The relationship between Epstein and Leslie Wexner
One of the most befuddling questions surrounding the Jeffrey
Epstein saga is why Leslie Wexner, a billionaire entrepreneur, entrusted all of
his money to Epstein, a secretive financier with no college degree.
For those immersed in the Jewish world, there’s an added
question: How did Wexner — a prominent philanthropist seen as a champion of
Jewish learning and ethical teaching, whose foundation has trained waves of
rabbis, Jewish professionals and volunteer board leaders — end up so enmeshed
and enamored with a future convicted sex offender and alleged sex trafficker?
Is Wexner connected to the sex abuse accusations against
Epstein? Has the philanthropist been accused of any wrongdoing? Does any of
this taint Wexner’s legacy or the beneficiaries of his many programs?
Since the Epstein sex scandal resurfaced this year, these
questions have dogged Wexner, the owner of Victoria’s Secret who at one point
was Epstein’s only known financial client. Wexner was very close with Epstein
and trusted him as a money manager and legal representative.
Epstein, who served a year in prison and registered as a sex
offender more than a decade ago, was arrested recently and charged with sex
trafficking. He was found hanged in his jail cell on Saturday in what officials
are calling a suicide.
As the scandal has unfolded, Wexner and his associates have
put out a series of statements on Epstein and their relationship. His
connection with Epstein has also led to stormy discussions among the recipients
of his largesse about the ethical dilemmas they face.
Here’s a primer on how the two became so close, and why
their relationship poses a dilemma for many in the Jewish community.
Who is Leslie Wexner?
He’s an 81-year-old Jewish billionaire who lives in the
Columbus, Ohio, area. Wexner made his fortune by founding The Limited, a
women’s clothing brand, in 1963.
Wexner has since expanded his apparel empire to include
other brands, like Bath & Body Works and, most notably, Victoria’s Secret,
a once-obscure lingerie store that he turned into an empire. It’s all now under
the umbrella of his company, L Brands. He is the longest-running CEO of a
Fortune 500 company.
He also ventured into real estate, developing the posh
community of New Albany, Ohio, where Wexner lives in a 60,000-square-foot
mansion. According to Forbes, he’s worth $4.6 billion.
How much has he given to Jewish causes?
Plenty. The Wexner Foundation is among the most prominent
private Jewish charities in the world. In 2017, according to tax documents, it
gave $3.6 million in charity, much (but not all) of it to Jewish educational
causes, as well as more money for educational programs.
The foundation is best known in the Jewish world for its
graduate fellowship, which awards scholarships to 20 promising graduate
students in Jewish fields, including rabbinical school, cantorial school,
Jewish educational school or another degree program. More than 1,800 people
have participated in its program aimed at providing volunteer board leadership
with lessons in Jewish history, thought, texts and contemporary issues. The
foundation runs a variety of other programs, including training for Israeli
public officials.
What does all of this have to do with Jeffrey Epstein?
Nothing, and everything. For decades, if Wexner spent any
money, Epstein was likely connected to it somehow. Epstein, a former prep
school teacher, had entered the finance world and gained a reputation as an
astute money manager for the super-wealthy. He met Wexner in the 1980s, and the
two forged a close relationship. Epstein eventually received power of attorney
over Wexner’s finances.
In a statement last week distributed by his foundation,
Wexner wrote that Epstein “had wide latitude to act on my behalf with respect
to my personal finances while I focused on building my company and undertaking
philanthropic efforts.” In 2003, Wexner told Vanity Fair that Epstein had “excellent
judgment and unusually high standards.”
Epstein also was involved with Wexner’s charitable efforts.
In 1990, the two helped fund the construction of a new building for the Harvard
Hillel. Two years later, after Wexner’s mother fell ill, Epstein replaced her
on the Wexner Foundation board.
In his recent statement, Wexner insisted that Epstein “had
no executive responsibilities in the running of the Foundation” and “did not
work directly with Foundation staff, and he did not engage with leadership
initiatives in any way.”
Sounds like they were really close.
Yes, and their relationship was more than a typical
professional one. They were invested together in Wexner’s Ohio real estate
development. Epstein lived in Wexner’s New York City townhouse for years,
eventually acquiring it, along with acquiring a private plane from Wexner.
Epstein also supervised the construction of Wexner’s yacht,
Limitless, and was a frequent guest at Wexner’s Ohio parties, according to The
New York Times. The Times also reported that Epstein froze out some of Wexner’s
friends and acquaintances from his life.
When Epstein was first investigated in the mid-2000s, for
unlawful sex acts with a minor, he denied the allegations. Eventually, however,
he accepted a deal under which he pleaded guilty for two counts of solicitation
of prostitution — one with a minor. Wexner says he broke off his relationship
with Epstein in 2007 and later found out that Epstein had taken a lot of money
from him.
“This was, frankly, a tremendous shock, even though it
clearly pales in comparison to the unthinkable allegations against him now,”
Wexner wrote in his recent message, regarding the financial misappropriation.
“I am embarrassed that, like so many others, I was deceived by Mr. Epstein. I
know now that my trust in him was grossly misplaced and I deeply regret having
ever crossed his path.”
In 2008, Epstein made a $46 million donation to one of
Wexner’s charities. Wexner wrote in his letter that “payments Mr. Epstein made
to the charitable fund represented a portion of the returned monies” Epstein
had misappropriated.
According to CNBC, Wexner has provided documents showing the
financial misconduct to federal investigators.
So has anyone implicated Wexner in Epstein’s crimes? And
what does this have to do with Alan Dershowitz?
Wexner’s name has been dragged into an ongoing legal battle
between Alan Dershowitz and one of Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Roberts
Giuffre, and her lawyers.
Dershowitz had his own personal and professional
relationship with Epstein. They were close (Dershowitz has said he loved
talking with Epstein and would show him drafts of his books) and the
high-profile lawyer has helped represent Epstein. Epstein once brought
Dershowitz to one of Wexner’s parties — as, Dershowitz says, an “intellectual
gift” to Wexner.
Two of Epstein’s alleged victims, including Giuffre, have
accused Dershowitz of sexual assault, which he denies. Dershowitz claims that
the accusations against him were part of a plot by one of Giuffre’s attorneys,
David Boies, to extort money from Wexner.
According to a report in the Miami Herald, another of
Giuffre’s lawyers, Stanley Pottinger, submitted an affidavit saying his client
said that under Epstein’s direction, she had sex with both Dershowitz and
Wexner.
But New York magazine reported that “Boies had three
conversations with Wexner’s lawyers in 2015, after which the allegations were
quietly dropped.” Boies asserted in an affidavit that “no settlement demand was
ever made, or even discussed.”
Some of Epstein’s alleged abuse occurred at the Manhattan
townhouse once owned by Wexner, where Epstein lived. Another Epstein accuser,
Maria Farmer, said Epstein hired her to work on a mural at Wexner’s home in
Ohio in the summer of 1996, and assaulted her there. In an affidavit, she
asserted that “Wexner’s security staff refused to let me leave the property”
and that she was held against her will for approximately 12 hours.
Farmer said that after returning to New York, she filed a
report with the police and the FBI.
Farmer’s affidavit does not suggest Wexner himself was
involved with or knew about the incident.
Federal authorities thus far have not implicated Wexner in
Epstein’s crimes, according to Bloomberg, but prosecutors are still
investigating which if any of Epstein’s business associates were involved with
his alleged crimes. In a statement posted in July, Wexner insisted (in all
caps) that “I was NEVER aware of the illegal activity charged in the
indictment.”
The Wexner Foundation has not given interviews about the
scandal and declined to speak to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the
matter. JTA has asked the foundation specifically about the allegations by
Farmer and Giuffre, and also has reached out to Guiffre’s lawyers, including
Pottinger, for comment.
According to The Times, Epstein also falsely represented
himself as a talent scout for Victoria’s Secret, then used that identity to
meet women whom he assaulted.
L Brands’ stock price has dropped as the Epstein scandal has
unfolded.
Beneficiaries of the Wexner fellowship and other programs
are grappling with what to do, given the association between their benefactor
and a sex offender.
“What do you do when you’ve taken in dirty money but already
spent it?” one alumna told The New York Jewish Week. “It’s not clear that you
can do more than commit to doing anything but doing better research in the
future.”
The debate has played out as well in emails between alumni
and faculty of Yeshivat Hadar, a traditional egalitarian yeshiva in New York
City where some faculty members and students are former Wexner fellows.
“I would like to propose our community take the lead in dissociating
ourselves from Wexner and taking a stand against him being able to buy his way
into a good name,” Ike Brooks Fishman, a Hadar alum who was not a Wexner
fellow, wrote to the yeshiva listserv, according to copies of emails he posted
to his Facebook profile page.
Fishman also posted a response from one of Hadar’s
co-founders accusing him of “tarring the faculty of Hadar, many of its current
students and those who will enter this fall.”
“I am ashamed that you were once my student,” wrote the
co-founder, who told The Jewish Week that the email was shared without prior
consent and has since apologized.
Rabbi Aviva Richman, a Hadar faculty member, wrote in a
statement to The Jewish Week that Hadar receives no funding from the Wexner
Foundation, and that Fishman’s email was an “incredibly destructive
misrepresentation” of Hadar’s intentions.
“We are proud to be a community that confronts these
concerns directly,” she wrote.
In July, the president of the foundation, Rabbi B. Elka
Abrahamson, sent a mass email to those involved with the foundation and its
programs expressing disgust with Epstein.
“It runs contrary to every value we believe in and teach,
especially the fundamental tenet that all human beings are created in God’s
image,” she wrote about the allegations. “This is an individual who utterly
twisted and tossed aside that sacred notion. We are sickened by Mr. Epstein’s
behavior.”
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