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00:03And now to a major moment, Edward Monk, The Scream, from 1895. Here he is.
00:13Can you give us your name? Jeffrey Epstein.
00:17I start the bidding here at $40 million.
00:22Isn't it true that you used underage minor females to bring other underage minor females to your house for sex?
00:3266 in the room.
00:33We know that he was a con man at heart, right? And that was not just within the world of
00:39sex trafficking, right?
00:40He wasn't just conning victims, but he was conning people in the financial world as well.
00:4671. 72.
00:50A short kind of criminal is a guy that says, maybe I could steal $100,000. Maybe I could steal
00:56a million dollars.
00:57Jeffrey Epstein was never about that.
01:01At $99 million, I have all the time in the world.
01:07He was always looking to steal $100 million in the house.
01:17It's art. There's like this sheen of like, intrigue and mystery about it. And I'm sure he embraced that. I'm
01:24sure that he knew that gave him a credibility in certain social circles.
01:28For the historic sum of $107 million.
01:33What's been missing very dramatically is any effort to follow the money.
01:41This is the story of how Jeffrey Epstein conned his way into the lives of the super rich.
01:48Solved.
01:51And then use their money to fund his global sex trafficking operation.
01:57Mr. Epstein, how long have you been sexually attracted to underage minor females?
02:04Objection, harassing, argumentative.
02:06Are you kidding?
02:21New York City is a metropolis where the inconceivable becomes possible.
02:47I went to school with Jeffrey Epstein. We went to the same junior high school.
02:52He was very gifted.
02:59Coney Island could be a little rough.
03:03That's where Jeffrey grew up.
03:06You know, inside that safe haven of Seagate.
03:11Outsiders couldn't come in there.
03:13It was a safe haven.
03:20He lived upstairs in a two-bedroom apartment that was very small, very unprepossessing, very modest by anybody's standards.
03:30But it all started here, at this house here.
03:36He had a mother who worked in the schools, and his father was a groundskeeper for the Parks Department.
03:43But I know one of my classmates personally told me that Jeffrey had told her that he had vowed that
03:50he would be wealthy one day.
04:03I teach sociology, I teach about class inequality, and I also teach criminology.
04:11The life and crimes of Jeffrey Epstein have appalled and obsessed people across the world.
04:18New York professor Thomas Volschow has spent eight years investigating.
04:23In some of my courses, I would bring up Jeffrey Epstein on the sex offender registry.
04:28And I would be like, wow, you know, students in the sex offender registry, you have to put down all
04:34your assets and your vehicles.
04:36And they just couldn't believe, like, he had, you know, Mercedes 600 series, multiple SUVs, boats, a Gulfstream jet, a
04:45727.
04:45They were just kind of blown away by that.
04:56I had gone out to his property a few times on my way to teach by bicycle.
05:05And I thought that was a pretty good disguise. I'm dressed up as a cyclist.
05:10So I just kind of went and did some, like, field observations.
05:16He rang his doorbell, which had a video camera, and I just got like a gruff Brooklyn accent.
05:22And I was like, oh, maybe that's Epstein. But it was a security guard.
05:26What were you going to say to him if you answered the door?
05:28Hi, Mr. Epstein. I'm a sociology professor, and I'm doing some work on, I guess we could call it what
05:33we could call your case.
05:34Is there any chance we could come down and talk?
05:41Here was a wealthy person, sex trafficking. That's a violent crime.
05:44And he's doing it against children.
05:47And there's so many victims.
05:49And there's tons of evidence. How can he get away with all this?
05:53I can't explain it.
05:54So that's kind of what drew me into it.
05:59Starting, guys.
06:02Today is the first day of real reckoning for the Epstein class.
06:08The truth is finally going to come out.
06:13The U.S. government has released more than 3 million documents.
06:18The Epstein files.
06:22Just a teenager when she came into contact with the paedophile and his co-conspirator and girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.
06:30Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has now lost his royal titles as well as his reputation over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
06:37Peter Mandelson's appointment as the U.K.'s ambassador to the U.S. and his association with Jeffrey Epstein continue to
06:43haunt Downing Street.
06:44Donald Trump has never denied being an acquaintance of Jeffrey Epstein, but has always said he knew nothing about the
06:51trafficking and abuse of young women.
07:00The Epstein case, I think, is significant because it really has brought so much attention to crimes that are actually
07:07unfortunately very common, which are sexual abuse of children and young women.
07:14But because of the people involved, the power that they held, there has been an immense amount of covering up
07:21for these crimes and a lack of justice for the survivors.
07:24And I think that that's just highlighted how problematic these issues are in our country and around the world.
07:41Women were brought to the Virgin Islands, lured with promises of jobs, were raped, sexually assaulted, held captive.
07:59And it had happened repeatedly for years.
08:07It was horrifying hearing what they were saying had occurred.
08:15He's dead, but in my head I'm thinking, but the people who helped him aren't.
08:26It was Epstein's wealth that allowed him to fund abuse on this scale and keep it hidden.
08:32So how did Jeffrey Epstein get so rich and powerful?
08:50Epstein, he was a prodigious math talent.
08:55But he never got a degree in college.
09:02A fortune shone on him in the sense that he was able to get a job at the Dalton School,
09:08which is like the,
09:09probably one of the preeminent private high schools in America.
09:16They were the creme de la creme.
09:18They were the tippy top of the 1%.
09:24This is his first dose of rich people.
09:27And so he makes these connections with parents at the Dalton School, wealthy parents.
09:35I was trying to verify what his time was like at that school.
09:41By 1976, the students don't seem to be learning the material at the pace that they're supposed to be.
09:50And so they decide to get rid of him before the end of the school year.
09:54So he's effectively sacked.
09:57I sent a public records request to find any teaching licenses for Jeffrey Epstein,
10:02and they said there's no teaching license for this individual.
10:05Were you surprised?
10:07I was like, okay, wow, this is, it's certainly getting interesting.
10:13It wasn't the only time Epstein talked his way into a job.
10:17He used his wealthy connections from the school to move to Wall Street.
10:24Any kind of door that closed, Jeffrey always positioned himself to have another door open.
10:32And the other door that opened was he met a guy by the name of Ace Greenberg,
10:36who was a big financial whiz at Bear Stearns, which was the top investment banking firm.
10:41And he ended up getting a job with Ace Greenberg.
10:48Bear Stearns apparently has a personnel department that goes over his resume
10:53and then calls up all the schools on the resume to make sure that he indeed graduated from them.
10:58It's all lies.
11:02Epstein kept his job, but finally resigned in 1981, on the same day he was suspended for breaking the bank's
11:10lending rules.
11:12He then set himself up as a financial consultant and started working with a notorious fraudster.
11:20He finds this guy, Steven Hoffenberg.
11:23He's working for Hoffenberg, things went bad.
11:27Hoffenberg ended up getting in trouble with the authorities.
11:33Hoffenberg had falsely promised thousands of investors big payouts from his debt collection business.
11:39He served 18 years for the $460 million fraud.
11:45But by the time the scam was closed down, Epstein was safely gone.
11:51And what I'm able to trace down is that Epstein appears to have taken a quarter million dollar salary,
11:57plus another $2 million.
12:01The feds just go after Hoffenberg for the Ponzi scheme,
12:04even though Hoffenberg, in a grand jury deposition, he named Epstein dozens of times.
12:10The end result was that Hoffenberg went to jail and Jeffrey Epstein did not.
12:19Having got out early and escaped scrutiny, Epstein was now making serious money.
12:28So, according to a Swiss banking document I found in the basement of a courthouse,
12:33he claimed that his net worth in 1988 was $15.5 million.
12:38I was like, wow, that's quite striking. How did he accumulate that net worth?
12:44We know that he was a con man at heart, right?
12:47And that was not just within the world of sex trafficking, right?
12:51He wasn't just conning victims, but he was conning people in the financial world as well.
12:56Understanding him as a con man is an important part of understanding Epstein.
13:12The more somebody says, this story is over, nobody's interested, dismiss it, it's over, the more I say, no, it
13:17is not over.
13:19We're here to seek justice for those victims.
13:22We feel that there are more people involved than just Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
13:28Those accountable need to be held accountable.
13:34The House Oversight Committee is doing an investigation of Jeffrey Epstein.
13:40They've had a number of depositions of people, which is a formal question and answer period under oath,
13:46as well as interviews, a more informal discussion.
13:51It was a system of exploitation, it was a system of abuse, and it was a system of power.
13:59This case appears to be the largest sex trafficking network in the United States and perhaps in the world.
14:08I know we're going to hear a video that Maria Farmer wanted to, she wanted folks to hear about,
14:16and so we're going to go ahead and play that.
14:19Today I apologize for my appearance.
14:21I was not well enough to attend this hearing in person and have recently been released from the hospital.
14:28For three decades I've carried a weight that no survivors should ever have to bear.
14:32I reported what I believed were heinous crimes against children,
14:35and these individuals responsible were involved in an international pedophile ring.
14:41Maria Farmer has been battling complex medical conditions for years,
14:47so her sister Annie is helping tell her story.
14:52What would life have been like, do you think, if you and Maria had never come across Epstein?
14:58I've thought about this quite a bit, what would life have been like.
15:02I see how it has played out for her in her, in the tremendous consequences for her health.
15:10And it does make me especially sad, thinking about how this impacted the trajectory of my sister's life.
15:25By 1989 Epstein had landed his biggest client, billionaire Leslie Wexner, owner of some of America's biggest retail brands.
15:41I was president of Wexner Investment Company.
15:50Leslie Wexner, he was worth a couple billion dollars when I started working for him.
15:56So, I mean, he knew how to make a buck.
16:04His business, it was basically to get clothing to the market faster than any of the big department stores.
16:16He was very, very good at marketing.
16:27The first time I've heard anything about Jeffrey Epstein, Les tells me he's got a guy in New York who
16:35wants Les to invest some money with him.
16:44I think it was 50 million, 50 million.
16:49So, Les tells me to fly into New York and meet with him, which I did.
16:59I didn't see a computer in his office.
17:02I'm not sure there was very much anything there.
17:06Yeah, that left the office, his office.
17:10I got found the pay phone.
17:12I called Les, I said, stay away from him.
17:17I said, he doesn't know anything.
17:23I said, Les, I wouldn't walk away from the guy.
17:27I'd run like hell away from the guy.
17:30And I said, I think he's, you know, dishonest and a fraud.
17:38Then I hear Epstein's coming to tell.
17:48Epstein had got himself recommended to Lesley Wexner by powerful friends.
17:53He quickly won his new client's trust.
17:56Within two years, Wexner gave him a power of attorney.
18:00Legal control of his vast private wealth.
18:08One of the things in his power of attorney is he can make payments on Wexner's behalf.
18:11He has wide latitude to do just about anything with his fortune.
18:15We can't tell where Wexner's money ends and Epstein's begins.
18:20And I think what he did was he co-mingled a lot of the accounts.
18:25What I did was I tried to link up Epstein selling stock for Wexner and Epstein acquiring things, planes, property.
18:34One of the very first things he does is he buys an aircraft.
18:37He buys a Hawker Sidley 125 and starts flying and starts leasing Wexner's East 71st Street mansion.
18:48Around 1998, he buys the island, he buys the helicopter.
18:53And then in 2002, there's a huge, there's like almost a billion of stock sales just in a very short
18:59period of time.
18:59And then that's when Epstein gets the apartments in France.
19:02The 727, which is also a Wexner corporate jet from Wexner's company, Epstein buys that.
19:09And that's basically the infrastructure of his sex trafficking venture.
19:13Do you believe Epstein stole money from Wexner?
19:17Oh, absolutely.
19:19I mean, he's a typical scam artist from New York, in my opinion.
19:26For almost two decades, Leslie Wexner's money funded Epstein's lifestyle and his criminality.
19:34He told Congress he had given a power of attorney to trusted employees before.
19:41And said he fired Epstein in 2007 because he'd stolen hundreds of millions of dollars.
19:49So, so several hundred million dollars is a large but not precise figure.
19:55To the best of your knowledge, how much exactly did Epstein steal?
20:00I don't know.
20:02I don't think I'll ever know.
20:05Did you ever witness Mr. Epstein sexually abuse young women or girls?
20:10Absolutely not.
20:15Leslie Wexner says he has voluntarily cooperated with the authorities.
20:20But he confirmed to the committee he hadn't been questioned by the FBI.
20:24Some members think he should be.
20:27Someone that's clearly the financial benefactor to Jeffrey Epstein and has not been interviewed by the FBI or the DOJ.
20:37What the hell is going on?
20:40Why did Wexner fall for him?
20:42I don't know.
20:44Nobody knows that.
20:46Nobody.
20:47Nobody.
20:49Or they ain't telling.
20:50Nobody.
21:08In the life of a museum director, you would have a breakfast meeting with somebody that you needed to raise
21:14funds with.
21:18Or somehow ingratiate yourself.
21:20And then either a dinner meeting or go to some event or benefit where you would sit at a table
21:27meeting other wealthy people.
21:38I met Jeffrey Epstein through some people who I knew when I was spending summers on Martha's Vineyard.
21:48The people that were around him were extraordinary.
21:54You know, to be at a dinner party with titans of industry and Nobel Prize winners.
22:02So I believe that he was, you know, somebody of substance and somebody who had managed to convince a lot
22:10of extraordinary people that he was on the up and up, that he was okay.
22:19I invited him to be on our drawing committee at the Whitney Museum.
22:26I think it was just another, like, avenue into society, like another layer of respectability.
22:32It's art.
22:33There's, like, this sheen of, like, intrigue and mystery about it.
22:37And I'm sure he embraced that.
22:39I'm sure that he knew that gave him a credibility in certain social circles.
22:54The first time I came across Jeffrey Epstein's name was in 1995.
23:05I went to buy two sculptures that I had seen the previous day.
23:12One of the Madonna, the other one of St. John.
23:17And when I went to get them, I was horrified to find that one of the statues was missing, the
23:24Madonna.
23:27And so I bought the St. John immediately.
23:32And I said to the dealer, I said, what happened?
23:35What happened to the Madonna?
23:37And he said to me, I sold her to a collector by the name of Jeffrey Epstein.
23:47I knew that Jeffrey Epstein made it a point to know the most important people, the most successful people, the
23:55most known people in different professions.
23:57I got to say one thing about Jeffrey Epstein as a collector.
24:00For me, Epstein didn't collect art.
24:03He collected people.
24:09Well, we were standing in front of the New York Academy of Art, famously founded by Andy Warhol in the
24:15early 80s.
24:16And the mission of the New York Academy is solely focused on portraiture.
24:21It's just probably one of the most famous schools.
24:24The Andy Warhol connection is obviously a very solid one.
24:36Soon after the founding, Epstein was a trustee or a board member, and he seemed to be closely linked to
24:42the leaders of the school.
24:49I had really only known them because they throw that big Tribeca ball every year.
24:56It's very glamorous.
25:02Maria Farmer was a student there when she met Epstein in 1995.
25:07After she graduated, he gave her a job as his art advisor.
25:12And he soon started taking an interest in her 16-year-old sister, Annie.
25:19I was actually on a scholarship at my Catholic high school, and I knew that the financial piece of it
25:26had been really stressful for my mom.
25:31I was talking to my sister about it, and then she was talking to her employer, Jeffrey Epstein.
25:36And he was quick to say, oh, I can help her with that. I'd love to meet her.
26:00You know, this is something I wrote about in my journal.
26:10He suggested that Maria and I meet him to go to the movies together.
26:20Did the first thing that made me uncomfortable.
26:23He reached over and grabbed my hand to hold hands with me and caress my hand and then caress my
26:30leg as we're watching the film.
26:32And, you know, of course, very quickly had sort of that sick to my stomach feeling.
26:40And, but also my mind was racing, trying to make sense of this.
26:56He suggested I come out to Zorro Ranch.
27:03In speaking with my mom about it, you know, he had explained it in one way, which is that, you
27:08know, that I would not be the only young person there.
27:12That there would be other people as well.
27:17And then I flew there, and when I arrived, I find just, you know, Jeffrey Epstein and Galen Maxwell.
27:28She suggested that I really should experience a massage.
27:33And once I was on the massage table, then, you know, she pulled down the sheet and exposed my breasts
27:38and rubbed my chest.
27:40I felt scared that he could see me, but also was just trying to, like, focus on getting through, getting
27:47through it.
27:47Because I just knew I wanted it to be over with.
27:51And then my last morning there, he came over to my room and opened the door and came in and
27:59said he wanted to cuddle with me.
28:00He, you know, sort of did what you would consider, like, spooning, right?
28:05Like, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around me and pushing his body against me.
28:09And I made the excuse of, I need to use the bathroom.
28:13There was a bathroom right next to the, to the bed.
28:16But it was, it just at that moment became that much harder for me to pretend that this was in
28:21any way a normal kind of experience.
28:35Meanwhile, her sister, Maria, is in, it's the summer.
28:39She was given what she thought was a special privilege to become an artist in residence on Les Wexner's estate
28:47in Ohio.
28:47There was a house that Epstein was using on his estate, and she was there.
28:53And on one of their visits, Epstein and Maxwell, they assaulted Maria.
28:57Yeah.
28:59Do you have any reason to not believe Maria Farmer's account of being abused by Jeffrey Epstein on your property?
29:07Objection.
29:09On his property.
29:16I want to be sure I answered this correctly.
29:18I never met her.
29:20Didn't know she was here.
29:21Didn't know she was abused.
29:26In 1996, Maria Farmer made the first recorded complaint of sexual assault by Jeffrey Epstein.
29:34Her FBI report has now been released in the Epstein files, though key details are missing.
29:42Complainants stated that she is a professional artist and took pictures of her sisters, 12 and 16 years old, for
29:53her own personal artwork.
29:55Epstein stole the photos and negatives and is believed to have sold the pictures to potential buyers.
30:02Epstein at one time requested blank, which was presumably Maria, to take pictures of young girls at swimming pools.
30:10Epstein is now threatening Maria that if she tells anyone about the photos, he will burn her house down.
30:20This is the document that was produced in the first batch of files resulting from the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
30:28And at the bottom, there's some writing on the lower right, 145C-0-343.
30:37And basically, it means that this file went into the child pornography section, 145C, that's child pornography.
30:44And zero means it went into the zero file, which means nothing was done.
30:52Maria gave a lot more information.
30:55She reported her fears for Annie, perhaps she was sexually assaulted.
30:59And she reported that Epstein, Maxwell, and others may have been involved in some kind of pedophile ring with children.
31:07She saw Ghislaine Maxwell doing what she called go get girls from schools, from the street, drive around, pick up
31:15girls, young girls, you know, underage girls, for Jeffrey.
31:20She reported all of this. So where is any of, where are any of those reports?
31:43It was an incident that occurred maybe like three, three and a half weeks ago with one of my stepdaughters.
31:51A stepmother of a child called the police department and told the person answering the phone at the police department
32:00that her daughter had sexual contact with an adult male in Palm Beach.
32:08We went to Palm Beach for a gentleman, pal.
32:13And we began our investigation.
32:22These are 14 and 15 and 16-year-old children.
32:26They were promised usually $200 or $300 for giving a massage to an adult male.
32:31In many cases, it resulted in a sexual battery.
32:38Epstein knew that we were investigating him.
32:43How do we know that?
32:44Because there were computers removed, we could see wires hanging.
32:50As far as I know, the computers have never come into the custody of law enforcement.
33:03We hadn't identified nearly 40 underage 18 victims at the point that we referred the case for prosecution.
33:18Among others, Donald Trump was one of the persons that did call me and basically thanked me for investigating Epstein
33:28once it became public.
33:30It was sometime in 2006.
33:34What did he say to you?
33:36He said that it was widely known that Epstein was doing this.
33:42Thank goodness that we were stopping him.
33:45Maxwell was helping him.
33:48And that Maxwell was evil.
33:50An important part of all this.
33:54The White House says Donald Trump may or may not have made the phone call.
33:59And that he cut off his relationship with Epstein because he was a creep.
34:03In 2019, Donald Trump said he'd no suspicions about Epstein's criminality.
34:10In 2008, prosecutors dropped sex trafficking charges as part of a plea deal with Epstein.
34:19He got an 18-month sentence for procuring a minor for prostitution.
34:29He ended up only serving 13 months and part of that in work release, some of the time in his
34:34own office and at his home.
34:38You know, I think that there are some people that still view this as a prostitution situation and I think
34:47that will change in time.
34:49He should have been sentenced to life.
34:55Epstein had worked his way into the lives of the rich and powerful.
35:00Some of them stayed in touch after he'd been convicted.
35:04And he corresponded with them.
35:06I sent him an email saying, you know, buck up, you know, you'll get through this, whatever.
35:12And then he went and had that strange incarceration where he was only in prison to sleep or county jail.
35:21It wasn't even prison, really.
35:23I didn't even think about it twice until it popped up in the Epstein files investigations.
35:30There was one email that I find the most disturbing in which he told me that he had this fantasy
35:38about making some kind of a film about, I can't remember.
35:43You could read it.
35:44Titles statutory.
35:46Girls and boys in where they look like nothing like the true ages.
35:51Right.
35:52And so I wrote to him.
35:53I said, do you know?
35:54Do you want to read just your response?
35:55No.
35:57But I remember the email because I thought, that's a really bizarre idea.
36:02So I said something like, oh, that's incredible.
36:05And then I remembered that there's a great artist who had done work around America's preoccupation with, you know, adolescent
36:15sexuality.
36:17They were discussing an infamous image of the actor Brooke Shields, taken when she was a child.
36:25I never saw him with young girls.
36:28He kept that part of himself very hidden to my everlasting shame.
36:34I, you know, I showed support and friendship to this guy because he made me believe that he was innocent
36:45of all those charges.
36:49When he came out, Epstein basically was looking not for girls who were underage, but looked like they were underage.
36:56And he was often looking far afield in other countries.
37:00He had scouts in other countries looking for girls for him.
37:03I'm talking Eastern Europe.
37:04I'm talking Paris.
37:05I'm talking any place.
37:07That seems to be everyone's response.
37:10Yes, I went to the island.
37:11Yes, I went to the house.
37:12Yes, I went to Palm Beach.
37:13I saw some girls sometimes, maybe, maybe they were.
37:16I didn't know how old they were.
37:17I didn't know.
37:18Now, everyone didn't know.
37:20That doesn't make any sense.
37:25Clearly, people knew his proclivities.
37:27His interest in young women, in girls, right?
37:31So he was not hiding that from people.
37:36And he was able to somehow charm people into making this seem okay, right?
37:42Or maybe some people were actually disgusted by that, but they, it was so important to them to have that
37:48association that they were willing to, to put up with it or, you know, look the other way.
37:59Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein had a bond of sorts that's unfathomable on certain levels.
38:12It's quite likely that he was able to mortgage that relationship into something else.
38:18So, in other words, he could go to a third person and say, oh, yeah, my friend Bill Gates, to
38:22further enhance his stature in the world.
38:27Bill Gates appeared on Capitol Hill in apologetic mode, saying he should never have met Epstein in the first place,
38:34but insisting he never witnessed any criminal conduct and never himself victimized anyone.
38:43Emails of Jeffrey Epstein's show Epstein back and forth discussing the creation of what was going to be called a
38:50donor advised fund, that Bill Gates would kick in lots of philanthropic money.
38:57And Epstein was promising to also bring in other billionaires and create this mega fund.
39:02And so Epstein was going to secretly run it from behind the scenes.
39:08Bill Gates considered investing, even though Epstein was a convicted sex offender.
39:13In the end, he pulled out. So Epstein tried another tactic.
39:22Epstein approached Gates and said the name of a woman that Gates had had an affair with, who was about
39:2723 years old, and she was a Russian bridge player.
39:32I think that was a threat. Like, I did some digging and I know some things about you.
39:37And that's a pretty big thing to know about the world's, one of the world's wealthiest people.
39:42I hope my testimony is helpful to the work, important work of the committee to find justice for the victims.
39:58Bill Gates told Congress he wasn't blackmailed, but he thought Epstein was getting ready to do just that.
40:08Gates is one of dozens of public figures who say they regret their association with the convicted sex offender.
40:22Some have resigned from their roles.
40:26I called the president of the school where I had been running a graduate program, and I told him that
40:33I wanted to resign.
40:36I can apologize again and again to those women and girls who were victimized by his behavior and his activities.
40:45I'm sure that there were students who would have been furious if I had fought to stay on and whatever,
40:53but I'm not really part of that art world anymore.
40:58And it's fine. I don't miss it.
41:01At $99 million. I have all the time in the world.
41:07I was in the room that night.
41:09And here comes Edvard Munch the Scream.
41:14$100 million.
41:18Price just keeps climbing and climbing and climbing.
41:21At $107 million. No? Are we done?
41:24No.
41:26Is he out?
41:27For the historic sum at $107 million.
41:31Hammer.
41:32Sold.
41:35Thank you, Charlie.
41:38Weeks later, it turned out that Leon Black was the buyer.
41:42Leon Black has to be one of the wealthiest men in the world.
41:47He was a big donor and influence to the Museum of Modern Art.
41:54Epstein had landed Leon Black as his latest super rich client.
41:59The private equity billionaire hired the convicted sex offender to manage his wealth, including his vast art collection.
42:08It's since been valued at almost $3 billion.
42:12The fact that he has JMW Turner, Paul Cezanne, Piet Mondrian, Claude Monet, Edward Monk, obviously.
42:24Rembrandt.
42:25Well, that surprised me a little bit.
42:27Vincent van Gogh, Michelangelo, Degas, Marcelie Kandinsky.
42:33If I look at that list, and that's what Leon Black has, he's a trophy hunter, but he's a trophy
42:38hunter at, like, a level that's in the stratosphere.
42:41Huge.
42:42I'm looking at the values, too.
42:45I mean, it's astonishing.
42:51Epstein had a plan to help cut Leon Black's tax bill on his masterpieces.
42:58There's a mechanism called a 1031, right?
43:01And it was originally founded as a mechanism for people who are, like, flipping farm equipment or real estate, right?
43:07It's the idea that you don't want to incur huge capital gains.
43:10So if you, you know, buy a new tractor, maybe you sold your barn.
43:15He was advising him how to, you know, flip the art and trade it and not incur a huge capital
43:21gains tax.
43:22Say that you bought a Giacometti at $10 million and now you're selling it at $25 million, they're going to
43:28tax you on that $15 million gain.
43:31So he was helping him find ways to avoid that.
43:38Did you not mind that Epstein was a convicted pedophile?
43:42I don't think it mattered to him at all.
43:55In 2019, the authorities in the U.S. Virgin Islands began investigating Epstein's operations.
44:04They soon discovered huge payments he'd received from Leon Black for his tax advice.
44:10In order to really see how this operated, the investigation was going to follow the money financial investigation.
44:23Jeffrey Epstein.
44:25The first thing that we learned was that he had a web of companies, entities in the Virgin Islands, registered
44:33in the Virgin Islands.
44:38One of his companies, Southern Trust, which actually handled a lot of the operations.
44:47Hiring employees, you know, coordinating travels from some of the women who were brought in.
45:01It was evident that there was a significant money flow to the Southern Trust.
45:12Much money passed or flowed between Epstein and Leon Black.
45:17And that was evident from early on in the investigation.
45:22Between 2013 and 2017, Leon Black paid Epstein's Southern Trust Company $158 million.
45:32It accounted for 85% of the company's funds in that period.
45:37Leon Black denies any knowledge or involvement in Epstein's crimes.
45:42But the money he paid into Southern Trust was almost single-handedly funding Epstein's sex trafficking operation.
45:53I have to imagine that that amount of money, there's no way that it couldn't have been funding private jets.
46:01Like flying girls to the island.
46:05Courting people, buying real estate, travel, his extravagant lifestyle.
46:10How could that money have not ended up funding some of that?
46:17In a legal settlement without admitting wrongdoing, Leon Black accepted his money had been used by Epstein to partially fund
46:25his operations.
46:27As is normally done, my team did present to Mr. Black the opportunity to settle the matter out of court,
46:38which he did choose.
46:43For how much money?
46:44It was about $62 million with Leon Black.
46:51What's most important, obviously, is that Leon Black, about $150 million Leon Black moved to Jeffrey Epstein.
46:58That's an enormous amount of money.
47:00And Jeffrey Epstein would not have been able to commit the horrific crimes without the support of Mr. Black.
47:06Leon Black has refused to cooperate with the Epstein congressional hearings.
47:12And he's now suing the committee for exceeding its powers.
47:17The files show Epstein helped manage payments on Leon Black's behalf to three Eastern European women.
47:25Even organizing surveillance on one former girlfriend and plotting to get her deported.
47:33At one point, when Leon Black's having trouble with this woman he says is blackmailing him that he had had
47:39an affair with, he had already paid her off.
47:41And Epstein is trying to help him find ways to create immigration issues.
47:44It certainly goes to using your power to try to intimidate people.
47:49Leon Black is still just living his life, as far as I can tell.
47:52I mean, because sometimes I'll say to people I can't believe that he's still on the board of MoMA or,
47:58you know, he's still out and about in society.
48:01Leon Black does not seem to be afraid to show his face.
48:03What do you think that comes down to?
48:05Arrogance and wealth.
48:12Leon Black denies Epstein acted as his fixer and says he regrets he gave Epstein a second chance after his
48:19conviction.
48:23He says Epstein was a despicable individual who duped and deceived repeatedly.
48:31Leon Black says Epstein's tax work was responsible for billions of dollars in savings.
48:38And that an independent report concluded that the $158 million he'd paid Epstein was for legitimate tax and estate planning
48:47advice.
48:49The authorities in the U.S. Virgin Islands then pursued one of the world's biggest banks, JPMorgan Chase.
48:57It had failed to report Epstein taking out millions of dollars in suspicious cash withdrawals.
49:06A substantial amount of Jeffrey Epstein's banking and accounts were with JPMorgan Chase.
49:13What we alleged is that JPMorgan had not complied with the banking reporting laws.
49:20When you see very large cash transactions, that is a classic red flag that requires reporting under the banking laws.
49:30They enabled Jeffrey Epstein in his sex trafficking operation by failing to report his suspicious activities.
49:46There was a settlement, and the settlement, I believe, was around for $75 million.
49:51Can you remember when you filed the case against JPMorgan?
49:55Yes, it was soon—it was in December of 2022.
50:00I think it was about five days before my departure from the attorney general's office.
50:04Are those two events related?
50:08I believe that they were.
50:10But I was let go, the governor, terminating me without cause, and that is, he has the right to do
50:17so.
50:18I do believe that it had everything to do with the JPMorgan filing.
50:27But I believe that the most important thing there, the most important impact, was really what it did to the
50:34investigation.
50:37The underlying Epstein investigation that was uncovering various, you know, people, persons, entities, that ended with my departure.
50:55The governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands didn't respond to our questions about Denise George's sacking.
51:03JPMorgan says it regrets any association with Epstein, and says it didn't help him commit his heinous acts.
51:14JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Deutsche Bank have also made settlements to Epstein survivors, totaling almost $440 million.
51:26All three banks denied wrongdoing and facilitating Epstein's sex trafficking by failing to properly report his suspicious transactions.
51:38I have no regrets.
51:41I am, I have no regrets.
51:46And I knew it was bigger than I was.
51:48I knew it was bigger than the Virgin Islands, bigger than the governor, bigger than everyone.
51:56But what would have been the alternative?
51:58I was not going to turn a blind eye, one knowing what I know.
52:05Absolutely not.
52:06But then I would be a part of the problem.
52:19Epstein emailed me, and it was a very strange email.
52:24So he said, dear Andrus, I'm moving things around from house to house.
52:30I seem to recall you want a statue of Madonna.
52:34Okay with me for trade.
52:36So I sent back a response.
52:39Sure, you know, I'll trade with you for the statue.
52:41And the next day, he sent me the statue.
52:49In return for the statue, Epstein asked the artist to take his photograph.
52:56Now, he didn't come in for his portrait until about six months later.
53:01And then two months later, he was found dead in his cell.
53:05Epstein had been remanded in custody after being charged with sex trafficking of minors in July 2019.
53:23My name is William Mercy, and I spent a year at MCC Federal Prison.
53:30The charge was tax fraud.
53:35I would say that I sat and conversed with Jeffrey Epstein on whatever subject for at least 15 or 20
53:44hours.
53:46I talked a lot about how running an advertising agency for prostitutes worked,
53:53which is how I made the money that I didn't declare on my income taxes and ended up there in
53:59his company.
54:00And he was interested in the business aspect.
54:03There were times where he would sort of drift off, and I knew he was, he was, oh, my God.
54:09I was having a good time for a second, and now I just remembered the deep shit that I'm in.
54:16A medical examiner found that Epstein took his own life.
54:21But that hasn't stopped the many theories surrounding his death.
54:26I believe he killed himself because I observed him for many, many hours.
54:30I observed his decline.
54:35Only the last time I watched Jeffrey did his mood really strike me as defeated.
54:41He was sitting on the floor of his prison cell with a styrofoam container of a chicken between his legs,
54:47looking very down and out.
54:50And I said, Jeffrey, what do you do? Why are you eating chicken on the floor?
54:54Oh, it's just easier this way.
54:57And then he asked me if I needed any money.
55:00And I said, well, you know, you're a billionaire. Why would I say no?
55:04That's a ridiculous question.
55:06So he said, well, put some money on your books.
55:08And I think he was, in retrospect, he was saying goodbye.
55:12You know, this is it. I'm going to throw you a few bucks, and you're never going to see me
55:16again.
55:16I'm going to kill myself at the earliest convenience.
55:20Which he did.
55:23Did you get the money?
55:24No.
55:34To date, only Ghislaine Maxwell has been convicted in connection with the Epstein scandal.
55:45So there are some things that continue to fascinate the public's imagination,
55:51because there will never be an answer that satisfies them.
55:57And Jeffrey Epstein is that monster that will never be able to be, you know, discussed in a way other
56:06than as a bigger-than-life phenomenon.
56:20I've found that he's more of a con man.
56:22Jeffrey Epstein was running a long-run confidence trick on the rich.
56:31What are you teaching your class now?
56:33That it seems like sometimes you can pursue justice against powerful people, but it's a very long road.
56:41There are Epstein-related investigations underway in nine countries, including the UK.
56:48Seven years after his death, for the survivors, the fight for justice continues.
56:54The core of this case has always been about the protection that power can provide, and, you know, impunity for
57:01elites.
57:01And I think that a lot of the names of people that have been connected to Epstein, these are people
57:08with a lot of money and a lot of power, and that has brought them protection.
57:39To be continued...
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