How Jeffrey Epstein interacted with the feds
Lawyers with bow ties and connections
This is part of an ongoing series, started in 2019, looking into Jeffrey Epstein. Click here for a guide to the whole thing.
The “cancer text” was the worst; everyone agreed on that.
In 2015, Jeffrey Epstein and Brad Karp (then chair of Paul Weiss, one of the most prestigious law firms in the world) spent a Sunday emailing each other without a subject line.
They also left out the name of the man they were talking about. And the woman. But there was definitely a man, and definitely a woman.
“I think the most troubling text is the ‘cancer’ text and he and I have talked about that and he understands that, I thought,” wrote Karp. “I don’t think she technically has a ‘legal’ claim (there have been no promises made, no stalking, no threats), though I told him yesterday that the filing of a baseless lawsuit would be devastating to him and his world and he should do everything he can to avoid that.”
By 1 p.m. Epstein had thoughts:
difficult to settle as there are others that would i think might be encouraged to emerge. most other similar cases are usually a one off. - . perfect storm. cosby, wey, . money , wall street etc. . terrible. . if she falls into the hands of the bottom fishers. very bad. very. - they will want the pr. recent judge rulings. public has a right to know about bad behavior . moma chair , public . etc. sex , younger women, power huge sums already paid. ( fyi he is naive re scale and perception_)
That passage contains clues. Many of these cases are “a one off” but in this instance “there are others.” Another concern is “younger women.”
“Cosby” is presumably Bill Cosby. (The very week of Epstein’s email to Karp, New York magazine featured a cover photo of 35 women who had accused Cosby of sexual assault, with an empty 36th chair for those who had not yet come forward. The story told “their stories about being assaulted by Bill Cosby, and the culture that wouldn’t listen.”)
And “Wey” is likely Benjamin Wey, a financier whom Epstein references by first and last name in an email to Karp a few weeks later. Ten days before this email, The New York Daily News had an article about Wey with the headline “Former Swedish model was stalked, harassed by boss in person and online, lawyer says in opening of $850M lawsuit.”
Most important, though, are the two words “moma chair.” At the time of that email, Marie-Josée Kravis was the chair of the Museum of Modern Art (as she is again today). But Leon Black was on the board (as Leon and his son Joshua are today) and became chair in 2018.
Leon Black was especially important to Epstein. Black has long been reported to have paid Epstein $158 million, or more. But digging through the Epstein files, Kevin Bass found emails that convincingly narrate Epstein being given power of attorney to sign for Black as he famously did for Leslie Wexner. You can read them for yourself.
It seems Epstein felt responsible, and assigned himself the task of making sure this man did not get in trouble.
A host of enduring mysteries emerge from the Epstein files. To me a huge one is, over the course of the Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein investigations, there’s evidence an alarming number of women told their stories to authorities in New York—whether the FBI or NYPD—with claims about billionaires.
It’s urgent that we understand the mechanism by which so many of those claims evaporated. It’s urgent to understand why those women didn’t achieve justice. It’s urgent to restore trust in the powers that be.
Few doubt the system is rigged, but how is it rigged?
The New York Times and other outlets found an example of Epstein building relationships with customs officers in the Virgin Islands. They texted, called, played music at his house—and evidently helped him avoid legal scrutiny. Here’s an incredible story of Epstein helping a Swiss bank negotiate out of trouble with the Department of Justice.
How did Epstein reach the FBI, which we now know sat on a massive trove of victim statements that impugn a who’s who of powerful men?
It’s through those eyes that I read this email exchange. Epstein seems to have magic pull with the authorities in NYC. Was that an intelligence thing? A corruption thing? A friends in high places thing? A kompromat thing?
In this July 2015 email to Karp, Epstein clarifies his approach.
another meeting? when? tape ?, if so law enforcement involvement. ? so it is scripted. and usable. , as the money is huge I vote FBI.. foreigner . etc. more professional. experienced with blackmail sting - . your potential conflict., if any ? . add Levander or Weingarten? relationship to law enf paramount.
In a nutshell, the idea is to hire a top attorney with deep ties to law enforcement. Epstein is already talking to one of the most powerful attorneys in the world, noted for his networking ability. But he needs a better-positioned attorney. He drops two names: Levander or Weingarten.
Weingarten, of Steptoe, has represented huge names like Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, WorldCom head Bernard Ebbers, Enron’s Richard Causey and others. When Michael Wolff was hanging around Epstein’s New York house, he reports that Weingarten was often there, and Wolff notes Weingarten has “deep DOJ sources.”
Levander is very likely Andrew Levander, then the head of Dechert LLP.
Epstein was evidently recommending Andrew Levander. As we have discussed on TrueHoop, Levander reportedly met Epstein in 1982. In his 2017 book Filthy Rich, James Patterson reports that Spanish heiress Ana Obregon hired Jeffrey Epstein to recover her father’s fortune. Levander, at that time, was an assistant US Attorney in the Southern District.
Patterson writes:
Even today, Levander remembers Epstein bringing “a very attractive woman” to meet him when Epstein came to him in the course of the investigation. The woman was Ana Obregon. Levander told Ana that he was already working the case. A lawyer named Robert Gold, who was a former federal prosecutor himself, was assisting. And now Epstein would join them in the hunt for monies.
Patterson writes that Epstein and Levander worked on the case together for “years,” which would presumably cross over into when Levander left for the private sector a few years later. Levander’s clients over the years have included several (Microsoft, Barclays, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank) reputed to have ties to Epstein.
But something else interests me even more in Levander’s biography (as told on Wikipedia but not the Dechert website; bolding mine):
Upon leaving the U.S. Attorney’s office in 1985, Levander joined New York-based firm Shereff, Friedman, Hoffman & Goodman, where his clients included fund managers David Askin and John Kaweske, former Sunbeam Corporation chairman Paul Kazarian, Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, and Haroon Kahlon, an associate of National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia chairman Sheik Khalid-Bin-Mahfouz who was implicated in the BCCI scandal.
Khashoggi is as good a model for Epstein as has ever existed, and the BCCI story a perfect window into the world of high-grade crime through banking, sexual entrapment, money laundering, and intelligence. If this is a story about transnational criminal groups secretly running the world, then Khashoggi and BCCI are paramount.
Epstein knows a zillion attorneys. When “relationship to law enf paramount” he thinks of Levander.
I wonder who they called, how they handled what Epstein calls a “blackmail” operation. That I can’t say for certain how the case that Epstein and Karp discussed that day in 2015 resolved is probably a sign that they succeeded, without anything “devastating to him and his world” as Karp had feared.
Epstein certainly knew how to make problems go away, and who to call. Sometimes it’s Andrew Levander.
When Leon Black got in trouble for associating with Jeffrey Epstein, and the story threatened Apollo Global’s business, Apollo Global’s conflicts committee had a problem to clean up.
From an Apollo press release: “At a regularly scheduled Board meeting in October 2020, Mr. Black requested the Conflicts Committee, comprised of independent directors, retain outside counsel to conduct an independent and thorough review.”
Which lawyer did Apollo’s independent conflicts committee select for that sensitive “independent and thorough” investigation?
Thank you for reading TrueHoop! Tomorrow: What wasn’t in the Dechert report.