The press conference for Epstein survivors we covered earlier this year felt claustrophobic.
It was the afternoon before President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in February. The women who had suffered at the hands of the world’s most infamous predator were crammed into a small meeting room in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, DC.
They had gathered to demand acknowledgement that evening from both Congress and the President. The venue was so tiny, there was barely room for the survivors to gather around the podium.
The assemblage stood in stark contrast to what we found in the emails we had been poring over after the Justice Department released an often-opaque database of documents gathered during several investigations of the historic sex predator.
Based on what we’ve read, Epstein and his associates inhabited a world of material and social abundance. They weren’t constrained or forced to plead for anything. Their lives were full of easily obtained wealth, which afforded plenty of space to commit crimes.
This contrast reveals what this scandal is ultimately about: not just one man’s crimes, but the unimaginable inequality that made asking for tens of millions of dollars as easy as writing a poorly worded email. In fact, all Epstein had to do to enrich himself was to ask.
Consider what Epstein sent to media mogul Mortimer Zuckerman in July of 2014:
I’m happy to hear from you, happy to see your stock at the 120 level. an increase in over 100
million in new net worth in only a few months. (how long did it take for the first 100?) I
assume, by your email, that as I predicted, you have not found a solution to your very complex
problem that meets all of your needs. I’m really sorry. I cherish our friendship and I know the
feeling is mutual. That being said, we have been down this road many times before.
Here Epstein is flattering Zuckerman, extolling his apparent exponential increase in net worth as the result of an exuberant stock market. A few sentences later, he proposes a cut for himself to manage the newly appreciated riches. A whopping $40 million.
my fee has always been and will continue to be 40 million dollars. payable up front now. and refunded in part, if unsuccessful. As you recall, I have already found hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars of issues, charity clauses etc. as per our past emails. You have in the past, in your words been unable emotionally to come to grips with paying large fees. I respect that view as I respect you. If you still have hesitations lets not even begin again…
The request is rendered in a dense, grammatically erratic block of text—no detailed explanation, no detailed justification for the fee. It’s an amazingly casual request, given the amount of money at stake.
Zuckerman didn’t take the bait. But the exchange is par for the course in a world where the top 1 percent’s share of wealth continues to grow without limit.
In the early 2010s, Epstein persuaded private equity magnate Leon Black to hire him to manage his so-called “family office” ironically called Elysium, the Greek utopian afterlife where the heroic and righteous spend eternity. Family offices are employed by the ultra-wealthy to manage their fortunes in lieu of an independent investment firm. Here is Epstein’s pitch for a $15 million fee to run it:
you said, i have no trouble paying you for value. I am glad. I am glad you say that but it appears when the time comes you change your mind. you take a 600 million dollar tax savings 1.5 billion dollar Deduction and pay less than 15 m
And later, pushing Black for more:
i asked about the large transaction and the past year and he said he had relied on you to tell him the 20m for the 600 million benefit was the right number
Again, Epstein proposes a stunning sum with no accounting of services rendered.
It was a pattern of casual requests that caught the attention of the Senate Finance Committee. In a letter to the executors of Epstein’s estate in 2023, Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) asked for more details on why extracting huge sums from Black was so uncomplicated.
“The Committee also requested an explanation of how compensation amounts for Epstein were decided in payments made on an ad hoc basis where no formal services agreement was negotiated,” wrote ranking member Wyden.
The cost of idle wealth
But the emails reveal something else beyond the fluid mechanics of fee extraction. They also document what extreme wealth actually purchases: time, immunity, and the operational freedom to commit crimes on an industrial scale.
This is why a significant number of the emails we reviewed have nothing to do with finance at all. They concern logistics—the movement of private planes between New Mexico and Paris, the scheduling of lunches with billionaires, the maintenance of a network of apartments used to house young women. Cash transfers to unnamed recipients abroad in need of visas and airfare. The mundane administration of a trafficking operation, rendered in the same casual shorthand as a request for $40 million.
From: Jeffrey Epstein<jeevacation@gmail.com> On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 8:21 AM
“And tomorrow I’m organizing a dinner for some new russian girls there.. See you at 10 with…”
On Dec 30, 2010, at 3:27 PM, visas@rnto.org wrote: to: Jeffrey Epstein
Hi
The quickest official turnaround time with the Russian Consulate is 3 business days. We can do it sooner using our personal connections. The charge will be as follows if you decide to do that:
1. Same-day service $1000.
2. Next-day service $600.
3. 2-day service $500
4. 3-day (regular) service $320.
Let me know your decision.
Thank you.
Visa section
Russian National Group
From: Redacted
To: Jeffrey Epstein <jeevacation@gmail.com>
Sent: Sun 8/5/2012 11:25:41 PM
“I have 2 russian girls for you to meet, one 21, another 24. One skinny, another curvy and supercute… Both exited. Let me know whe” [sic]”
No investment memos. No PowerPoint decks. No evidence of the financial genius his associates later claimed.
That absence is significant. When wealth is concentrated enough, it doesn’t require justification or effort—and apparently, neither do the crimes it enables.
Investigators in Palm Beach, where the Epstein saga first catalyzed, determined he had three encounters per day with underage girls. That process included managing a household staff, authorizing cash withdrawals, and coercing victims to recruit more victims.
The world that made him possible
As victims have recounted to us, Epstein was unwavering in his perversion and self-preservation after the fact.
We asked Danielle Bensky, a survivor who was lured by Epstein with promises to help her mother who was suffering from brain cancer. She told us the emails revealed the potency of Epstein’s power, which she had not fully grasped until the documents were released.
“He had incredible power,” she said shortly after a roundtable discussion on Capitol HIll with other survivors and Congressman Ro Khanna (CA-17).
“It was always in the background, but we never saw it written in black and white. And to see in those emails how deep the power goes, I think it explains a lot.”
That’s the key point. A society that affords a single man the excessive power, wealth, and spare time to rape children is clearly incapable of conveying economic fairness to the rest of us.
And the victims of Epstein’s predations have told the story of a world that not just afforded but bolstered his crimes with hoarded, unearned wealth.
That’s why the Epstein scandal won’t die, even if Epstein did. We are all still living in the world that made him possible. The emails reveal how it was constructed at our expense.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
