CHAPTER 11. THE RISE OF JEFFREY EPSTEIN
UNUSUAL BEGINNINGS
Jeffrey Epstein was born on January 20, 1953 to Paula (nee Stolofsky) and Seymour Epstein in Brooklyn, New York. His mother was a homemaker while his father was a groundskeeper for the New York Parks Department. His parents valued education, hoping that sending their sons – Jeffrey and Mark – to the right schools could be a "way out," or rather, a way up into a higher strata of New York society.1
Epstein was raised in the Lafayette neighborhood around Coney Island and attended Lafayette High School. In 1967, at age 14, he also attended the Interlochen Center for the Arts. He reportedly received a scholarship to Interlochen for his aptitude at playing the bassoon.2 As an adult, Epstein would later donate heavily to Interlochen, from 1990 to 2003, and used his connection to the school to recruit unwitting female teens with musical talents into his sex trafficking and sex blackmail enterprise. Epstein was even allowed to construct his own lodge at Interlochen, the Jeffrey Epstein Scholarship Lodge (now the Green Lake Lodge), before the school cut ties with him after his first conviction in 2007.3 Given his own early attendance and his subsequent return for nefarious purposes, some have suggested that Epstein himself may have been groomed at Interlochen.4
In 1969, two years after he attended Interlochen, Epstein graduated from Lafayette high school at age 16 after skipping two grades. Epstein then studied at Cooper Union, from the fall of 1969 through the spring semester of 1971. He attended New York University (NYU) from September 1971 to 1974, but never graduated. Per a 2002 profile in New York Magazine, Epstein had studied at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.5
During this period, Epstein claims to have backpacked across Europe with friends in 1971 and, while visiting London, met British cellist Jacqueline du Pré, whose patron was Queen Elizabeth II. Epstein would later claim to have played the piano for a du Pré performance during this visit and that, through her, he gained access to the British royals, ultimately leading to his close relationship with Prince Andrew, Duke of York.6 It’s unclear when du Pré would have made such an introduction, but it would have had to have occurred before her 1987 death. What does seem certain is that Epstein, during this trip, did befriend some British aristocrats as, a few short years later, he was seen at the New York mansion of British tycoon and corporate raider James Goldsmith.
It’s unclear how Epstein, while ostensibly backpacking, had come to make du Pré’s acquaintance, though du Pré did have ties to the Israeli and New York Jewish communities through her 1967 conversion to Judaism and subsequent marriage that same year to Daniel Barenboim, as well as her friendships with musicians Yehudi Menuhin, Itzhak Perlman, and Pinchas Zukerman. It’s possible that Epstein met du Pré through some mutual connection in these circles. Years later, Epstein would claim to have once been a concert pianist, with media reports from the early 1990s onwards referencing such claims.7 However, some who knew Epstein early in life, including his brother Mark, give little weight to Epstein’s claim to have been an accomplished pianist.8
In the latter half of 1974, Epstein began working at the elite Dalton School, teaching mathematics and physics. He would remain with the school until 1976. There has been much disagreement in the mainstream press over who at Dalton was responsible for hiring Jeffrey Epstein. At the time Epstein began working at Dalton, the headmaster was Peter Branch. Branch, when contacted in 2019 by professor and author Thomas Volscho, did not recall hiring Epstein and was "relatively certain" that the previous headmaster, Donald Barr, or perhaps the head of the Math Department, had hired Epstein because "hiring decisions were typically made in the Spring."
Branch also noted that Barr "liked to hire unconventional teachers to enhance the educational experience for students at Dalton."9 Epstein certainly fell in the unconventional category, as he lacked the academic credentials to even teach at a public school in New York City. Vanity Fair later reported that Barr had hired other "gifted college dropouts," which would make his hire of Epstein not as much of an anomaly as some outlets have implied.10
Donald Barr was the son of an economist and psychologist who had joined the OSS during World War II. He is alleged to have been a member of an OSS "target team" in Germany and to have worked at a prisoner of war camp.11 His son, William Barr, would subsequently follow his father into the world of intelligence and served in the CIA from 1971 to 1977, which overlaps with the last few years his father was headmaster at the Dalton School – including the year Donald Barr is alleged to have hired Jeffrey Epstein. William Barr, whose alleged role in Iran-Contra was mentioned in Chapter 8, would go on to serve as Attorney General under George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump, and served in that capacity when Jeffrey Epstein was arrested and found dead in a New York prison in 2019.
After exiting from US intelligence, Barr briefly worked as a literary editor and then went into academia. He taught English at Columbia for ten years while pursuing graduate studies. There, he started a series of conferences in 1955 focused on "the identification, guidance, and instruction of the gifted." Barr joined the School of Engineering the following year and these conferences then grew into the Science Honors program, which offered Saturday classes to gifted high schoolers.12 At the same time he was running this high school-focused program, Barr was also directing the Talent Preservation Project, "a massive research and therapy program for high school under-achievers." It is possible that there may have been an early Epstein-Barr connection if Epstein had attended one of these programs for gifted high school students.
Donald Barr would become headmaster of the Dalton School in 1964 and, a decade later, in 1974, Donald Barr would leave the school under a cloud of controversy, amid claims that he had meddled in the college admission prospects of prominent students, including the son of writer Betty Friedan. The Dalton parent who is credited with orchestrating Barr’s ouster was Richard Ravitch, a real estate magnate who served in several government-appointed positions related to housing during his career. Ravitch claimed that, by the end of his stint as headmaster, Barr was reviled by many Dalton teachers as well as parents.13
Soon after leaving his post as headmaster, Donald Barr published Space Relations, a bizarre science fiction novel that deals with power, drugs, and sex slavery, which has fueled speculation about Barr’s apparent decision to hire someone like Epstein and what the fantasy book implies about Barr’s own "extracurricular" interests.
During his time at Dalton, Jeffrey Epstein taught mostly seniors, ages 17 and 18. He also coached the math team, which competed locally and had a few notable victories under Epstein’s leadership. The school’s newspaper, The Daltonian, reported on March 5, 1976 that Epstein wanted to start a "math-track team" due to his "unique philosophy of integrating physical exercise with spiritual and mathematical stimulation." An earlier issue of the school paper refers to Epstein as "the ivory show man on the piano," again raising the running theme of Epstein’s alleged musical talents.14
Several Dalton alumni later told various media outlets in 2019 how Epstein attended student parties during his time as a Dalton teacher. One former student who graduated from Dalton in 1976, Scott Spizer, told the New York Times that Epstein was well known among students for the "persistent attention" he directed at teenage girls in the hallways and recalled that Epstein had attended a party where Dalton students were drinking. "I can remember thinking at the time 'This is wrong,’" Spizer later stated. A 1978 graduate of Dalton, Paul Grossman, also recalled Epstein attending student parties, stating that "it was weird" and that "everyone talked about it." A woman who attended Dalton during this period, but asked to remain anonymous, claimed that Epstein had "made multiple attempts to spend time with her away from school" and she also specifically recalled "reporting Epstein’s advances toward another female student to the school’s headmaster."15
The headmaster at that time, Peter Branch, did not mention such reports when he was interviewed in 2019 regarding Epstein’s time at the school. This may relate to the fact that several Dalton alumni who attended during this period asserted that student-teacher relationships at the school "were not unheard of," suggesting that Epstein’s alleged behavior was part of a larger problem, as opposed to an aberration.16 Branch has asserted that Epstein left the school following concerns from his colleagues in the math and science departments that his teaching skills had failed to improve over the previous year.17 "He was a young teacher who didn’t come up to snuff. So, ultimately, he was asked to leave," Branch was quoted as saying in late 2019.18
BEAR STEARNS AND THE BRONFMANS
After Epstein left the Dalton School in 1976, he went to work on Wall Street for Bear Stearns. There are two conflicting accounts of how he landed his first job there – as a junior assistant to a floor trader at the American Stock Exchange. Both accounts intimately involve Alan "Ace" Greenberg, then a partner at Bear Stearns and who would become the bank’s CEO in roughly two years’ time, in 1978.
One account appears to have first been circulated in a 2002 profile on Epstein published by New York Magazine. Per that account, while still at the Dalton School, "So impressed was one Wall Street father of a student that he said to Epstein point-blank: 'What are you doing teaching math at Dalton? You should be working on Wall Street – why don’t you give my friend Ace Greenberg a call.’"19 However, a year later, in the 2003 Vanity Fair profile penned by Vicky Ward, it is claimed that the connection with Greenberg was more direct, with Epstein tutoring Greenberg’s son who attended Dalton and also being "friendly" with one of his daughters.20 Both claims have been repeated by numerous mainstream and independent outlets over the years, though Greenberg’s daughter, Lynne Koeppel (nee Greenberg), has publicly backed the version of events as published in 2002 by New York Magazine.21 Yet, other sources cite Koeppel as having recommended Epstein to her father.22 Regardless of which account is closer to reality, it is agreed that Greenberg was ultimately the person who brought Epstein into Bear Stearns.
Once installed at the bank, Epstein’s ascent was rapid and he was mentored by both Greenberg and James Cayne, who had also been hired by Greenberg years prior. While he started off as a floor trader, he soon "began working with wealthy clients on bigger projects that sought an edge in esoteric markets."23 According to a former senior Bear Stearns executive interviewed by Fox Business, "Epstein’s accumulated knowledge of the U.S. tax codes – and how rich people can avoid taxes through various investments – made him one of Bear’s prized assets in its small, but specialized brokerage department." "He never went to college, but he knew everything about taxes. In fact, he could figure out just about anything if he studied it. The guy was a genius," the former executive was quoted as saying.24 Thanks to these talents, Epstein became a limited partner in relatively short order, by 1980. While working at the bank, he met his former girlfriend Paula Heil Fisher, now an opera producer.
Epstein abruptly left Bear Stearns in 1981. In the years before he became notorious, he claimed to have left because he wished "to run his own business." However, within the company, claims abounded that Epstein had been involved in a "technical infringement," with Epstein’s later associate, Steven Hoffenberg, claiming that Epstein had left the bank after he was caught performing "illegal operations." The former Bear Stearns executive interviewed by Fox Business claimed that Epstein had been asked to leave over "very serious stuff," which he insisted was related to "a significant expense account violation concerning an airline ticket that upper management was misled about."25 These claims were denied by Cayne and Epstein, while Greenberg said he was unable to recall the circumstances. In 2003, Cayne supported Epstein’s version of events, stating that he had left the bank of "his own volition" because he wanted to strike out on his own.
However, as noted by Vanity Fair, the SEC’s records of Epstein in 1981 tell a different story. Per those records, Epstein was interviewed, along with other Bear Stearns employees as part of an investigation into insider trading at the bank. The insider trading case revolved around a tender offer placed on March 11, 1981 for St. Joe Minerals Corp by the Bronfman-owned company Seagram Company Ltd. A handful of investors were ultimately found guilty of insider trading, including Giuseppe Tome, former head of overseas operations of Bache & Company and E.F. Hutton.
In Tome’s case, he was ordered to "disgorge," or hand over, $3.5 million in illegal profits related to the 1981 failed takeover attempt by Seagram in mid-1986. However, Tome left the US shortly after the SEC began its investigation and did not return to the country after the court’s decision, complicating the enforcement of the ruling against him.
The court claimed that Tome had "insinuated himself into the confidence of Seagram Co. Chairman Edgar M. Bronfman." However, a spokesperson for Bronfman declined to discuss his relationship with Tome and, in court testimony, Bronfman had admitted to discussing "Seagram’s secrets" with Tome because Tome counted with "20 years in this business … he ought to know the rules. I assume he does know the rules."
The Los Angeles Times described the Tome-Bronfman relationship in greater detail:
According to testimony in the case, Tome and Bronfman met in July, 1980. Bronfman was impressed with Tome’s financial acumen and within weeks had made him an unofficial adviser to Seagram, a major producer and marketer of spirits and wine, on foreign currency matters.
The two men also struck up a close personal friendship, and Bronfman opened a commodities account at Tome’s Geneva brokerage. The pair invested together in "Sophisticated Ladies," the Broadway show, and at one point Bronfman even covered a bounced check that Tome had issued to the show’s producers. The families vacationed together in Switzerland and the hunt country of Virginia.
Throughout this time, Bronfman was telling Tome of Seagram’s secret plans for major corporate acquisitions. Pollack’s order indicated that Tome used inside information to trade in stock and options of Texaco and Santa Fe, two tentative Seagram targets. (Those trades were not cited in the SEC lawsuit, however.) In some cases, testimony showed, Tome learned from Bronfman of Seagram’s plans even before its board of directors.
On March 9, 1981, Bronfman declined a dinner invitation from Tome, saying he had to visit Montreal for a board meeting. Tome concluded that a Seagram offer was imminent for St. Joe, which he knew as Bronfman’s next target."26
There is also the fact that Bronfman had considerable connections to Tome’s former employer Bache & Company, a company with ties to the OSS-organized crime networks previously discussed in chapter 1. For instance, the Loeb banking dynasty had intermarried into the family of Jules Bache of Bache & Company as well as into the Bronfmans, with Edgar Bronfman’s wife Ann being the daughter of John Loeb. Not only did the Bronfmans, Loebs, and Baches mingle through marriage, but the multi-million dollar holdings of all three families combined "to make up the largest single holding of stock in New York’s Empire Trust Company" – Edgar Bronfman had joined that company’s board in 1963.27
Notably, the Empire Trust Company, with Bronfman still intimately involved, announced a merger with the Bank of New York (BoNY) in 1968.28 Bronfman was placed on the board of the Bank of New York after the merger and remained there at least through 1975, if not later.29 As previously mentioned in chapter 9, BoNY essentially merged with the banking network of Bruce Rappaport by the 1980s and, by 1992, executives at the bank were found to be closely associated with Russian mobster and Robert Maxwell business associate Semion Mogilevich.
Semion Yudkovich Mogilevich, born on June 30, 1946, in Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, is a Ukrainian and Russian national who is considered by law enforcement agencies in the United States and the European Union to be the "boss of bosses" of most Russian mafia syndicates worldwide.
He is described by the FBI as the "most dangerous gangster in the world" and is accused of leading a vast transnational criminal empire involved in arms trafficking, drug trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering, securities fraud, and contract murders.
Mogilevich, who holds a degree in economics, earned the nickname "The Brainy Don" due to his strategic intelligence and sophisticated approach to criminal enterprise, which has allowed him to evade capture for decades.
He has been linked to major financial frauds, including a scheme at the Toronto Stock Exchange and a large-scale tax fraud in the international fuel trade that caused billions in losses across Central Europe.
Despite being on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list for many years, Mogilevich currently lives freely in Moscow and maintains close ties with powerful political figures in Russia and Ukraine.
-- Semion Mogilivich, by Google AI
When the SEC investigation took place, Bronfman subsequently claimed to have no knowledge of insider trading by Tome and claimed that Tome, conveniently outside of the country and tried in absentia, lied to him about having been involved in illegal trades related to the attempted takeover of St. Joe’s. As the 1986 court case against Tome makes clear, Bronfman’s ties to Tome were considerable and he had a history of voluntarily supplying the man with Seagram’s "secret plans" before the company’s board even knew, as the Los Angeles Times had noted. It appears, from Tome’s case, that Bronfman seemed to have thought nothing of sharing "secret plans" with those outside the company and within his inner circle. Also of note is that Tome, and presumably others [LC: Jeffrey Epstein?] made insider trades on Texaco and Santa Fe, two tentative Seagram targets, and profited off those as well. However, the trades involving those companies were, for reasons still unclear, excluded from the SEC investigation.
Another figure sued in connection with insider trading as part of the failed Seagram takeover attempt was Dennis B. Levine, "a prominent mergers specialist with the Drexel Burnham Lambert investment banking firm" who allegedly made $12.6 million in illegal profits from the deal.30 Drexel Burnham Lambert and many of its more infamous employees are mentioned throughout this book, as – at this time – Drexel was "corralling the majority of American [corporate] raiders."31
Dennis Levine was directly involved with many of these "raiders", specifically Ron Perelman, who dined with Epstein at Epstein’s home throughout the 2000s and whose political fundraiser for Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign was attended by Epstein in the mid-90s (see Chapter 16). Levine worked regularly with Perelman, serving as the "lead banker" for Perelman’s 1985 takeover of Revlon, which Levine called "the high point" of his career.32
In addition, Levine also played a key role in the hostile takeover of Crown Zellerbach by Sir James Goldsmith, a member of the Clermont Club mentioned in Chapter 4. Levine was intimately involved in Goldsmith’s 1984-1985 takeover of Crown Zellerbach. That takeover was actually the brainchild of Rothschild Inc. and its then-President Robert S. Pirie.33 Goldsmith was a longtime business associate of the Rothschilds and a distant cousin of the family.34
As will be mentioned again in chapter 15, Pirie and Rothschild Inc. were later the architects of Robert Maxwell’s takeover of Macmillan in 1989. By 1989, Maxwell and Goldsmith were closely associated, and Goldsmith would also later [LC: Correction "and Goldsmith had previous ties to Jeffrey Epstein"] have his own ties to Jeffrey Epstein.35 Goldsmith apparently knew Epstein long before Epstein had started at Bear Stearns. According to a former friend of Epstein’s, art collector Stuart Pivar, he had first met Epstein at "Jimmy Goldsmith’s mansion" in the early 1970s. "There," Pivar later told Mother Jones, "there was somebody playing the piano with great virtuosity. And it was Jeffrey Epstein."36 Epstein’s ties to Goldsmith may have come through his daughter, Isabel Goldsmith, who has numerous telephone numbers and two addresses in Epstein’s "little black book" of contacts.37
,
In the context of this 1981 takeover attempt by Seagram, it is worth noting that Pirie’s soon-to-be "second in command," Gerald Goldsmith, was previously the executive vice president of E.F. Hutton, where Giuseppe Tome had also served in a top executive position. Goldsmith left to join the Rothschild bank in 1982.38 (There is no familial relationship between Gerald Goldsmith and James Goldsmith).
These networks that surrounded this SEC investigation would, after the fact, clearly intersect with Epstein’s own network within a few years’ time. This raises the possibility that this 1981 insider trading affair may have marked Epstein’s entry into these circles or may indicate that he had already developed connections there, as he was alleged to have been directly involved in such trades.
On March 12, 1981, a day after Seagram made the tender offer at the heart of this insider trading case, Epstein resigned from Bear Stearns. At some point in their investigation, the SEC was tipped off that Epstein knew something about relevant insider trades that had been made at Bear Stearns, and the SEC interviewed him on April 1st.
During that testimony, per SEC records, Epstein complained about how he had been disciplined for a possible "Reg D" violation where he was said to have lent money to a friend, who he later identified as Warren Eisenstein. Epstein had been questioned about the loan, per his recollection, on March 4th and, five days later, had been fined $2,500 by the bank. However, the SEC was mainly interested in the timing of Epstein’s exit from Bear Stearns and the Bronfman/Seagram-related insider trading. Epstein denied any connection and was never charged, but Vanity Fair noted that the SEC interviewers were skeptical of Epstein’s denials. Vanity Fair also noted that "if [Epstein] was such a big producer at Bear Stearns, [why would he] have given it up over a mere $2,500 fine."
It seems evident that the timing of Epstein’s "abrupt" departure and the Bronfman-related insider trades go a bit beyond mere coincidence. It certainly does seem unlikely that Epstein would abandon Bear Stearns over a relatively small fine (by the bank’s standards), unless he had received another offer of employment or if there was a risk that he would soon face greater, more costly problems at Bear Stearns.
Furthermore, given that Edgar Bronfman had been somewhat open about the plan for a Seagram takeover of St. Joe Mineral Corp., it is not outside the realm of possibility that those "rumors" would have made their way to Epstein. Epstein had become installed at Bear Stearns, and likely risen in its ranks so quickly, due to the patronage of Alan Greenberg, who was intimately involved in several of the same organizations as the Bronfmans, like the United Jewish Appeal and the Jerusalem Foundation (the latter was notably created by Teddy Kollek, see chapter 3). Like Greenberg, the Bronfmans also donated heavily to those same groups in addition to being closely involved in their affairs. Greenberg also, at some point, saw his philanthropic efforts intersect closely with those of Charles Bronfman, per the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.39
Had Greenberg potentially been informed by a loose-lipped Edgar Bronfman, just as Giuseppe Tome had been, and passed this along to one of his "protégés" at Bear Stearns, Jeffrey Epstein? Or had Epstein, a protégé of Greenberg’s, been advising Bronfman on behalf of the bank? After all, Epstein was said to have worked "with wealthy clients on bigger projects that sought an edge in esoteric markets," and Bronfman could have been such a client.40
If so, it may have prompted Epstein’s "abrupt" resignation, not so much to protect a young Epstein, but potentially to protect Greenberg, who had – by then – risen to become Bear Stearns’s CEO. Greenberg being ensnared in the SEC’s investigation would have been a much bigger headache for the bank than Epstein – now, a former limited partner in the bank.
In addition, given the networks of both Giuseppe Tome and Danny Levine at this time, and how Epstein would become a fixture in those networks in short order, it may be possible that Epstein’s abrupt resignation was part of an effort not just to shield Greenberg, but the full extent of these particular networks in this 1981 insider trading scheme, which was considerably larger than the select components that the SEC had chosen to investigate.
If Epstein was advised to leave due to potential legal concerns, it is worth mentioning that, as noted in Chapter 6, Bear Stearns was represented by the law firm Rogers & Wells and, from 1976 to 1981, was specifically a client of William Casey. Though Casey likely wasn’t involved in this particular situation, given that he had become CIA director several weeks before the tender offer, it is worth reminding the reader that Casey’s influence is another potential factor to consider when examining this situation as well as Epstein’s activities immediately after leaving the bank.
THE FINANCIAL MERCENARY AND INTELLIGENCE ASSET
After leaving Bear Stearns, Epstein would later claim that he went on to manage "money only for billionaires," telling Vicky Ward in 2003 that "I was the only person crazy enough, or arrogant enough, or misplaced enough, to make my limit a billion dollars or more."41 However, it appears that there was much more to the story, as the details of Epstein’s life, from his 1981 exit from Bear Stearns until around 1986, are murky at best. The details that are known about Epstein during this period point to something considerably different than Epstein’s own account of his activities at this time. This is particularly obvious when one considers that his formal role as a money manager did not appear to begin until 1988, when he founded J. Epstein & Co.42
Throughout the 1980s, Epstein’s main company was called Intercontinental Assets Group, which was incorporated in 1981.43 Apart from that, little about the company is known. However, there is little indication he used the company to manage billionaire wealth, as the existing evidence about his life during this decade points in another direction.
After Epstein’s 2019 arrest, a former friend of Epstein’s, Jesse Kornbluth, stated that Epstein had claimed to be a "bounty hunter" for the rich and powerful:
When we met in 1986, Epstein’s double identity intrigued me – he said he didn’t just manage money for clients with mega-fortunes, he was also a high-level bounty hunter. Sometimes, he told me, he worked for governments to recover money looted by African dictators. Other times those dictators hired him to help them hide their stolen money.44
Actress Anna Obregón later stated that she had hired Epstein, who mentioned his company Intercontinental Assets Group, to help her father, Madrid-based real estate magnate Antonio García Férnandez. García Férnandez had been one of several powerful Spanish individuals, which included members of the Spanish royal family, who had invested in Drysdale Government Securities, which collapsed due to fraud in 1982. Epstein had been hired by Obregón to "recover" money from the Drysdale collapse on behalf of her father, according to James Patterson’s book Filthy Rich.45
Similar claims also surfaced in Vicky Ward’s 2003 profile of Epstein in Vanity Fair. Ward wrote that: "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."46
Reference to firearms during this period can be found in even earlier reports of Epstein, such as a 2001 report in the UK’s Evening Standard that was written by Nigel Rosser. There, Rosser asserts the following about Epstein:
He has a licence to carry a concealed weapon, once claimed to have worked for the CIA although he now denies it – and owns properties all over America. Once he arrived at the London home of a British arms dealer bringing a gift – a New York police-issue pump-action riot gun. "God knows how he got it into the country," a friend said.47
The identity of this British arms dealer may be Sir Douglas Leese. Per Steven Hoffenberg, an alleged "mentor" to Epstein who worked closely with him beginning in 1987, he had been introduced to Epstein by Leese and further claimed that, soon after Epstein left Bear Stearns, he began working closely with the "mysterious" British arms dealer.48 Hoffenberg’s own relationship with Epstein is dealt with later in this chapter.
Per Hoffenberg, in an interview with journalist Edward Szall, Epstein was hired by Leese to serve as an investment banker for Leese-owned and Leese-managed companies.49 Douglas Leese’s son, Julian Leese has stated that Epstein first interacted with the Leese family around 1981, after meeting another of Douglas Leese’s sons, Nick, at a party hosted by "a well-known oil baron down in Texas."50 Julian Leese has acknowledged that his father was a "mentor" to Epstein and has spoken at length about Epstein seeming bright and intelligent as well as deeply entwined with business and social networks in the UK during this period.
Hoffenberg has also asserted that Epstein, in the early 1980s, "was trained in arms trafficking and money laundering by Adnan Khashoggi and Sir Douglas Leese jointly.… Jeffrey Epstein was a major participant and principal in the arms trafficking and money laundering operations of Adnan Khashoggi and Sir Douglas Leese, for Israel, for what they were doing in the United Kingdom."51
Much of Leese’s own history is shadowy. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, he worked at Cam Gears Limited, an automobile parts manufacturing company, and became its managing director in 1957.52 Cam Gears was acquired by TRW Inc. in 1965, which had previously been known as Thompson Ramo-Woolbridge. It was the result of a merger between Thompson Products, a major supplier of aircraft parts for the US Air Force, and Ramo-Woolbridge, a military contractor for ICBM components and components for other weapons systems.
Though it’s not exactly clear, TRW seems to have been Leese’s introduction into the world of weapons dealing. Oddly enough, years later, a young Bill Gates, who would eventually develop his own ties to Epstein (see Chapter 20), would also get "his first big break" thanks to TRW, when he worked "debugging grid control software for" the company at age 15.53
Anecdotal evidence may also indicate the Leese family’s persistent ties to TRW. After it was acquired by TRW, Cam Gears would have fallen under TRW’s automobile-focused subsidiary, TRW Automotive, which was headquartered in Livonia, Michigan. In 2017, the International Police and Fire Chaplains Association (IPFCA) of Taylor, Michigan, received a $50,000 donation from Gratitude America Limited, a foundation connected to Jeffrey Epstein. The donation was brokered by Douglas Leese’s son Julian Leese, who was friends with IPFCA director Daniel Tackett.54 Taylor and Livonia are just 13 miles apart and the aforementioned donation seems to indicate long-standing family ties of the Leese’s to the local area, as well as Epstein’s enduring ties to the Leese family.
Julian Leese has denied his father was an "arms dealer," claiming he worked in "defense" but was mainly involved in manufacture and sale of defense products other than weapons, such as radar systems.55 However, Julian Leese has conceded that his father was a friend of notorious arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, whose friendship with Douglas Leese most likely revolved around something other than radar and navigation systems.
Between 1966 and 1967, soon after Cam Gears was acquired by TRW, Leese began living in South Wraxall Manor, a luxurious home in Wiltshire, England. The house had been sold by its previous owners, the aristocratic Long family, in 1966, and at least one account from 1967 states that Leese was living in the home at that time, suggesting that he had been the mysterious "businessman" who had purchased the home.56 An acquaintance of Leese’s later stated that Leese "gave very unusual parties" at South Wraxall Manor as early as the 1970s, but didn’t elaborate as to why they were "very unusual."57
In 1978, House of Wraxall Limited was established with Douglas Leese and his wife, Jane Primrose Leese, listed as company directors. Douglas Leese listed his address as being located in Hong Kong, while that of his wife was listed as South Wraxall Manor. The company was officially involved in the development and sale of real estate projects.58
Not long after the creation of this company, Leese found himself involved with the Wraxall Group. It is unclear, given the name of Leese’s residence at the time, if he was the founder/owner of the Wraxall Group. However, he was certainly in charge of the Group’s Bermuda subsidiaries, including the Bermuda-based, wholly-owned subsidiary of the Wraxall Group, the Lorad Company.59 Before going into greater detail about Lorad, and how Lorad may have been central to not only Leese’s but Epstein’s activities in the early 1980s, it is worth detailing a few of the other characters involved with the Wraxall Group.
Other individuals tied to the Wraxall Group aside from Leese include Sir Maurice (Robert) Johnston, who had previously served in the British military, attaining the rank of Lieutenant General and serving in Germany, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Northern Ireland, and Borneo. He was Deputy Chief of Defense Staff in 1982 and 1983 before retiring from the military. A year later, in 1984, Johnston became "managing director, Freshglen Ltd, Wraxall Group."60
Another interesting individual was "executive vice president of the Wraxall Group" from 1986 to 1990 – Peter Maxwell Dickson.61 Dickson, who has a lengthy history of engaging in fraud and suspect banking practices, ran the Bermuda-based firm Grosvenor Group Holdings, a decades-old offshore complex that has stashed away over $1 billion for the Dukes of Westminster over the years.62 Grosvenor Group Holdings also controlled a Dickson-owned bank called Horizon Bank International that was set up in 1995 by William Cooper, who then served as the bank’s managing director.
From 1981 to 1984, Cooper was the general manager of Swiss American Banking Group, which had been organized by Bruce Rappaport and Marvin Warner with the assistance of Burton Kanter.63 Rappaport, discussed at length throughout this book (mainly in chapter 3), was intimately involved with the Iran- Contra affair and BCCI, as well as intelligence/organized crime networks in I-srael and Russia. He was also a close friend of William Casey. Kanter was the moblinked attorney that had previously partnered with CIA banker Paul Helliwell who was first introduced in chapter 1.
While Dickson has his own ties to the shadow banking empires previously detailed in this book, it is uncertain when he made those connections. It’s quite likely that he came into contact with those forces during or after his time with the Wraxall Group. This is because, Sir Douglas Leese, who managed Wraxall’s businesses in Bermuda, where Dickson also resided, seems to have been very much connected to these same networks, including via his reported involvement in arms deals that paralleled Iran-Contra itself back in the early 1980s. These deals are also alleged to have involved not only Saudi arms dealer and Iran-Contra figure Adnan Khashoggi, but also Jeffrey Epstein.
The Lorad Company was one of the main Wraxall subsidiaries in Bermuda that was firmly under Leese’s control. In June 1983, a joint venture of Lorad and another company was formed called Norinco Lorad Limited and, six months later, Lorad (Far East) Limited was created in Hong Kong, where Leese had already had at least one address listed as early as 1978.64 The Norinco referenced here is the Chinese state-owned weapons producer Norinco (North Industries Corporation), which was founded in 1980 with the approval of the State Council of China.
After its founding, Norinco, along with a handful of other Chinese state-owned firms, helped China to emerge "as a leading arms supplier to the Third World, signing agreements between 1983 and 1990 worth more than $16 billion" ($33.7 billion in 2022 dollars). During this period, "much of China’s business was with Iran; Beijing became Tehran’s biggest weapons supplier during the 1981-88 Iran-Iraq War, selling $4.8 billion [$10.1 billion in 2022 dollars] in weapons and munitions to Iran in 1983-90," according to then-senior staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee William Triplett II, writing for the Washington Post in 1991.65
These sales to Iran during this period were dominated by Norinco as well as Poly Technologies, owned by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and China Jingan, controlled by the People’s Armed Police. Thus, the very year these Chinese weapons companies began selling massive amounts of weapon to Iran, 1983, was also the same year the main company involved in its sales, Norinco, set up a joint venture with the Leese-managed Lorad Company in Bermuda.
According to Steven Hoffenberg, by 1983, Leese was working closely with Jeffrey Epstein, specifically on the sale of Chinese weapons to Iran.66 Per Hoffenberg, Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, by then on the payroll of Israel’s Mossad and close to the intelligence apparati of the Saudis and the United States, was also part of these efforts and had a "revenue sharing agreement" with Leese on arms deals.67 Hoffenberg also asserts that Leese was deeply enmeshed in British intelligence networks and was actively involved with those networks at the time. If we are to believe Hoffenberg, then Khashoggi, Leese, and Epstein were working together on a parallel operation to Iran-Contra while Iran-Contra was on-going.
In addition, Leese and Khashoggi were both involved in the 1985 arms deal with Saudi Arabia, known as the Al-Yamamah Deal, albeit on different sides. Khashoggi represented the French weapons industry, while Leese, along with Khashoggi rival Wafic Said, represented British defense interests, which ultimately won the day. Khashoggi later claimed that the deal had been secured for Britain, in part, due to the involvement of Mark Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher’s son whose peripheral role in Iran Contra is discussed in Chapter 7.68 Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister at the time the Al-Yamamah Deal was signed, whereby Saudi Arabia paid for weapons largely manufactured by BAE Systems in oil, and accusations later arose that Britain only won the deal due to having bribed Saudi leadership.69 Corruption investigations into Al Yamamah were later shut down thanks in large part to the efforts of Tony Blair as well as Prince Andrew, with the latter being a well-known Epstein confidant.70
Aside from the documented Norinco-Leese and Leese-Khashoggi connections, there is further evidence that supports Hoffenberg’s claims. For instance, during this period, Adnan Khashoggi was a reported client of Epstein, per Vicky Ward as cited by New York Magazine, during the period after he left Bear Stearns and before he formally teamed up with Hoffenberg and Leslie Wexner, which includes this period of time (i.e. 1983).71 Epstein is also known to have been associated with Leese during this period, and Leese subsequently appears in Epstein’s black book of contacts. In addition, Epstein later maintained a relationship with at least one of Leese’s sons, Julian. Douglas Leese’s other son, Nicholas, who allegedly introduced Epstein to the Leese family, was arrested in 1996 and charged with over 200 counts related to corruption in Singapore.72
Furthermore, during this period of time, Epstein was clearly involved in the world of shadowy banking practices and fronts. Per his claims to several friends and as mentioned in more than a few press reports authored prior to his 2007 arrest, Epstein was working as a financial "bounty hunter" and helped both recover and hide stolen money on behalf of powerful people. Thus, to be successful in such work, he would have needed an intimate working knowledge of front companies, offshore banking, and other components of the financial webs woven by those looking to hide away "looted" money.
If Adnan Khashoggi was indeed Epstein’s client, this suggests that Epstein may have been associated with BCCI in some capacity. If Epstein worked in this financial "bounty hunter" capacity for Khashoggi, it’s very likely that he would have come into contact with BCCI during this period, as BCCI was the main bank Khashoggi used during the period in which they were alleged to have worked together. In addition, the weapons sales to Iran that involved Norinco during this period, in which Leese, Epstein, and Khashoggi are alleged to have been involved, also made heavy use of BCCI. As noted by the Washington Post in 1991:
According to a Hong Kong source with detailed knowledge of China’s weapons sales policies, until recently, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was the bank of choice for the arms exporters. With its extensive Mideast operations and reputed money-laundering proclivities, BCCI would have been a natural fit for the Chinese. BCCI also operated in Beijing, the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone outside Hong Kong and in 27 branches in Hong Kong itself through what BCCI called the Bank of Credit and Commerce Hong Kong (BCCHK).73
Years later, when BCCI was collapsing, the Lippo Group of the Riady family, who boasted close ties to Bill Clinton and Clinton/Bush financier Jackson Stephens, would attempt to intervene to rescue BCCHK. It is worth noting the involvement of Riady/Stephens with the BCCI subsidiary that was used by Norinco and other state-owned firms during this period. This is because, as will be detailed extensively in Chapters 16 and 17, Epstein may have been involved in arms smuggling activities related to a network that spanned the Clinton White House, Norinco and the Poly Group, and the Riadys in the mid-1990s. The fact that Epstein would find himself enmeshed within these same networks in the mid- 1990s further corroborates his involvement with those same entities back in 1983, as has been alleged by Hoffenberg and other sources.
Hoffenberg, who was found dead in his apartment in late August 2022, had notably confided in Edward Szall off the record that Epstein had had a relationship with BCCI, but did not provide any specifics.
BCCI’s considerable intelligence ties and the reported intelligence connections of Khashoggi and Leese also make it worth considering Epstein’s past claims, as cited by Nigel Rosser, that he once worked for the CIA. BCCI’s connections to the CIA and other allied intelligence agencies were discussed in Chapter 7. In addition, at the time this operation involving Khashoggi, Leese, and Epstein was said to have occurred – around 1983 – Khashoggi also employed two other men deeply enmeshed in these networks where Big Business, intelligence, and organized crime intermingle: Roy Cohn and Robert Keith Gray.74 Notably, Gray was also very much involved with BCCI, as noted in Chapter 7, and both Cohn and Gray were involved in sexual blackmail operations to some extent.
In addition, in 1989, Khashoggi himself had been called by Vanity Fair "one of the greatest whoremongers in the world."75 His biographer, Ronald Kessler, remarked in 1988 that "His [Khashoggi’s] whole modus operandi was to influence clients with his opulent lifestyle" and that "he would give them [potential clients] anything they wanted: girls, food, cash… He had quite a variety of occasions on the boat. Some were very formal, some were orgies."
According to the UK’s Independent, "One of the 'girls’ used in this way, Pamella Bordes, later spoke of being 'part of an enormous group … used as sexual bait,’" suggesting that Khashoggi commanded a veritable harem of women who were used to entice, or potentially coerce, would-be clients.76 However, these lists of "potential clients" also included notable politicians, diplomats, celebrities, and a cadre of businessman. In the case of politicians and diplomats, it’s entirely possible that Khashoggi’s yacht was used as a means of collecting blackmail that Khashoggi used to benefit his network, or anyone willing to pay the right price.77 This was also alleged by the head of a highly-connected call-girl ring, Fortuna Israel a.k.a. "Madame Tuna," as discussed in Chapter 7.
Notably, Khashoggi’s infamous yacht would be sold to Roy Cohn’s protégé, Donald Trump, in 1988, with the involvement of the Sultan of Brunei.78 As will be mentioned in the next chapter, the Sultan of Brunei would become Epstein’s landlord in the office he shared with Evangeline Gouletas-Carey and, as we will see in Chapter 19, the Sultan of Brunei makes other curious appearances in the Epstein-Clinton relationship.
In addition, both Cohn and Gray were very close to then-CIA Director Bill Casey. In Gray’s case, as noted in the previous chapter, Newsweek described him as often having "boasted of his close relationship with the CIA’s William Casey; Gray used to say that before taking on a foreign client, he would clear it with Casey."79 In Cohn’s case, Christine Seymour, Cohn’s long-time switchboard operator, said Casey and Cohn were close friends and, during the 1980 Reagan campaign, Casey "called Roy almost daily."80 As noted in the last chapter, in the immediate aftermath of Reagan’s electoral victory, both Cohn and Gray took Khashoggi on as a client. Jeffrey Epstein would follow suit, shortly after his resignation from Bear Stearns. As previously mentioned, Casey had been the legal representative of Bear Stearns during Epstein’s time there up until several weeks before Epstein’s abrupt resignation, when Casey became CIA director.
With Cohn, Gray, and Casey in the periphery, this also raises the additional possibility that Epstein may have first been exposed to the idea of sexual blackmail operations in this period, due to his proximity to people like Cohn and Gray through Khashoggi, as well as (and more likely) his proximity to Khashoggi himself. Another possibility is that Epstein was first exposed to this type of operation through a potential link to BCCI, as the "dirtiest bank of them all" was also alleged to have been involved in the sex trafficking of minors.
