record northstar was a mob
connected firm but gene giaquinto and
mca are still doing business with
northstar meanwhile sources tell action
news the fbi in recent weeks has been
asking questions about north star and
its relationship with mca
this is not the first instance in which
mca has had dealings with mob connected
figures gambino mafia soldier sal
piscello was recently convicted for not
reporting income he received from mca
mca claims they never knew priscilla was
in the mafia now another question
persists why is mca doing business with
a small mafia associated company in new
jersey
neither mca nor mr giaquinto had any
comment on today's story
jean giaquinto is a top level executive
at mca universal where he has worked for
nearly 30 years as president of the home
video division gia quinto oversees the
sale of millions of mca movies to the
home video market including the
blockbuster film et
and according to this fbi affidavit
obtained by channel 2 gia quinto has
used his position to funnel a large
amount of money on a yearly basis to
east coast mafia figure ed chandra the
reputed underboss of the buffalino crime
family
chandra according to the fbi is gia
quinto's uncle
as first reported on action news last
june the fbi confirms the money to
chandra flowed through north star
graphics a reputed organized crime
company in new jersey headed up by
michael delgazo who the pennsylvania
crime commission identifies as a close
friend of ed chandra
also according to the fbi wiretap
information there is reason to believe
gia quinto is involved in extortion to
solidify his position at mca
stock fraud by providing insider
information about mca wire fraud and the
sale and possession of narcotics
mob associate angelo camito in the fbi
wiretaps refers to gia quinto as our guy
at mca
in july of 1987 the fbi says gia quinto
chandra and marty bakau met at this
upscale beverly hills restaurant
bakau is described as the backdoor
liaison teamster connection to the movie
industry
they talked about what appears to be a
mafia struggle for power and control
here at mca at one point gia quinto says
genovese mafia people are all over the
place
gia quinto wonders if his forces could
get mca president sid scheinberg out of
the company
and said mca entertainment president
irving azoff is out that the government
had him there is talk of warfare and gia
quinto boasts that he had carte blanche
with gambino mafia boss john gotti who
many describe as the most powerful mob
figure in the united states gia quinto
says he has known gotti all his life
the fbi also believes gia quinto is
being furnished confidential law
enforcement information from washington
and there are references to retired lapd
organized crime intelligence expert john
st john as a friend
saint john retired shortly after his
name came up in an investigation of
information links to gia quinto
meanwhile mca attorneys say the company
had no knowledge of jean giaquinto's
alleged ties to the mafia and emphasized
that mca itself and these are their
words has been advised repeatedly that
it is not a target or a subject of this
federal investigation
in san francisco chris blatchford
channel 2 action news

MCA also has connections to a significant, yet largely forgotten scandal of the 1980s involving many of the same players from the Iran-Contra network, as well as figures like Robert Maxwell. The scandal, known as the PROMIS software scandal, saw operatives tied to US and Israeli intelligence team up with organized crime elements to both steal and then repurpose PROMIS –– a then-revolutionary software product for data management –– as a back-door surveillance system that was marketed to other intelligence agencies, sensitive government research laboratories, and a litany of banks around the globe. One of MCA’s top executives, Eugene Gianquinto, who then led MCA’s Home Entertainment Division, was intimately involved in major aspects of the scandal and its illegal activities. Gianquinto later took credit for the closure of the Department of Justice’s investigation into MCA’s mob ties.

More specifically, MCA and Gianquinto were connected to the elements of the PROMIS scandal based within the mob-linked joint venture between the Cabazon Indian Reservation and the Wackenhut Corporation to develop weapon systems –– some of which were intended for the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras. Journalist Danny Casolaro, who died in connection with his efforts to expose the network ultimately behind the PROMIS scandal, had stated before his death that he was writing about a network he called “the Octopus,” which –– oddly enough –– was a longstanding nickname for MCA.

Between 1994 and 1995, MCA was acquired by the Bronfman family company, Seagrams. A few years later, the Bronfmans also took control of Def Jam. The Bronfmans, like MCA itself, have an extensive history of organized crime connections, which date back to the mob-brokered bootlegging of American Prohibition in the 1920s. Wasserman, a long-time associate of Edgar Bronfman Sr., got a Seagrams board seat out of the deal and became chairman emeritus of the company. Edgar Bronfman Jr. quickly brought on Hollywood powerbroker Michael Ovitz, who later became president of Disney and a Jeffrey Epstein associate. Bronfman Jr. is also listed in Epstein’s black book and his father’s alleged ties to Epstein’s Bear Stearns career likely played a role in Epstein’s ouster from the bank in 1981. Ovitz, at the time he teamed up with Bronfman Jr., was close to Herbert Allen of Allen & Co, a company with ties to organized crime as well as the aforementioned PROMIS scandal. The Bronfmans, particularly Edgar Bronfman Jr., will feature prominently in Part II of this series, with Bronfman negotiating major deals with Combs in the early 2000s.

In 1991, Edgar Jr.’s uncle, Charles Bronfman, teamed up with Leslie Wexner (then already very intimately tied to Epstein) in 1991 to create the “Study Group” or “Mega Group,” an ostensibly philanthropic organization that was chiefly focused on ethno-philanthropy and philanthropy directed at promoting Zionism and financing aspects of the state of Israel. Yet, this particular group brought together some of the most prominent corporate billionaires in the United States, the majority of whom share ties to organized crime. Wexner, as previously mentioned was tied to Genovese crime interests by Columbus police, while the Bronfmans’ own history with organized crime, specifically the Lansky-co-founded National Crime Syndicate, have been extensively documented. Other early members include other organized crime-linked families like the Crowns of Chicago (via Lester Crown) and Laurence Tisch, owner of CBS including its many influential record labels.

The Tisch family, mentioned throughout this article, has ties to organized crime as well. For instance, Laurence Tisch engaged in a suspicious sale of his shares in the struggling Franklin National Bank to Michele Sindona, the Italian mafia-linked businessman who played a major role in Operation Gladio, which brought together the CIA, Italian Mafia and the Vatican. Sindona was also a member of the infamous Italian freemasonic lodge P2.

In addition, the Tisch family company, Loews, did extensive business with Resorts International. For instance, Loews was the long-time operator of Resorts International-owned hotel Paradise Island Hotel and Villas in the Bahamas. Senate testimony later linked Paradise Island specifically to Meyer Lansky. Resorts International itself deserves an important mention as well, given that it started as Mary Carter Paint Company, a CIA front company founded by the Dulles brothers with extensive ties to Meyer Lansky and his associates, that focused on developing businesses in the Bahamas. After the death of the company’s long-time, mob-linked head James Crosby in 1986, Donald Trump took over the company, only to lose control of it two years later.

Another member of this exclusive club, the “Mega Group,” was director Steven Spielberg. A protégé of Lew Wasserman and Sidney Sheinberg, Spielberg would later play an unusual role in king-making the future film career of director Brett Ratner, an associate of Russell Simmons, Andre Harrell, and Sean Combs who boasts of his childhood ties to Meyer Lansky and to the alleged heir to Lansky’s criminal enterprises, Al Malnik. Ratner’s significance is a focus of a later section of this piece.

A History of Violence

After becoming the A&R man at Harrell’s Uptown, Combs dropped out of Howard to pursue his dream. He then truly made a name for himself with his handling of the nascent careers of newcomers Mary J. Blige and Jodeci. His reworking of their sounds and re-styling of their images led to both debut records going multi-platinum. Combs’ success at Uptown, however, was marred by his role in planning events and parties that turned violent. In addition, more recent accusations of sexual violence, the filming of rapes and other crimes are alleged to have taken place during Combs’ later years at Uptown, making violence a noticeable and early theme in Combs’ early music industry career.

In December 1991, the tragedy of the Community College of New York celebrity basketball game stampede, which Combs had helped plan, forced him and his mother to lay low, leading to them hiding out in a Manhattan hotel to avoid scrutiny amid rumors of possible criminal charges for Combs. The stampede ultimately left 9 dead. Combs had promoted this game as a charity event intended to raise funds for AIDS relief over the radio and through informal channels. The massive crowd, which had gathered to watch Heavy D (one of Uptown’s main artists) and LL Cool J (one of Def Jam’s first big acts) shoot hoops, ended up breaking into a fatal stampede.


A 1992 New York Daily News article on the fall-out after the deadly stampede, with a focus on Sean Combs specifically – Source

A report commissioned by the New York Mayor’s office condemned “almost all of the individuals involved in the event[, who] demonstrated a lack of responsibility” as well as NYPD officers in the scene, who were accused of “serious lapses in judgment.” The report blamed Combs in particular “for allowing two inexperienced subordinates to handle a potentially perilous event and for deceiving ticket buyers about [the event’s] charitable intent.” “City College is something I deal with every day of my life,” Combs later said in 1998. “But the things that I deal with can in no way measure up to the pain that the families deal with. I just pray for the families and pray for the children who lost their lives every day.”

During this period, when Combs was still at Uptown, his penchant for throwing wild, and allegedly violent, parties continued. However, it soon merged with new scenes, particularly those of the music industry and the New York club scene. In his memoir Notorious C.O.P., the former head of the NYPD Rap Intelligence Unit Derrick Parker (a COINTELPRO legacy program that grew directly out of interagency cooperation & the BOSS unitxiv) writes of his first introduction to Combs:

“Even before the CCNY disaster, well before he was a tabloid fixture, I became aware of Puffy [i.e. Sean Combs]. He was hard to miss as he gallivanted around early ’90s hip-hop clubs and up the ladder of the music industry, right from the bottom rung. At the time, Puffy was little known outside music biz circles: he wasn’t even a performer yet, but a rising A&R executive at Uptown Records who threw crazy, notoriously raucous parties at a midtown club called Red Zone. I knew about Puffy even then because I’d always kept one foot in the music world. I’d been promoting parties and hitting the clubs, as well as performing and recording demos as an R&B singer.”xv

Red Zone was a short-lived Midtown club ensconced in a former ABC filming studio at 440 West 54th Street. “Club Kids” like Michael Alig, RuPaul, and others in the late 1980s and early 1990s were known to frequent the establishment.



The establishment was first opened by Maurice Brahms, the uncrowned king of the NYC Club Scene, the former restaurateur and owner-operator of infamous, gay-catering nightlife discotheques such as Bonds, Infinity, & Underground. Brahms entered into business with his South African second cousin John Addison, a gay model who once dated Roy Cohn. Cohn was Donald Trump’s mentor who had close ties to the Reagan administration, as well as organized crime and sexual blackmail operations. Cohn was also closely linked to the Genovese and Gambino crime families, and represented their bosses, Tony Salerno and Paul Castellano, respectively. Maurice Brahms and John Addison’s former regulars, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager (son of Lansky associate Louis “Max the Jew” Schrager, a Brooklyn gambling boss), went on to open a direct competitor — Studio 54. As fate would have it, John Addison had introduced the pair to Cohn, who would later become Studio 54’s lawyer.

Addison’s introduction of Rubell and Schrager to Cohn set in motion a series of events that later led to Addison’s and Maurice Brahms’ incarceration. Schrager and Rubell approached Cohn for his help in blocking the opening of Brahms’ and Addison’s new club New York, New York in 1977. Cohn, in turn, enlisted then-Assistant District Attorney Peter Sudler and Special Agent Mark Britt from SDNY in a sting operation. Brahms’ and Addison’s establishment was raided under the auspices of perjured search warrants. This then led to raids at their respective homes. Agents reportedly illegally seized a ledger that showed that the pair had been skimming $1.3 million from the Infinity, the club where the cousins first encountered Schrager and Rubell (who subsequently also served prison time for similar crimes related to their nightclubs).


Studio 54 co-owner Steve Rubell, right, and his attorney Roy Cohn, left, talk to reporters outside US District Court in Manhattan, Friday, Nov. 2, 1979, after Rubell and his partner, Ian Schrager, pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges – Source

Brahms and Addison were ultimately pressured into pleading guilty. Brahms was sentenced to 3 years in prison in NYC. Maurice Brahms’ final club was the aforementioned Red Zone, where Combs hosted his Uptown Record-era mixers. Given Combs’ association with these elements of the New York nightclub scene, the more recent revelation of Combs’ later bisexual “Freak Off” orgies becomes far less shocking.

While his “Freak Off” parties are now notorious, the much earlier Combs-hosted events at Red Zone also developed quite a reputation. For instance, Combs promoted a recurrent party at the Red Zone called “Daddy’s House” that explicitly catered to a hip-hop audience. Apparently violence was so endemic and frequent at these events that Combs routinely had to interrupt the DJs to talk people down and, at one point, even wrote to everyone on his mailing list in an attempt to plead with them to leave the quarrels and weapons at home. Per reports, the violence continued unabated and Red Zone ultimately lost its liquor license following a shooting that occurred outside the venue. A fellow hip hop party promoter named Toi Sojer contradicted Combs’ claims that he was not responsible for any of the violence at these events, stating that, “Puffy’s parties are scary. I was always frightened when I went to Red Zone.”

While throwing “scary” parties at venues with suspect owners, Combs is now alleged to have begun engaging in acts of sexual violence while at Uptown. Recent lawsuits additionally assert that other figures (and companies) tied to Uptown were directly related to those crimes.

On November 23, 2023, just before the expiration of the NY State Adult Survivor’s Act (which created a window free of the statute of limitations during so that adult victims could pursue justice against their abusers), attorneys representing Liza Gardner filed a lawsuit alleging that, in 1990/1991, Combs and singer Aaron Hall took turns raping her and a friend after an MCA Records event in their corporate offices. The victim was allegedly only 16 years old at the time, while Combs was still working as a talent director at Uptown. Aaron Hall, like Combs, had significant ties to the Bronx, having grown up there, and was a member of the Uptown Records-signed band Guy with Teddy Riley, thus considered one of the architects of “new jack swing.” Further illustrating the ties between New Jack City and Uptown Records, Guy had a cameo as themselves in the film.

Per the lawsuit, the alleged assault began one night when Combs and Hall were flirtatious and handsy with the reported victims at an MCA Records event. After the fete, the pair invited the two girls back to Hall’s apartment, where the men plied them with drinks and drugs before taking turns having sex with both friends. The lawsuit also alleges that Combs visited the home in which she and her friend were staying a few days after the incident. The visit allegedly turned violent, with Combs choking out Jane Doe, physically threatening her so as to impress upon her what might happen if she or her friend chose not to stay silent regarding their experience. It’s been speculated following the announcement of Gardner’s complaint that the lyrics to Aaron Hall’s song “Don’t Be Afraid”, released by MCA as one of the singles for the official soundtrack of Juice, may obliquely refer to the rape of Gardner. It was recently reported in the press that Aaron Hall is suddenly missing. According to Gardner and her attorney Tyrone Blackburn, they have exhausted all options as far as reaching Hall at his past known addresses, and will now have to resort to serving him summons via publication in newspapers of note.

New evidence further suggests a culture of crime at Uptown and the label’s apparent enabling of Gardner’s mistreatment. Gardner recently amended her complaint after a sworn statement by the other woman who was reportedly raped at Hall’s New Jersey apartment (also a minor at the time) was entered. The unnamed woman claimed that DeVanté Swing, a member of the Uptown act Jodeci (whose career Combs was then managing) not only voyeuristically looked on as Gardner was raped by Combs, but that the two girls had been lured from North Carolina and were staying with Swing at his residence in NJ, which was allegedly “subsidized” by Uptown Records at the time. Swing was subsequently added to the lawsuit as a co-defendant. Furthermore, Swing’s alleged voyeurism of Gardner’s rape at the hands of Combs is in keeping with an abiding pattern of Combs’ sexual violence. Namely that, time and again, affiliates either watch his crimes, participate in them directly, or else view video footage of them after the fact.

In Gardner’s filing, both MCA Records and Geffen Records are also named as co-defendants. David Geffen’s label had just been sold to MCA the same year that the assaults allegedly took place. Both Geffen and the now defunct MCA are owned by Universal Music Group (UMG) today, the major label crafted by the Bronfman family that is now overseen by Lucian Grainge, a former MCA and CBS Records executive. Both Lucian Grainge and UMG were initially named as co-defendants in Rodney Jones’ lawsuit against Sean Combs for enabling his sex trafficking activities.

Also in November 2023, Joi Dickerson-Neal filed the second of three sexual assault lawsuits that targeted Combs in the span of that week. Dickerson-Neal had graced a music video opposite Combs in 1990. Dickerson-Neal has stated that her proximity to Combs in the video spurred a warning from Sister Soulja, who had told the young woman to keep her distance from Combs. Dickerson-Neal claims that she surrendered to Combs’ constant advances in 1991, reluctantly agreeing to a dinner date. She insisted, however, that they meet at Wells Restaurant in Harlem, her place of employment at the time, due to concerns about Combs, hoping that the presence of coworkers would help her feel more secure.

In the filing, Dickerson-Neal contends that Combs spiked her beverage while she’d excused herself to the restroom. When they left the premises, she claims he forced her to take a hit from a blunt, and that the combined impacts of the drugging left her legs feeling “rubbery.” She alleges that Combs then drove her to a nearby “studio” (most likely affiliated with either Uptown/MCA) and then raped her at a residence in the neighborhood seemingly owned by an acquaintance of both individuals, during which he filmed her violation. Following these traumatic events, Jodeci singer DeVanté Swing allegedly revealed to the victim that Combs had filmed her rape and was playing the footage for everyone at the “studio” like some kind of perverse trophy. If true, this would mean that myriad Uptown employees saw this video. This is one of the earliest allegations that involves Combs and the non-consensual films of sexual assault and rape crimes. It also alludes to the possible collection of sexual blackmail compiled by Combs –– a pattern that would repeat in subsequent allegations in the lead up to his 2024 incarceration.

[admin]

Part 3 of 4

Clive Davis: The Hidden Power Behind Combs’ Bad Boy Records

Eventually, Andre Harrell felt Combs was getting too “cocky” in his position at Uptown and fired him in 1993. Nevertheless, the two remained friends, with Harrell becoming the godfather to Combs’ son Justin, who was born later that same year. Combs, shortly after leaving Uptown, created Bad Boy Records with Kirk Burrowes in 1993. Combs’ new label quickly entered into a distribution deal with Arista Records worth $15 million. Davis says he met Combs when Combs was 23 years old and that, soon after meeting, Davis “helped introduce [Combs] to the right music executives who could assist him in ushering in ‘the forthcoming Hip Hop revolution.'”

Bad Boy Records’ prolonged success was ensured by its early deal with Arista (which later expanded into a joint venture) as well as the man who would become Combs’ second record mentor in the music industry, Arista’s founder and president Clive Davis. Davis’ Arista was originally founded as part of Columbia Pictures’ music label portfolio. At the time Arista entered into its joint venture with Combs’ Bad Boys, the label had been sold by Columbia Pictures to BMG, a German media company. However, Davis controlled Arista as if it were his own personal fiefdom until 2000, when he left the label due to BMG’s age restriction policy for executives. Bad Boy Records ended what had then become a joint venture with Arista a few years after Davis’ departure. Shortly thereafter, Bad Boy attached itself to Bronfman-controlled interests in the music industry, which will be revisited in Part II of this series.

Clive Davis grew up in Crown Heights, the son of a middle-class Jewish electrician and salesman. He excelled at Erasmus Hall High School and was a member of the New York City branch of the National Honor Society dubbed Arista, which would later serve as inspiration for the name of his label at Columbia Pictures. His early academic success earned Davis a full scholarship to New York University. He then attended Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1956.

Two years following his graduation, Davis joined “…the large, white-shoe firm, Rosenman, Colin, Kaye, Petschek, and Freund. Sam Rosenman was counsel to Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman; Ralph Colin’s clients included William Paley and CBS.”xvi Other notable clients of Rosenman & Colin LLP include two offshore banks owned by Bruce Rappaport that had served as “repositories of illicit funds from several illegal operations,” specifically related to drug trafficking. Rappaport, as noted in One Nation Under Blackmail, boasted close ties to the CIA, particularly via his close friend William Casey, as well as to Israeli intelligence and organized crime. Rappaport was particularly affiliated with organized crime networks that included Semion Mogilevich, an Eastern European mob boss who became a close business associate of Robert Maxwell in the late 1980s.

Clive Davis’ storied career in the music industry began via his earlier career at Rosenman & Colin. While working at the firm (which –– as previously noted –– counted CBS as a client), Davis was hired to become assistant counsel of the CBS subsidiary, Columbia Records. He became the label’s general counsel a year later. Davis had been hired by Harvey Schein, a former colleague of Davis’ at Rosenman & Colin.


Clive Davis in 1960 – Source

Schien was a protégé of William Paley, the long-time head of CBS and “father of modern broadcasting.” Paley, the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, had worked building up CBS into the main network of radio and main record label in the United States, having a profound effect on mass media and the shaping of Americans’ musical tastes and political perceptions. During World War II, Paley served in the Office of War Information, becoming Chief of Radio of the U.S. military’s Psychological Warfare Division. Paley developed a very close relationship with scions of the Rockefeller dynasty, David and Nelson, as well as others close to the Rockefellers, like former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. David Rockefeller and Kissinger both later eulogized Paley at his funeral in 1990, with Kissinger also serving as the chairman of Paley’s foundation.

In the mid-1980s, Paley personally ensured that Laurence Tisch would take over CBS (including its record labels). As noted earlier in this piece, Tisch, in 1991, served as a founding member of the so-called “Mega Group” alongside Leslie Wexner, Charles and Edgar Bronfman and Lew Wasserman protégé Steven Spielberg, among others.

Clive Davis’ infamous and undeniably “revolutionary” tenure as President of CBS Records (1967-1973) is most aptly characterized by the transition from the jazz, folk, and pop ethos of the 1950s to the industry-wide embrace of rock in the 1970s. Somewhat akin to the careers of Andre Harrell or Combs, he was a relatively young label executive well-placed to take advantage of shifting cultural trends, effectively making his name synonymous with an emergent genre for a time.

In Davis’s self-hagiographizing, he had an epiphany at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and became determined to pivot to rock music. “I sensed change. I don’t know, even now, how I knew”.xvii Of course, this was an exaggeration, as rock had already been dominating the singles charts for more than a decade. Davis’ legacy in this period as it relates to rock music was essentially ensured after he poached an assembly of Monterey acts from their minor labels along with those who were still languishing in obscurity.xviii During his tenure at Columbia Records, Davis managed and/or signed Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, The Electric Flag, Santana, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Chicago, Loggins & Messina, Aerosmith, Earth Wind & Fire, and the Grateful Dead.

While Davis had been successful at CBS, he left the company under a cloud of scandal. Davis became a focus of an investigation led by the US Attorney’s Office in Newark, a probe that would later become known as Project Sound. As part of the investigation, “allegations began to surface in the press that CBS Records had bribed black radio stations and done business with an organized crime figure.” The scandal ultimately led to Clive Davis’ decision to make a deal in 1971 with two record producers tied to Motown Records, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.xix Davis had sought out Gamble and Huff due to a desire to “conquer the R&B charts.” As part of the negotiations, Davis allowed Gamble’s and Huff’s company to promote the music that, per the deal, was produced and distributed by CBS.

Perhaps unknown to Davis at the time, Gamble’s and Huff’s company and its promotional efforts engaged in the practice of payola, the illegal practice whereby firms pay radio stations to play singles without disclosing that payments were made. CBS was implicated in the arrangement through David Wynshaw, Clive Davis’ closest aide at CBS.xx Press reports soon stated that CBS music subsidiaries were being investigated for bribing radio stations, not just with money, but also drugs and sex, in order “to increase use of its products on black-oriented radio stations.”

CBS, in connection with the Project Sound probe, uncovered that Davis had left a “trail of phony invoices” totaling at least $94,000 over six years that were meant to cover up Davis’ use of funds for personal parties and renovations to his properties.xxi Davis was ultimately fired by CBS as a result.

Soon, the CBS “payola” scandal took on a darker hue. In February 1972, a few days after Davis had been fired from CBS, eight people were indicted in Newark on conspiracy and smuggling charges connected to a “multimillion dollar heroin ring operating in Italy, Canada, and the United States.”

The connective tissue between CBS and this drug bust soon became apparent. A woman, recently fired from CBS for being “doped up” at work, had been indicted after working for a food stand that doubled as a front for the heroin ring in question. Patsy Falcone, aka Pasquale Falconio, an associate of the Genovese crime family, had also been indicted. Investigators found that Falcone also had a tie to CBS by way of his “friendship” with Davis’ protege David Wynshaw as well as via Frank Campana, a former CBS A&R man with whom Falcone had started a management company. Falcone and Campana’s company managed several acts signed to CBS. Investigators later stated that Davis’ name had been mentioned by Falcone in bugged telephone conversations and that evidence found on Falcone had listed Wynshaw as a “source for prostitutes.”

Documents incriminating Wynshaw were reportedly found on Falcone at the time of his arrest. It was later reported that, “with the help of Dave Wynshaw, Falcone bilked CBS Records. The two men set up sham companies in… New Jersey… CBS unwittingly paid more than $75,000 to these nonexistent operations.”xxii Wynshaw figured prominently into Davis’ downfall as it was Wynshaw who had both helped facilitate the money funneled to Falcone and who had written up false invoices that obscured the payments that Davis had used for personal enrichment. It was also believed that Wynshaw’s role involved laundering money that was used for “off-the-record” items, like procuring drugs and prostitutes for CBS parties, conferences, & artists, leading him to be colloquially known as “Clive’s pimp” at the label.

As a Rolling Stone article from the period speculated based on industry rumors at the time, Davis’ unceremonious firing by CBS over personal enrichment and embezzlement of funds (of $94,000, then deemed paltry by industry insiders) may have been a strategic attempt to get ahead of the larger “Drugola” scandal and the possibility that federal investigators might pursue charges against Davis, his trusted aide Wynshaw, and others at the company.

Despite the scandal, Davis quickly found his way back into the industry. A little over a year after having been fired from CBS/Columbia, in the summer of 1974, Davis was hired as a consultant for Bell Records, “a barely profitable subsidiary of Columbia Pictures (no corporate relation to CBS).” According to a 1977 New York Times article, “Davis’s consulting took the form of letting go most of [Bell’s] performers and the executives who had signed them, retaining only a handful as the basis for a renamed company, Arista, with himself in the president’s chair.”


Clive Davis signs a young Whitney Houston to Arista Records – Source

Arista’s formation and success relied heavily on Alan Hirschfield, a major entertainment executive who had recently become CEO of Columbia Pictures. Hirschfield was instrumental in bringing Davis on as a consultant for Bell and who supported Davis’ formation of Arista. Davis, as well as Hirschfield’s family, have framed Hirschfield as having essentially co-founded the label with Davis.

Hirschfield had found himself serving in the top post in Columbia Pictures thanks to the same connection that saw him become at top executive at other entertainment conglomerates, like Fox and Warner Brothers. That connection was to Allen & Company, as Hirschfield’s father Norman was a close friend and associate of Charles and Herbert Allen, the founders of the company. Norman Hirschfield also worked for Allen & Co., particularly in its natural gas division and also in scouting other “business opportunities” for the firm. Later, in the 1970s and 1980s, when Allen & Co. took a stake in a major entertainment firm, Columbia included, they ensured their interests were represented through the installation of Norman’s son, Alan Hirschfield, in a top executive post.

Charles and Herbert Allen and their firm Allen & Co. have documented ties to intelligence-linked figures and scandals, as well as organized crime. As noted in [url]One Nation Under Blackmail[/url], the Allen brothers had significant organized crime connections, particularly via companies based in the Bahamas that were run and developed by close associates of Jewish mobster and co-founder of the National Crime Syndicate, Meyer Lansky. In addition, Allen & Co. was a client of the CIA-linked David Baird Foundation and Charles and Allen and David Baird had several dealings with an associate of mob boss Moe Dalitz and Alexander Guterma, who was a key part of the United Dye scandal that had also ensnared figures like Roy Cohn. Allen & Co. also financed Earl Brian’s efforts to buy out Inslaw Inc. as part of the PROMIS scandal (discussed in greater detail shortly) and had other close business ties to Brian, including being significant shareholders in Brian’s company Hadron.

The Allen brothers also had significant ties to Leslie Wexner’s mentors, Max Fisher and Alfred Taubman. Taubman had been close to the Allens since the 1950s. For Fisher, the connection was forged at the time he was heading up United Brands, the CIA-linked company that Fisher took over the same year that its former top executive, Eli Black, suspiciously fell to his death from the 44th floor of the Pan Am building in Manhattan. Black was the father of Leon Black, the Drexel Burnham Lambert executive who would later found Apollo Global Management and become a very close and now notorious associate of Jeffrey Epstein. While still at United Brands, Fisher joined Taubman and the Allen brothers in a joint venture that culminated in the takeover of the Irvine Ranch in California.

The overlap doesn’t end there. Columbia Pictures’ Alan Hirschfield was a close associate of lawyer Allen Tessler and served alongside Tessler as a top executive at Data Broadcasting Corporation. Tessler was the family lawyer for the organized crime-linked Gouletas family and their real estate empire. Tessler also later joined the board of Leslie Wexner’s The Limited in 1987. Evangeline Gouletas shared an office space with Epstein during this time, which also coincides with the development of the close-knit relationship between Wexner and Epstein.

Another key client of Tessler’s was the aforementioned Earl Brian, who had close ties to Allen & Co. and was one of the masterminds of the PROMIS scandal that involved MCA, organized crime, US intelligence and Israeli intelligence (with Robert Maxwell facilitating aspects of the scheme on behalf of Israel). Tessler’s law firm, Shea & Gould, also represented organized crime clients like Carmine de Sapio, a close friend of Roy Cohn’s, and also had significant connections to William Casey, Reagan’s CIA director. Tessler, who was chairman of Wexner’s The Limited’s Finance Committee by 1990, came into direct contact with Epstein some time around this period as well. Tessler appears in Epstein’s infamous “black book” with two addresses and four different phone numbers listed. Among the numbers listed is Tessler’s line at Data Broadcasting, where he and Hirschfield worked side-by-side. The company had been acquired by Earl Brian’s firm Infotechnology in 1987.

In other words, Clive Davis’ ascent to become a major music executive was aided largely by figures tied to same clandestine network composed of intelligence-linked and organized crime elements that also forms the basis for the network that would also later figure prominently in the rise of Jeffrey Epstein. This is also evident in Davis’ close friendship with the family of the Mega Group’s Laurence Tisch, particularly his nephew Jonathan who took over the family business Loews Corp in 1989. This connection later led Davis to donate several million to the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, producing the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music under the Tisch School umbrella. It is also notable that the “drugola” scandal linked to Davis had ties specifically to the Genovese crime family, an organized crime network also linked to MCA, Morris Levy, Roy Cohn and Leslie Wexner, as noted earlier in this piece.

Mentors in Crime

After the scandal around Combs began to break, Clive Davis, as well as Andre Harrell of Uptown and Russell Simmons of Def Jam/Rush Management, have been accused of propelling Combs into the patterns of criminal behavior for which he is now infamous. For instance, one-time rival (and former friend of Combs) Suge Knight has claimed that Davis, Harrell and Simmons used “alcohol, drugs” – specifically cocaine – to “compromise” Combs’ “manhood.” This is particularly significant in the case of Davis’ ties to the “Drugola” scandal, which involved using sex, drugs and bribes to specifically target “black-oriented radio stations” and music. Claims similar to those made by Knight have since been echoed by Combs’ former bodyguard Gene Deal.


Clive Davis and Sean Combs – Source

It is worth noting here that Davis’ protégé L.A. Reid, who took over Arista Records from Davis, has also been accused of sexual misconduct and assault. Reid, alongside Combs, were both instrumental in the success of recording artists Justin Bieber and Usher. Knight has argued that Davis, Simmons and Harrell first “compromised” Combs and then Combs went on to use alcohol, drugs, and gay sex to “control” younger artists like Usher and Bieber. Notably, Combs’ entry into the world of Andre Harell, Simmons and, shortly thereafter, Clive Davis, coincides with the development of his obsessive drive to record everything, presumably for blackmail-related purposes. For instance, music video director Cole Bennett asserted that Combs told him that he’d begun recording “footage of everything” in 1992 and even advised Bennett to do the same.

In addition, Kirk Burrowes, the co-founder of Bad Boy Records with Combs, has claimed that Combs sought to compromise him using this same method. Burrowes has filed a lawsuit against Combs, claiming Combs subjected him to “repeated sexual harassment, physical aggression and forced compliance with degrading sexual acts” throughout the 1990s. Burrowes claims that Combs targeted him with “unwanted sexual advances” including acts of “nudity, sexual overtones, voyeurism and acts of exhibitionism,” some of which allegedly took place during business meetings, and that this was part of a larger “campaign of control.” The outcome of this campaign, per Burrowes, was the use of “physical violence, blackmail, career sabotage and financial extortion” to force Burrowes out of his 25% stake in Bad Boy Records. Though Davis was a key part of the early creation and formation of Bad Boy Records, he is not named in Burrowes’ suit.

However, Combs may have been “controlled” in a similar way by Davis, per some sources. Suge Knight, for instance, has alleged that he was told by the former head of Interscope Records, Jimmy Iovine, that Combs had regularly engaged in sexual acts with Davis, suggesting that his relationship with Davis and Davis’ early, crucial involvement with Bad Boy were built on the back of sexual favors. This is certainly possible given the well-known mechanism within the entertainment industry of sexual favors as a way to secure lucrative roles and deals –– e.g. the Harvey Weinstein scandal. In addition, Davis notably came out publicly as bisexual in a memoir published when he was 80 years old, where he writes that he began to openly engage in sex with the same gender in the 1980s. Combs’ alleged bisexuality has been a major topic of discussion in relation to the scandal leading up to his arrest last year. Knight has also claimed that Russell Simmons and Andre Harrell had also engaged in similar behavior with each other. Notably, the network behind Clive Davis, which overlaps with that behind Epstein, also involved similar “sugar daddy”-style relationships. These include rumors that Epstein and his long-time benefactor Leslie Wexner were intimate, e.g. former State of Ohio Inspector General David Sturtz telling journalist Bob Fitrakis that Epstein was Wexner’s “boyfriend.”

The Rat Pack

Given that Russell Simmons is one of the men alleged to have mentored Combs in this type of criminal behavior, it is worth taking a look also at some of the recent allegations that have been made against Simmons and some of his associates, who – like Simmons – also boasted close ties to Combs.


From left: Andre Harrell, Sean Combs, Russell Simmons – Source

Beginning in 2017, Russell Simmons was hit with a slew of rape and sexual harassment lawsuits and accusations. One of Simmons’ earliest accusers, model Keri Claussen Khalighi, alleged that Simmons raped her in full view of the director Brett Ratner in 1991. Before the 2017 allegations, police had previously probed Simmons and Ratner for claims of jointly engaging in sexual battery back in 2001. Over a dozen women have since accused Simmons of sexual misconduct or crimes, while Ratner himself has been separately accused of similar crimes, including rape, by at least 10 women. Following the barrage of accusations, Simmons has laid low in Bali, Indonesia, embracing life as a “stateless” US citizen in a bid to evade the court’s jurisdiction. As will be explained in greater detail shortly, Ratner fled to Israel but is now planning a comeback, currying favor with the Trump family to that effect.

Ratner is a long-time close associate of Simmons, with some reports calling Ratner a “protégé” of Simmons. Simmons is credited with helping start Ratner’s career, as the two met while Ratner was still in film school (NYU’s Tisch School) and Ratner began filming music videos for Simmons-managed artists like Public Enemy soon after their meeting. Ratner also filmed a music video for Combs’ longtime associate Heavy D, who had first gotten Combs his internship at Uptown, in 1994. Getty images alone hosts hundreds of photographs of Ratner and Simmons partying together over the years.


Brett Ratner on the cover of Hollywood Reporter – Source

Ratner, like Simmons, was also a very close associate of Combs, bringing Combs as his guest to several premieres of his films. Ratner was also a frequent attendee of numerous Combs-hosted parties as well as charity fundraisers. They also arrived together at prominent award shows and Ratner also filmed music videos for Combs, such as his 2001 single “Diddy.” Combs selected Brett Ratner and Ron Burkle, among others, to be his guests of honor when he delivered a commencement address to his alma mater Howard University in 2014.

Ratner’s close association with both Simmons and Combs is notable for a few reasons. First, there is the fact that Ratner, as previously mentioned, was accused by several actresses of sexual misconduct, resulting in him being dropped from his agency and the “canceling” of his Hollywood career. In addition, Ratner took overdirecting the X-Men series from Bryan Singer, with whom Ratner is reportedly close. Singer has been accused of pedophilia and sordid affiliations with the Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), which was run by pedophile Marc Collins-Rector and also involved child star turned crypto mogul Brock Piece. (For Unlimited Hangout’s past reporting on DEN and Pierce, see here)

Second, there is the man that Ratner considers his father –– Alvin Malnik. The feeling is apparently mutual, with Malnik referring to Ratner as one of his sons. The close-knit tie is telling as Malnik has very significant organized crime ties, particularly to Meyer Lansky. Not only that, but according to a Forbes investigation cited by the LA Times, Malnik “invented the black art of money-laundering, taking mob money and routing it to legitimate ventures.”

Forbes wrote that:

In the 1960s, Miami lawyer Alvin Malnik set up the Bank of Commerce in the Bahamas. Mob money flowed into its secret numbered accounts by the hundreds of millions–[mob financier Meyer] Lansky money, most of it–and then out again into Tibor Rosenbaum’s International Credit Bank of Switzerland before returning to the United States for investment.

For those familiar with One Nation Under Blackmail, both Lansky and Rosenbaum also had significant ties to the Israeli intelligence apparatus, especially Rosenbaum who helped finance keys aspects of Israeli intelligence, including via the means that Malnik reportedly helped to develop.

In addition, Malnik’s other ties to Lansky were considerable. For instance, Malnik had previously been banned from working in New Jersey casinos due to state regulators confirming his ties to Lansky and Sam Cohen, another mobster. Malnik had even been named Lansky’s “heir apparent” by Reader’s Digest upon Lansky’s 1983 death, while the Miami News noted that Lansky had wanted Malnik to take over all of his “legitimate enterprises” after this death. That article also cited federal agents that claimed that Malnik also stood to inherit “Lansky’s lucrative gambling, pornography, prostitution, labor racketeering and extortion operations.” Malnik also had a close association with Joel Steinger, a notorious fraud that operated a massive Ponzi scheme targeting the elderly and terminally ill. Steinger, like Malnik, had developed close ties to Lansky personally by the 1970s and married the daughter of a Miami banker alleged to be a close Lansky associate.

In addition, Malnik was involved in strange ways with Michael Jackson in his later years. As noted previously, billionaire Ron Burkle ––- who also cultivated close ties to Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein, along with Combs himself –– had significant connections to Jackson during this same period. The Malnik-Burkle-Jackson connection, as well as Burkle’s significant ties to both Epstein and Combs, will be covered in Part II of this series.


Ratner (left) with Michael Jackson and Sean Combs in an undated picture at Ratner’s Beverly Hills home – Source

Malnik’s own “protégé,” his adopted son Brett Ratner, claims to have also fostered a close relationship early on with Meyer Lansky himself. In a 2011 interview, Ratner stated the following:

“I grew up on Miami Beach. I lived on Collins Avenue at the Carriage House on 54th Street. And two doors down was the Imperial House where every day after school I would ride my bike and I would walk down the street with an old man who would walk his dog. We would walk together and everyone at the store would kiss my ass when I was with him. He would take me to this restaurant called the Villa Capri and everybody was always treating me so nice. I didn’t realize it until I was in line at the supermarket with my mom and I opened up Rolling Stone and I saw his picture on the back. It was Meyer Lansky’s obituary. Everybody thought it was weird because he was 80 and I was 12. He was the biggest gangster in the world and he was like my best friend as a kid.”

While some may discount this claim as fantasy on Ratner’s part, his close ties to Malnik –– Lanksy’s “heir” –– during the same period of his alleged association with Lansky lends the story credence. In addition, it is worth noting that Ratner’s “big break” that allowed him to become a famous director came somewhat unexpectedly in his “mediocre” film school career via Steven Spielberg. As previously noted, Spielberg was a protégé of Wasserman and Schienberg of MCA, a company with significant mob (and intelligence) affiliations, while Wasserman himself was connected to Lansky’s network via his long-time tie to Lansky associate Moe Dalitz. Spielberg is also a reported member of the previously mentioned “Mega Group” that unites Spielberg with organized crime-linked oligarchs like Epstein’s main benefactor Leslie Wexner, among others.

Ratner would later follow the Lansky model of evading charges and scrutiny for illegal activities by immigrating to Israel. After he was accused of extreme sexual misconduct, including alongside Simmons, Ratner fled to Israel. A week before his escape, Ratner had been Benjamin Netanyahu’s special guest, along with former Epstein defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz, at the United Nations. Articles on Ratner’s trip to the UN with Netanyahu noted that Ratner is a former close business associate of Australian media tycoon James Packer, who has been closely linked to Netanyahu. Packer’s business venture with Ratner, RatPac Entertainment was notably partnered for several years with Dune Entertainment, the film business of Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. Mnuchin left the venture shortly after joining the first Trump administration, which coincided with many of the accusations against Ratner being made public, crippling the firm’s once meteoric rise.

Packer, for his part, was a key part of the corruption trial that continues to dog current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but has taken a backseat following the onset of the Israel-Gaza War in October 2023. Packer’s ties to both Netanyahu as well as former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen were deemed so extensive that they were considered a “national risk” in court testimony. Packer also once threatened to “sic” Mossad operatives on businessmen and was seeking to form a cybersecurity venture with Mossad-linked individuals around the same time he created RatPac with Brett Ratner. In addition, Packer was known to have partied with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, including on the yacht of Australian trucking magnate Lindsay Fox in 1995 when Epstein and Maxwell were the “guests of honour” on the cruise. Furthermore, Packer has also come under scrutiny for his ties to Stanley Ho, a casino magnate with ties to Chinese organized crime and to the Clinton-era scandal “Chinagate,” which also involved Epstein. As it relates to Epstein, a star in many of Ratner’s films with close social ties to the director, Chris Tucker, would later find himself on infamous Epstein-brokered plane trips alongside Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey.


Brett Ratner sits between Elon Musk and Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in January 2025 – Source

The Combs-Simmons-Ratner clique have a history of cultivating ties to Donald Trump. For instance, one image photographed by Getty shows Ratner on stage with Combs at Russell Simmon’s “Art for Life Palm Beach” event honoring Combs in 2005. The event was hosted at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and attended by the Trumps. The Trumps also attended some premieres of Ratner’s films. Trump became closely associated with Combs beginning in the 1990s. While those ties will be discussed in detail in Part II of this series, it is worth noting that First Lady Melania Trump has teamed up with the self-exiled Ratner, who is now directing a documentary about her life that is due to launch on Amazon Prime later this year. The First Lady is an executive producer of the film, which began production shortly after her husband’s 2024 election win.

In addition, according to New York magazine, Ratner was recently seen visiting Mar-a-Lago along with the aforementioned James Packer, where they were photographed dining with Trump and Elon Musk earlier this year. A month later, it was reported that Packer bought a Trump-owned property neighboring both Mar-a-Lago’s private club and the Trump estate there. The property was previously used by close Trump associates visiting Mar-a-Lago and by the Secret Service during his first presidential term. Ratner has reportedly been involved in “fanning” the closeness between Trump and Packer that resulted in the property sale. Notably, Packer had previously bought a property neighboring another state leader, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, back in 2016. In addition, Ratner and the Trump family, as well as Russell Simmons, were among the guests invited to the wedding of Al Malnik’s son, Jarod Malnik, in early 2024.

[admin]

Part 4 of 4

A Conspiracy Hiding in Plain Sight

Ultimately, in tracing the network in which Combs had become deeply enmeshed by the early and mid-1990s, we are left with deep connections to intelligence-linked elements of organized crime. This same network of organized criminals also played a key part in enabling the activities of sex criminal and intelligence asset Jeffrey Epstein, from at least the 1970s onward, as detailed in the book One Nation Under Blackmail.

With such connections established, the question then becomes –– what did this group seek in someone like Sean Combs, and more broadly, in exerting its influence over the entertainment industry and specifically African-American music?

While speculative, it appears that various connections leading back to MCA and its influence can help us arrive at one unsettling possibility. During this period, not only was MCA a dominant force in entertainment (and early hip-hop specifically), but Laurence Tisch –– through his 1985 takeover of CBS –– controlled another key branch of the music industry through 1995. With the Bronfmans taking over MCA, and later Def Jam and Warner Music (as will be noted in Part II), the influence of the so-called “Mega Group” billionaires over the music industry became extremely significant during the 1990s. With Combs teaming up with Clive Davis, with significant ties to this same network, to form his own label Bad Boy Records in 1995, this tiny group of billionaires had the ability to shape hip-hop, the cultural engine of the African-American community, in major ways.

The same year that the Bronfman and Tisch clans formally joined forces with Leslie Wexner and others like MCA-linked Steven Spielberg via the “Mega Group,” American record labels had allegedly begun to conspire to promote crime in hip-hop lyrics with the ostensible goal of facilitating the filling of private prisons, as those that ran the record labels were allegedly deeply connected to private prison firms. An account from an anonymous industry insider details how, in 1991, he was invited to a clandestine meeting where he was forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement. He recounted the events of that meeting as follows:

Quickly after the meeting began, one of my industry colleagues (who shall remain nameless like everyone else) thanked us for attending. He then gave the floor to a man who only introduced himself by his first name and gave no further details about his personal background. I think he was the owner of the residence but it was never confirmed. He briefly praised all of us for the success we had achieved in our industry and congratulated us for being selected as part of this small group of “decision-makers”. At this point, I begin to feel slightly uncomfortable at the strangeness of this gathering.

The subject quickly changed as the speaker went on to tell us that the respective companies we represented had invested in a very profitable industry which could become even more rewarding with our active involvement. He explained that the companies we work for had invested millions into the building of privately owned prisons and that our positions of influence in the music industry would actually impact the profitability of these investments. I remember many of us in the group immediately looking at each other in confusion. At the time, I didn’t know what a private prison was but I wasn’t the only one. Sure enough, someone asked what these prisons were and what any of this had to do with us. We were told that these prisons were built by privately-owned companies that received funding from the government based on the number of inmates. The more inmates, the more money the government would pay these prisons. It was also made clear to us that since these prisons are privately owned, as they become publicly traded, we’d be able to buy shares.

Most of us were taken back by this. Again, a couple of people asked what this had to do with us. At this point, my industry colleague who had first opened the meeting took the floor again and answered our questions. He told us that since our employers had become silent investors in this prison business, it was now in their interest to make sure that these prisons remained filled. Our job would be to help make this happen by marketing music that promotes criminal behavior, rap being the music of choice. He assured us that this would be a great situation for us because rap music was becoming an increasingly profitable market for our companies, and as employees, we’d also be able to buy personal stocks in these prisons. Immediately, silence came over the room. You could have heard a pin drop.

While efforts have been made over the years to dismiss this account as fantasy and/or conspiracy (despite it being deemed credible and promoted by prominent figures in hip-hop), other accounts from this period suggests that it should not be so easily discounted. For instance, Portia Maultsby, Professor Emerita of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University, has been quoted as stating that:

In the early 1990s, a former graduate student, then keyboardist for Stevie Wonder, called me upset that some record labels were actively recruiting Black men with criminal records to record rap. He believed that they were encouraging criminal acts among this group.

In addition, prominent rappers have claimed, from the 1990s onward, that the music industry is financially entangled with the private prison industry and encourages “criminal behavior” through hip-hop due to those entanglements.

While some outlets have noted that private prison companies and record labels share major index managers like Vanguard among their top shareholders, the ties between the two industries are significantly deeper and directly involve organizations mentioned throughout this article.

Clinton, not unlike Ronald Reagan, was very “under the thumb” of MCA’s Lew Wasserman. Wasserman began backing Clinton’s presidential campaigns in 1992, but had first met Clinton back when he was governor of Arkansas, where his administration notoriously enabled illicit Iran-Contra-linked activities. Lew Wasserman would later broker the close ties between Clinton and his grandson, Casey Wasserman (who like Clinton, was an Epstein associate). This led to the Wasserman Foundation becoming one of the main donors to the controversial Clinton Foundation. Wasserman, as well as his protégé Steven Spielberg, were major donors to Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, so much so that it earned them overnight stays in the White House’s Lincoln bedroom. In addition, other Mega Group figures like Edgar Bronfman were also major donors to Clinton. Bronfman and Wasserman both received the Presidential Medal of Freedom during Clinton’s presidencies. Notably, companies tied to Bronfman and Wasserman, i.e. MCA/Universal, played a major role in lobbying for the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which Clinton signed into law and which allowed extreme industry consolidation and the formation of de facto monopolies in entertainment and beyond.


Lew and Edith Wasserman with Bill Clinton in 1999 – Source

A few years earlier, in 1994, Bill Clinton had signed a controversial crime bill which enacted several “funding incentives blamed for driving mass incarceration.” Though mass incarceration existed before the 1994 crime bill (largely beginning in the administration of the MCA-controlled Ronald Reagan), that bill is blamed with exacerbating the crisis, which has disproportionately impacted the African-American community and benefited two companies in particular. Those two companies were the biggest private prison companies in the United States at the time, and they still are today. One was the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), now known as CoreCivic, while the other was Geo Group, formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (WCC). Notably, WCC’s IPO took place the same year as the passage of the crime bill, 1994, which notably coincides with the account of the 1991 clandestine meeting where it was claimed that the private prison companies would go public once the music industry had began to promote violence and crime in hip-hop lyrics for the benefit of private prison companies like Wackenhut.

WCC was formed in 1984 as a subsidiary of the Wackenhut Corporation. WCC’s parent company, Wackenhut, developed significant ties to MCA during the 1980s. As detailed earlier, Wackenhut had entered into a joint venture with the Cabazon Reservation to covertly develop weapon systems for CIA-backed paramilitaries that also repurposed the PROMIS software for espionage purposes. Top MCA executive Eugene Gianquinto was directly involved with companies that later joined the Cabazon-Wackenhut operation and later took credit for quashing the federal investigation into MCA’s mob ties. In addition, Allen & Company and Earl Brian, who were connected with the PROMIS scandal, were also significantly tied to Alan Hirschfield, who is said to have co-founded Arista Records with Clive Davis, which spawned Combs’ Bad Boy Records in 1993.

Evidence of MCA’s close ties to the CIA, beyond those indicated by the PROMIS scandal, were noted by Lew Wasserman biographer Dennis McDougal. McDougal received a response from the CIA, in response to a FOIA request, “that seventeen separate computer searches revealed MCA did work with the CIA. The CIA refused to release any of its MCA documents on grounds that it might endanger national security.” Melanie Carlson, writing for Covert Action Magazine, also thoroughly detailed MCA’s ties to the mob, the CIA, the PROMIS scandal and the death of journalist Danny Casolaro in a 2024 investigation.

Like MCA, Wackenhut also had ties to the CIA. Between that point and the passage of the 1994 crime bill, figures like Frank Carlucci and Bobby Ray Inman, both former CIA deputy directors, served on Wackenhut’s board. Carlucci also had unusual connections to the network around Robert Booth Nichols, the organized crime-linked figure who had brought together Wackenhut, the Cabazon Indian reservation and MCA as part of the PROMIS scandal. In addition, before becoming Reagan’s CIA director William Casey, one of the October Surprise/Iran-Contra architects, had been Wackenhut’s outside legal counsel. In 1992, two years before the Clinton crime bill was passed, SPY Magazine reported on extensive ties between Wackenhut and the CIA, citing CIA operatives and former Wackenhut executives who noted that Wackenhut allowed the CIA to use its offices as fronts for its activities. The SPY investigation also noted how many of the figures who connected Wackenhut to the CIA were also key cogs in the Iran-Contra affair, which is also indicated by Wackenhut’s role in the PROMIS scandal.

This is significant as some of those same figures tied directly to the CIA-Wackenhut connection, like Richard Secord, were also tied to Leslie Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein’s efforts to relocate the Iran-Contra airline of infamy, the CIA-linked Southern Air transport, to Columbus, OH for the express benefit of Wexner and his clothing empire. After Wexner and Epstein’s efforts were successful, the airline’s main flights were between Columbus and Hong Kong. As noted in One Nation Under Blackmail, that effort, which also coincides with Epstein’s most of his 17 visits to the Clinton White House, was explicitly considered by some Ohio law enforcement officials to be tied to clandestine and criminal activities, most likely arms trafficking given Epstein’s background in covert arms trafficking networks in the 1980s. In addition, Epstein’s main contact at the White House during that time, Mark Middleton, was a central part of the “Chinagate” scandal, one major aspect of which involved the smuggling of cheap Chinese weapons into American urban areas after Chinese gun imports were banned early on in the Clinton administration. Prior to that ban, the US had been China’s top market for guns.

A significant cache of weapons being smuggled by this network into Oakland, CA was intercepted by the FBI in what is now remembered as Operation Dragon Fire, which was – at that point – the largest seizure of illegal automatic assault weapons in US history. The main individuals behind the illicit gun smuggling were tipped off and managed to flee the US prior to the FBI’s planned sting operation. However, the main company involved – China’s Norinco – had notable ties, not just to the “Chinagate” scandal itself, but also to Epstein’s former mentor and weapons dealer, Douglas Leese. The company was also allegedly involved with past arms deals that had involved both Leese and Epstein. In addition, when Clinton was serving as governor of Arkansas, he had significant connections to Iran-Contra-linked arms and drug trafficking, meaning he had a prior, documented history of enabling illicit arms smuggling operations while in public office and just prior to becoming US president.

6. Question to CIA Director: "Forget the Drugs, How Did the Guns Get Here?"
Health Policy Politics
Aug 3, 2015

1996 CIA Director town hall meeting regarding allegations that the CIA was working with the cocaine industry to bankroll Contra rebels in Nicaragua. In 1996, journalist Gary Webb unloaded a three-part series for The San Jose Mercury-News alleging that the Central Intelligence Agency helped spark America’s crack cocaine epidemic by enabling drug traffickers tied to the Nicaraguan Contras to ship into the country and use the proceeds to fund their insurgency against the Sandinista government. Published on the Mercury-News’ website, thereby making it available to all, the series, “Dark Alliance,” became one of the first viral news pieces of the Internet era.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/mov...
https://en.wiki2.org/wiki/Gary_Webb
https://en.wiki2.org/wiki/Oscar_Danil...



Transcript

I hope you can understand as I am if
nothing else this is a beginning of a
healing process the lady in the black
and white and then the gentleman in the
jean jacket and then we're going over to
this side thank you very much uh you
said we only yeah I'll try to cut it
down because I do have a million and one
things to say but one of the things I
would be concerned about if I was the
director we've held um with the Cold War
we've held Russia at Bay for 40 years at
least don't you feel kind of strange
that we can't hold a third world country
at Bay that they have
infiltrated that they have infiltrated
South Central LA this is a community
with really no money no power and all of
a
sudden These Arm not only drugs but arms
I was in the police academy all the
police officers here should be upset
because all of a sudden they gave we had
little guns like toy guns to play with
and these guys were coming out with
things that you know they were having
war over there forget the drug part how
did the guns get here give us some
explanations you you the president and
everybody else should be highly upset
and say how did this cancer get here how
did it happen I've been here I've been
coming here giving lectures to these
kids I left these kids today they are
they are a bungle of nerves I look at
them I know their moms and dads have
been on crack cocaine they cannot even
sit in their seats so make sure your
statements are brief are your questions
please Mr
director Mr
director please allow the director to
respond you see you're quite right if we
have to we want to interdict drugs stop
drugs from getting to these
Shores then you're going to have to rely
on all the skill
that we can mount in the government
whether it's from the Central
Intelligence Agency or the drug
enforcement
agency Russia could not even get here
third world countries are just walking
in just doing whatever they want are you
guys that incompetent
we
excuse
me wait just a
minute excuse me please the more you
applaud the more we will use up the time
here please allow all of these folks who
want their questions asked and answered
rather please allow that to
happen

At the same time that Wackenhut and CIA-connected figures were apparently helping repurpose Iran-Contra assets for the sake of flooding the US black market with cheap yet illicit weapons, the same network was also littering US urban areas with drugs, specifically crack cocaine. As reported by the late Gary Webb in his iconic Dark Alliance series (and subsequent book of the same name), a massive drug ring in California was peddling crack cocaine specifically to Latino and African-American urban communities during the 1990s, with millions in profits being used to finance CIA-backed paramilitary groups in Nicaragua. It was argued at the time that this represented a continuation of the Iran-Contra nexus that came under scrutiny in the 1980s and the CIA’s clandestine efforts to finance the Nicaraguan “Contras” through illicit means. After Webb’s Dark Alliance series concluded, the outlet that had run it –– the San Jose Mercury News –– published an editorial noting that Webb’s work “can only feed longstanding rumors in black communities that the U.S. government ‘created’ the crack cocaine epidemic to kill and imprison African-Americans and otherwise wreak havoc in inner cities.”

Central to the CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine nexus were Nicaraguan asset and eventual DEA informant Oscar Danilo Blandón, one of the largest importers and suppliers of cocaine at the height of the crack epidemic, and his one-time business partner Freeway Ricky Ross, who hailed from Compton and who grew to operate an interstate crack ring that helped launder and finance the covert war on the Nicaraguan Sandinistas. In 1991, during one of his prison stints, Freeway Ricky Ross was cellmates with one of the other top crack dealers in Los Angeles, Michael “Harry O” Harris. As investigative researcher John Potash details in The FBI War on Tupac Shakur, Gary Webb asserted that Ross was effectively the national point man for the trafficking operations that were remotely manipulated by former Vice President Bush and CIA Director William Casey in the 1980s.xxiii His eventual cellmate Harry O was one of his top understudies. Potash writes:

Other findings further support the notion that Death Row Records dually worked as a front company for various U.S. Intelligence operations. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Gary Webb was the first to link Death Row Records to the CIA from the record company’s inception. Webb quoted the probation officer of national crack trafficker Freeway Ricky Ross. That probation officer cited a silent partner of Death Row, a Michael “Harry-O” Harris, as one of Ross’ two understudies.

New Yorker magazine and other media outlets described how Vice-President George Bush helped run key components of the CIA/Contra/Crack operations with CIA Director William Casey. Webb detailed the CIA cocaine trafficking network that went from Nicaraguan Contras, such as Danilo Blandón, to Freeway Ricky Ross. A CIA Inspector General backed these findings about the CIA trafficking cocaine in 1998. Webb claimed that Ross was their national point man, trafficking “multimillion-dollar cocaine shipments across America.” This would have made Michael Harris and Death Row Records important assets for the intelligence community.

Evidence suggests that Ricky Ross worked closely with CIA-collaborating cocaine traffickers such as Danilo Blandón and Ron Lister in the ’80s. Also, at that time, Lister met regularly with former CIA Covert Operations director Bill Nelson, who had worked under George H. W. Bush at the CIA.xxiv

Freeway Ricky Ross & Gary Webb - CIA Drug Conspiracy (1996)
MOBFAX
Oct 9, 2022

Freeway Ricky Ross & Gary Webb - CIA Drug Conspiracy (1996)



Transcript

now the second CIA story which is about
a most unusual trip said the CIA
director made to the West Coast on
Friday it was to respond to charges
concerning the crack cocaine epidemic of
the 1980s Jeffrey K of KCET Los Angeles
reports
please join me in welcoming Mr John
George
[Applause]
IA director John Deutsch faced a largely
hostile audience Friday afternoon at a
community Forum in South Central Los
Angeles
thank you congresswoman Melinda McDonald
for holding this public meeting
for giving me the opportunity
to talk with members of this community
about charges that the CIA
introduced crack cocaine
into South Central Los Angeles in the
mid-1980s
it is an appalling charge
it is an appalling charge that goes to
the heart
of this country
there's a charge that cannot go
unanswered
Deutsch pledged a thorough investigation
his extraordinary public relations
mission to Watts came in response to a
public outcry over a report by a
California paper the San Jose Mercury
News the three-part series dark Alliance
appeared in August on the internet as
well as in print although the Articles
Drew criticism by several major
newspapers they raised a firestorm of
outrage and prompted official inquiries
the newspaper asserted that members of
the cia's Army in Nicaragua helped spark
a crack cocaine explosion in urban
America in the 1980s
the report said two nicaraguans Danilo
Blandon and Norwin Meneses sold tons of
cocaine to Los Angeles drug dealer Ricky
Ross the article said blondon and
Manassas funneled millions of dollars in
profits to cia-backed rebels fighting
the leftists sandanista government in
Nicaragua the article showed no direct
link to the CIA but did include a
photograph of Manassas on the right with
Adolfo calero in the center a leader in
the cia-funded rebel Army known as the
contras much of the information in the
articles is not new allegations of
Contra drug connections have been the
subject of congressional probes news
stories and books what is new is the
link the article suggests between the
wholesalers and the retailers between
men said to be associated with the
cia-backed contras and sales of crack
cocaine on the streets the series was
written by reporter Gary Webb
did the CIA put drugs into black
community
we don't have any evidence so far that
they did it directly and what we have
evidence of is that men working for a
CIA run Army did do that with the
knowledge of the CIA that's the part we
don't know that's the part we don't know
I mean what we know is that these guys
were working for the CIA army they were
meeting with CIA agents before and
during the time they were doing this
what happens from there is sort of where
we ran into the wall of National
Security
on Friday CIA director Deutsch did not
directly address the broad question of
whether the CIA knew about drug dealing
instead he cautiously denied a
conspiracy as of today we have no
evidence of a conspiracy by the CIA to
engage in encouraging drug traffickers
in Nicaragua or elsewhere in Latin
America during this or any other period
however I am going to wait and see what
the results are of this inspector
General's investigation
even without hard evidence connecting
the CIA with drug dealing many have
accepted that conclusion a standing
room-only crowd of about 1500 attended a
forum on the subject in September La
congresswoman Maxine Waters was one of
the organizers now there are people who
will say well this one is Maybe
maybe it was just the people from
Nicaragua and other places
who were kind of CIA connected
maybe they just turned their heads maybe
they just kind of blinked and said well
it doesn't make any difference
whether they delivered the kilo
themselves or they turned their heads
while somebody else delivered it they're
just as guilty
Waters has made this issue a priority we
are going to pass out
the San Jose Mercury News articles
in the hands of activists reprints of
the series have become political
pamphlets they see the Articles as
confirmation of a long-suspected
conspiracy we're here today to put a
face on our outrage and our
disappointment in what we know is a
government Ploy in a setup to decimate
our community
[Applause]
the palpable anger has its roots in the
spread of a drug many compared to a
plague crack cocaine hit hard in the
inner city starting in the early 80s the
drug is relatively cheap and highly
addictive it's spread quickly the crack
business was lucrative for high-powered
dealers like Ricky Ross the man cited in
the series Ross now in federal prison in
San Diego became an overnight
millionaire and I had a as much as maybe
a million a day two million a day
sometimes maybe more you know a few days
not this wasn't every day though it was
like we had days that that's how much
you were taking in right in one day Ross
says he complained to his supplier
Danilo Blandon that he had difficulty
counting all the money So eventually he
bought us a money machine you know and
he brought over to us and and it is it
eased the pain you know a lot
but eventually it even got too much for
them for one money machine we had we
wound up getting three money machines to
count it
because one money machine would just be
running running running and then we'd
have money stacked and we had people
that uh all they would do all day was
count money
eventually
full-time money counters yeah
even though Ross is a central figure in
this story he can shed little light on
the people he dealt with blend on and
um what did you know about him you did
you know his name
no just just Danilo Danilo and Lisa call
him Nika you don't even know his last
name no did he ever talk about the
government the US government no never
d-e-a-c-i-a no nothing
while Ross Made Easy Money Dr exalina
Bean was coping with cocaine's tragic
consequences at the neonatology ward at
Martin Luther King Hospital in La she
saw 60 babies a month born with cocaine
in their systems today Bean's anger
embodies a common view that the black
community has been victimized
child every baby every child of a
substance abusing mother and a substance
abusing family should be considered a
victim of violence and be entitled to
Restoration
congresswoman Waters says the strong
reaction to allegations of government
involvement in the crack trade is not
surprising that's because the drug has
touched so many lives one thing that's
very striking when you're out there
people would get up and they'll start
crying
I have women who have gotten up and told
stories about they haven't seen their
daughter for years their daughter's on
crack they have the babies every
audience that I go into there's always a
sizable number of people who've had it
in their families Sons daughters nieces
nephews cousins so this uh this Scourge
has touched a lot of people and there's
a lot of pain out there I mean just a
lot of pain pressure from Waters and
other elected officials has led to
Congressional and agency investigations
the hearing of the standard intelligence
committee will proceed
at a recent senate committee meeting
inspectors General from the CIA and
justice department promised thorough
reviews the committee also heard from a
former Senate investigator Jack Blum who
in the late 80s looked into drug
trafficking by the contras the answer
you get to the questions you ask depends
totally on how you frame the question
if you ask the question
did the CIA sell drugs in the black
neighborhoods of Los Angeles to finance
the Contra War the answer will be a
categorical no
now having said that
we have to go back to what is true
and what is true is the policy makers
absolutely close their eyes to the
criminal behavior of our allies and
supporters in that war
the policy makers ignored their drug
dealing their stealing and their human
rights violations
but while Blum lends Credence to some of
the allegations raised by the Mercury
News Major newspapers have criticized
the series the LA Times Washington Post
and New York Times have all run articles
saying the Mercury News overstated the
facts Leo wilinski is Metropolitan
editor of the LA Times
world's main weakness was the basic
allegation that the contras had made
Millions from dealing drugs on the
street of lost streets of Los Angeles
working through at Northern California
drug dealer wilinsky's reporters said
the Nicaraguan sent no more than 50
thousand dollars to the contras also
indicated that this drug ring was
responsible for beginning the crap
epidemic in Los Angeles and spreading it
like Johnny Appleseed across the country
found out those facts were untrue also
that crack started in various parts of
the country simultaneously and that
crack was already in Los Angeles far
before this uh this story ever took
place the other thing that was that was
questionable was the ties to the CIA
which they never said specifically that
the CIA was stealing drugs but there are
a lot of implications throughout the
article Waters says the criticisms
missed the point it's not about whether
or not uh this this trafficking ring
gave fifty thousand dollars at 50
million dollars to the contras the main
star story is that there has been a
connection made between the government
the CIA and its involvement in drug
trafficking to support the contrast
can American citizens ever tolerate this
kind of involvement or connection we
don't know whether how directed was
whether or not they just kind of winked
blank turn their backs but it needs to
be known and it seems to me that
everybody would be interested in getting
to the bottom of that
I will get to the bottom of it and I
will let you know the results of what I
found but if Friday's Forum was any
indication members of this community
have little faith in a CIA investigation
this man coming into this community at
this time
as far as we are concerned most of us in
this audience is a mandate to close the
investigation and to prepare us for him
to say six months down the line that the
CIA didn't do anything
audience members hurled a series of
angry accusations during the fiery
90-minute meeting one skeptical speaker
after another used the microphone to
voice anger and suspicion as you know as
well as everyone else that the CIA has
been dealing drugs throughout the world
and bringing drugs into this country
since Vietnam's War you brought them in
here in body bags you were in the Golden
Triangle so you're going to come in this
community and insult us and tell us that
you're going to investigate yourself you
got to be crazy
Deutsch said repeatedly that any
wrongdoers would be brought to justice
as he prepared to leave he told an
emotional audience he would take the
charges seriously
thank you
thank you for uh
thank you for letting me come here today
uh
you know I have uh I've learned
something
I've learned how important it is uh
for our government and for our agency
to get on top of this problem and stop
it
I just want to say uh
that I came today to try and describe
the approach that I'm taking the
approach that I'm taking
to address these serious charges but I
go away
with a better appreciation of what's on
your mind and I go away with a
conviction
that we're going to do more to stop
drugs from coming into the United States
thank you very much
The Forum broke up in distrust and Chaos
just as it had begun meanwhile members
of California's Congressional Delegation
say they will push hard for answers to a
fundamental question what did the
government know about drug dealing
underscore the word accusations that are
nothing short of explosive they are that
the CIA knowingly and intentionally did
what amount to pump crack cocaine into
Los Angeles to help fund rebels in
Nicaragua whether or not these claims
prove true the anger they produced is
very real
the justice department in Congress are
investigating and so is CBS News here's
what correspondent Bill Whitaker can
report to you tonight
the decade and a half crack epidemic has
exacted a ruinous toll it breaks my
heart
for 10 years Eloise Dangerfield has been
rescuing the littlest victims crack
babies from the death grip in which the
drug has ensnared much of South Central
Los Angeles we see a lot of our children
being neglected and they abandoned
um and all of this is behind
crack
along with crack came the thud of police
trunches a boom in drug arrests and
homicides read it but you can't just
keep it to yourself so when Ellie's
black citizens heard of the San Jose
Mercury News reports claiming cia-backed
contras opened the first pipeline for
Colombian cocaine to their communities
their first reaction shocked their
second anger you want to know why black
people don't believe in the government
because we know what the government is
capable of
my God my God
what's next
facing life in prison LA's biggest crack
dealer now is saying he was a pawn and a
CIA plot and his argument was convincing
enough that a federal judge postponed
sentencing to consider evidence that his
main supplier was an agency offered
you know his whole intentions was for me
to make more money the more money I made
the more money he made and I guess the
more money that uh he would have to help
sponsor the war there is no evidence
directly linking the CIA to the drug
sales and the CIA says its own internal
investigation has found no connection
yet here at Ground Zero of the crack
explosion the story simply won't go away
and new circumstantial evidence raises
new questions
it's basically immoral I mean prominent
LA attorney Harlan Braun insists there
is strong evidence of a CIA drug
connection Braun is no radical in fact
he represented one of the LAPD officers
in the Rodney King case earlier he
handled a law enforcement corruption
case and filed this motion it details a
1986 house search in which deputies
found a man who identified himself as a
CIA agent and sees documents indicating
drug money was being used to purchase
military equipment for Central America
Braun says most of the evidence was
seized later by federal agents the rest
currently under Court seal Braun once it
released someone in Washington made a
decision that they were going to deal in
drugs or ignore the conscious dealing in
drugs which basically assisting them
because it was too important to defeat
the sandinistas in Nicaragua Eloise
Dangerfield says it's all too horrible
to contemplate we want to know but I
don't think we really want to know
knowing might ease the pain she says but
it won't end the suffering
in Los Angeles this is Bill Whitaker for
eye on America
all of this comes as the director of the
CIA was in Los Angeles today trying to
put down reports that the CIA in the
past connived to spread cracked cocaine
in America's inner cities Jero Bowen has
our report about that
it was an extraordinary sight today CIA
director John Deutsch on a high school
stage defending America spy agency
against reports it sold crack cocaine in
LA's black neighborhoods to fund the
contras up till the present I have no
evidence of a conspiracy
of the CIA to be involved in drug
trafficking but I'm keeping my mind open
the CIA connection was reported this
summer by the San Jose Mercury News and
kept alive on the internet but several
major newspapers discounted the charges
causing the Mercury News to issue a
disclaimer that it had not directly
implicated the agency but here in LA's
black community the belief remains that
somehow someway the U.S government if
not the CIA was involved in the crack
epidemic that ravaged a generation of
African Americans
personally I have two sisters who've
been strung out 15 years I have a
brother who almost overdosed and
Gillette fellows is editor of the LA
Watts times the CIA knows about
everything that happens in the world for
that amount of illicit substance to any
of this community nobody here believes
that that that uh the authorities should
know about it we they have to know 83
you started running guns right and drugs
former CIA pilot Robert Plumley admits
he was among those who flew the
clandestine missions to supply weapons
to the Nicaraguan contras and among the
pilots ordered to fly drugs back to the
U.S orders plumly says came not from CIA
headquarters but from individuals acting
on their own I do not want to see a race
riot over an outright lie the CIA did
not as a government entity
fabricate this drug movement in South
Central LA no one is talking of riots
the more common word is Revenge you want
to put a face on this this Specter this
Boogeyman somebody have to be we want to
blame somebody
that's what most people want to do they
want to see a lynching
you want to hang somebody
and that is why CIA director deutsche's
visit may be a mission impossible Jerry
Bowen CBS News Los Angeles
in and around South Central Los Angeles
reaction to last night's unprecedented
public meeting was predictably skeptical
what are they going to say yes they put
drugs into the community I don't think
so sure the government was in don't you
believe that security was extremely
tight as CIA director John Deutsch
defended his organization against
charges it brought cocaine into Southern
California's African-American
communities as of today we have no
evidence of a conspiracy by the CIA to
engage in encouraging drug traffickers
in Nicaragua or elsewhere in Latin
America so you're going to come in this
community and insult us and tell us that
you're going to investigate yourself you
got to be crazy
during the hour and a half meeting
Deutsch was booed and jeered so often
that congresswoman Juanita millender
McDonald had to control the crowd wait a
minute if you don't like what's going on
here please leave now
but they weren't about to let Deutsche
off the hook that easily give us some
explanation
and say how did this cancer get here
how did it happen oh it has to stop a
search and I hope that you'll help to
put an end to it because we are tired
and we're hurt and we're angry CIA
employees and I
share your anger as the CIA Caravan
pulled away many were left unconvinced
and unimpressed for the most part it
didn't do nothing for me it didn't bring
back none of my dead friends it didn't
bring back none of these crackhead
mothers or crackhead babies CIA director
Deutsch and the other government leaders
promised to bring back answers and
Justice to the community but the feeling
here is that no matter what the truth
may be the CIA will never admit it
Manuel gallegas CBS News Los Angeles

Harry O would have become a silent partner in Death Row Records with Suge Knight, Dr. Dre, The D.O.C, and corrupt defense lawyer David Kenner.xxv This is significant to this story and the Sean “Diddy” Combs investigation at large, as not only was Death Row an intelligence front, but it was also teeming with dirty cops and corrupt informants who’d been assigned to moonlight as security guards at the label for drugs/weapons dealing, informing, and COINTELPRO purposes.xxvi This includes the intentional sabotage of the Bloods and Crips gang truce (both gangs with which Harry O intimately collaborated in his crack distribution efforts, as well as the Cali Cartel) and the fabrication and exploitation of the East vs. West rap feud that would ultimately lead to the seemingly government-sanctioned murders of both activist rapper Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, operations in which both Sean Combs and Suge Knight seemingly played pivotal roles. In Part II of this series, we will examine the East vs. West rap feud and the deaths of Tupac and Biggie, as well as their relevance to the Sean Combs story, in greater detail.

More recently, Freeway Ricky Ross — now once again free after he successfully appealed his life imprisonment without the possibility of parole sentence on the grounds that the three strikes law had been misapplied — appeared on the podcast of hip hop journalist DJ Vlad and revealed that not only had he and Death Row silent partner Harry O been cellmates at the time that Michael Harris introduced Suge Knight to attorney David Kenner, but that Ross was initially going to be another “silent partner” in the label. According to Ross, this partnership only dissolved when he was released from prison prior to Harry O and got in contact with Suge Knight. Seemingly in order to protect his own drug-supplying stake in the Death Row enterprise, Michael “Harry O” Harris warned Ross off from working with Suge. Ross, in deference to street codes, declined to go behind Harry O’s back and supply Knight. Per Ross, back in 1991 at the time that Death Row was formed, he used to sit in at the no-contact visit meetings between Knight, Kenner, and Harris while he and Harris were incarcerated together. Once the label was up and running, it quickly turned to cocaine trafficking, arguably a branch or mutation of the same CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine nexus for which assets like Freeway Ricky Ross and Michael Harris had earlier been burned and for which journalist Gary Webb was excessively attacked (and as some believe, murdered) to cover up.

These music industry, organized crime, intelligence, and federal law enforcement connections are also hugely significant as Death Row –– in conjunction with Combs’ Bad Boy Records –– was one of the primary Trojan horses by which “gangster rap” was injected into the culture, often at the expense of more radical, activist or outright revolutionary hip hop acts who, if they refused to cater to the whims of certain record executives, would see their commercial prospects suffer. One of the mechanisms for the dissemination of drug and crime glorifying culture was the cruel and deliberate coercion and corruption of conscious rappers (see: Potash’s FBI War regarding Suge Knight’s pushing of drugs on both Dr. Dre, who’d previously preached abstinence, and Tupac).xxvii

There is also the case of films like New Jack City, which involved Combs’ mentor Andre Harrell and arguably romanticizes crack dealing. The film was also made by Warner. Warner, as previously noted, was built out of the association of its long-time head, Steve Ross, with Meyer Lansky associates. Ross himself had become close to Robert Maxwell, an intelligence asset tied to organized crime and a key figure in the Epstein network as well as the PROMIS scandal, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a time when Maxwell was attempting to gain a foothold in New York City. This further suggests that mob-linked or mob-adjacent entertainment companies were working to culturally engineer African-American culture for the benefit of CIA-linked crack dealing and, ultimately, CIA-linked companies like Wackenhut that dominated the private prison industry.

Given the above, all the elements of a perfect storm to perpetuate mass incarceration of African-Americans were put into place along the same timeline and by many of the same actors –– actors deeply tied to the CIA and organized crime. When we add the alleged efforts to stoke violence in hip-hop, as exemplified by Combs’ and his Bad Boy Records after he had become enmeshed in this very network as well as his West Coast rivals, we have yet another component that suggests this network used its influence over the hip-hop industry to socially engineer criminal behavior, while also ensuring that cheap, addictive drugs and cheap guns simultaneously flooded urban African-American communities.

The MCA and CIA-connected Wackenhut would have reaped mass profits from this apparent operation, as the number of prisoners in its private prisons swelled. However, other major multi-national corporations who utilized inmate labor from these prisoners benefitted as well. A litany of American companies, like WalMart and Microsoft, are among those who have a long history of profiting handsomely from inmate labor. Several of these corporations include companies run by the “Mega Group” billionaires, like Lester Crown’s General Dynamics, a major military contractor, and Leslie Wexner’s Victoria’s Secret (though the lingerie firm claimed to have ended the contract after it became public knowledge in the late 1990s).

This context certainly zooms out significantly from the specific Combs scandal that began to unravel at the end of 2023. However, it also helps us understand the case. Combs appears to have been brought into a network where he was controlled through sex and drugs, and then made a celebrity. As a celebrity, he used his own music, his record label and his influence to control other upcoming rappers and musicians while also helping shape the future of hip-hop toward that allegedly sought by music industry executives and their clandestine partners in the CIA, the mob and the private prison industry.

Combs, from the early 1990s onward, appears to have been a key frontman for this network and its ambitions. He was likely not the sole mastermind or beneficiary of all of the scandalous parties, sexual violence, public promotion of violence, and alleged blackmail in which he engaged. He was a product of a network and a system that –– in the case of Combs –– was seeking to target and corrupt the broader African-American community in similar ways. Ultimately, Combs, like some other prominent entertainers, was servile to his music industry masters. He worked within a system those masters controlled and attempted to expand his own influence and power within that system, but –– at the end of the day –– he was never in charge.

In the next installment of this series, we will explore Combs’ expanding influence in hip-hop and also in other industries, like retail, again all courtesy of the very same network outlined in this piece. While Combs publicly projected power and success, both of those things were conditional and, like Epstein, now exposed, he is due to take the fall in order to take the heat off of the people behind the curtain.

_______________

References:

i. Zack O’Malley-Greenburg, 3 Kings: Diddy, Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, and Hip-Hop’s Multibillion-Dollar Rise (Little, Brown and Company, 2018), Ch. I

ii. David McGowan, Programmed to Kill: The Politics of Serial Murder (iUniverse, Inc., 2004), p. 101

iii. O’Malley-Greenburg, 3 Kings, Ch. I

iv. O’Malley-Greenburg, 3 Kings, Ch. I

v. O’Malley-Greenburg, 3 Kings, Ch. I

vi. The abuse charges against Fr. Lynch stemmed from an FBI probe launched in July 1987 (the summer prior to Combs departing for college) that was initiated after lay teachers at the academy complained about Lynch’s and Brady’s behavior with students. Fr. Lynch was jointly indicted around the same time as his boss Principal Brady, but was ultimately exonerated by the Hon. Justice Burton Roberts when a letter was produced during cross-examination that showed the FBI coerced student John Schaeffer into falsely accusing his former instructor under the false pretense that he wouldn’t be required to testify. There were also clear contradictions in the dates of the alleged abuse in Schaeffer’s testimony.

Furthermore, as contended by Fr. Lynch’s defenders, the case against him was potentially politically motivated by his activism as well as other on-going corruption investigations in NYC including the Wedtech scandal, which first broke in 1986 and was named after a DOD-contractor based in the Bronx who secured governmental contracts through fraud, bribery, and other illegal means. The numerous scandals that beset New York municipal politics in the late 1980s led to Rudy Giuliani’s successful prosecution of Bronx Democratic Party leader Stanley Friedman on federal corruption charges. Friedman was a law partner of Roy Cohn, a notorious mob lawyer also known for having been Donald Trump’s mentor. Friedman’s protege, Bronx borough president Stanley Simon, resigned amid pending criminal charges stemming from his involvement with Wedtech. In 1988, long serving US Rep. Mario Biaggi of the Bronx was ultimately convicted by Giuliani on bribery, extortion, tax evasion, and obstruction charges in connection to Wedtech, shown to have accepted bribes from the Bronx company in return for the procurement of federal contracts. Bronx congressman Robert Garcia also resigned after Giuliani convicted him on bribery and extortion charges related to Wedtech in 1989—the ruling was later reversed on appeal. Note that the Wedtech and MSMA sex abuse scandals both revolved around the Bronx and that their court proceedings overlapped. While speculative, the FBI and DA office’s willingness to use dirty tricks in pursuit of a conviction of Fr. Lynch may have meant to distract from Wedtech, which was beginning to knock on the door of the Reagan administration, posing a danger to press secretary Lyn Nofziger and ultimately leading to AG Edwin Meese’s resignation in 1988.

vii. O’Malley-Greenburg, 3 Kings, Ch. 2

viii. O’Malley-Greenburg, 3 Kings, Ch. 2

ix. O’Malley-Greenburg, 3 Kings, Ch. 2

x. John Potash, The FBI War on Tupac Shakur: State Repression of Black Leaders From the Civil Rights Era to the 1990s (Microcosm Publishing, 2021), Ch. “CIA & Time Warner’s Grip on the Music Industry”

xi. Frederic Dannen, Hit Men: Powerbrokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business (Vintage Books, 1991), pp. 37-8, 42-6, 53

xii. John Potash, The FBI War on Tupac Shakur, Ch. “CIA & Time Warner’s Grip on the Music Industry”

xiii. Frederic Dannen, Hit Men, pp. 26-27

xiv. John Potash, The FBI War on Tupac Shakur, Ch. “Tupac’s FBI File, Republican Attacks, Harassment Arrests, & Specious Lawsuits”

xv. Derrick Parker with Matt Diehl, Notorious C.O.P. (St. Martin’s Press, 2006), Ch. “Jacking the Rapper: The ‘Puff Daddy’ Era—Rap Legends Born into Blood”

xvi. Frederic Dannen, Hit Men, p. 67

xvii. Ibid., p. 75

xviii. Ibid. p. 75

xix. Ibid., p. 87

xx. Ibid., p. 91

xxi. Ibid., p. 86

xxii. Ibid., p. 92

xxiii. John Potash, The FBI War on Tupac Shakur, Ch. “Death Row Signs Tupac”

xxiv. Ibid.

xxv. John Potash, The FBI War on Tupac Shakur, Ch. “Death Row Police & Suge Knight Work to End Gang Truce”

xxvi. Ibid.

xxvii. Ibid.