How did Jeffrey Epstein make his money and what happened to his fortune after he died?
At a bail hearing in July 2019, the legal team for ex-financier Jeffrey Epstein declared their client had more than $550 million in assets.
The 66-year-old was facing a series of serious sex trafficking charges in a case that gripped the world’s attention due to the potential ramifications for some very high-profile public figures.
Among several important questions about his behaviour, his friends, and his fate was central to Epstein’s bizarre life: where did all that money come from?
After millions of further files related to the paedophile were released last week, Epstein’s mounds of money have come into question again.
So just how did he make his money – and where did it go after his death?
Humble beginnings
The question of how a math and physics teacher in Manhattan managed to become a multi-millionaire has astounded those who knew Epstein for years.
Born to a working-class family in Coney Island, Epstein had humble beginnings in New York. He attended college, but never graduated before taking a job at Dalton School in Manhattan.
It was here that he would meet a parent of one of his students who saw Epstein’s potential and called Ace Greenberg, one of the heads of Bear Stearns, a Wall Street firm.
From there, he met Michael Tennenbaum, who called Epstein a ‘hell of a salesman’ and hired him on the spot. Epstein now had his foot in the door of Wall Street.
What was Epstein’s job on Wall Street?
In 1976, Epstein started at Bear Stearns. He rose through the ranks rapidly – with his mathematical skill reportedly serving him well – and within four years, he was a limited partner.
But the following year, he was fired. A New York Times investigation found out the reason why.
Tennenbaum, Epstein’s supervisor at Bear Stearns, checked his resume, where he found Epstein had two university degrees from California. The only problem was, neither university had a record of him.
When Tennenbaum brought Epstein into his office to question him, and planning to fire him, Epstein admitted it openly, saying he ‘knew nobody would give him a chance’ without it.
Epstein’s boss gave him a second chance – something Tennenbaum said he regrets now.
‘I didn’t realise that I was creating one of the monsters of Wall Street,’ he told the New York Times.
While working for Bear Stearns on Wall Street, he began swindling money from the company expense account, at one point, spending more than $10,000 on jewellery and clothes for one of his girlfriends.
Eventually, he was investigated by the company for that and other financial misgivings and suspended from the company with a major fine. But rather than face the consequences, Epstein resigned from the company altogether.
Epstein did soon end up starting his own wealth management business, though: J. Epstein and Co. (later renamed Financial Trust Co.), which began trading in 1982.
This is where the mystery comes in. Almost immediately, this relatively mid-level financier was successfully running his own company with an extraordinarily audacious central tenet – it would not accept a client worth less than $1 billion.
Epstein began collecting clients straight away. One in particular, who came his way in the mid-to-late eighties, would change his life.
Les Wexner is the business giant behind L Brands, which once ran retailers including Victoria’s Secret and Abercrombie & Fitch. He took on Epstein as a wealth manager when his own fortune was rocketing up.
The Wall Street Journal found that Epstein made around $200 million from his work for Wexner over a period of around 20 years.
Wexner and Epstein’s success together saw them donate to many political campaigns, as well, including that of Bill Clinton.
In 1993, the pair paid a visit to Clinton in the White House, with Epstein having paid some $10,000 to help refurbish the Presidential home that year.
In the years following, he continued business dealings which made him a pretty penny. But it all started to disintegrate around 2007, when he reached a deal with federal prosecutors and pleaded guilty to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution, ultimately serving 13 months in a work-release program.
Wexner cut him off, as did the bank JP Morgan, with which he had been heavily involved for several years.
When did Epstein meet Ghislaine Maxwell?
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s associate who is currently serving some 20 years in a federal prison for helping traffick girls to his private island, came into his life thanks to her father’s business dealings.
In 1990, Epstein was going through a breakup with a long-time girlfriend when a business associate introduced him to Ghislaine, the daughter of Robert Maxwell, a media baron, hoping to get him over heartbreak and give him a new business connection.
But after Robert’s sudden death in 1990, Ghislaine reportedly flew to New York, where she met up with Epstein, who began supporting her financially.
The pair quickly became an item, and by 1992, it’s believed Epstein began grooming and abusing teenage girls – something Maxwell would help him with.
When did Epstein buy Little St James?
Epstein bought Little St James in 1998 for around $12.3 million in today’s money. He later bought Great St James in 2016 for $22 million.
During a business meeting in 2012, Epstein said the US Virgin Islands are ‘perfect’ because of their isolation.
The attorney-general of the US Virgin Islands later described it as ‘the perfect hideaway and haven for trafficking young women and underage girls for sexual servitude, child abuse and sexual assault’.
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What was Jeffrey Epstein’s net worth before his death?
Epstein was still doing well enough 12 years later that his lawyers could declare more than half a billion dollars in assets, including four homes and two islands.
The month after they made that disclosure, Epstein was dead – and the questions about his life would only get more intense.
Since his death, those who worked with him in any capacity have been scrutinised by the media.
What happened to Epstein’s wealth after he died?
After his death, more than $170,000,000 of Epstein’s money was paid out to his victims, with another $105,000,000 paid to the US Virgin Islands to settle civil racketeering charges against his private island.
CNBC found that by the time creditors had gone through his money and his legal obligations were settled, Epstein’s net worth was just $40,000,000.
His Manhattan mansion was sold for around $51 million, and an IRS refund of estate taxes saw his estate’s worth rebooted back up to around $150 million.
Two days before he died in prison, he signed a document giving his estate, worth around $100,000,000, to his then-girlfriend, Karyna Shuliak.
Recent Epstein files found that a trust mentioned some 40 people as beneficiaries – including his lawyer, Darren Indyke, and accountant, Richard Kahn.
An estate lawyer told the New York Times that no one listed in the will would ‘receive any money from that estate unless and until all creditors and claims on the estate have first been satisfied in full, including claims for compensation made by women who suffered abuse at Mr Epstein’s hands.’
Ghislaine Maxwell, his co-conspirator in human trafficking underage girls, was also listed, along with his brother, Mark Epstein – Mark said he was unaware he was named in his brother’s will.
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