Transcription
I've been thinking about whether there's a hill for podcast listeners. And if there is, I reckon this is probably what they make you listen to.
When when your banana, my one of my favorite examples is the banana that's sitting on the countertop in your kitchen today. Is it alive or dead? What do you think about human life?
This is part of a 2-hour recording of Jeffrey Epstein chatting to noted MAGA influencer and former White House adviser Steve Bannon. So if you put your banana in a bag and put another fruit in with it, the fruit ripens faster because the banana breathes with it. That's how we don't understand most of those things. It was early 2019, just months before Epstein's arrest and subsequent suicide. Steve Bannon was apparently trying to find ways to help Epstein rehabilitate his image through the magic of podcasting.
What do you think human life is?
It's a miracle. Now, nothing newsworthy comes out of this 2-hour interview. Bannon doesn't grill Epstein. There were no hard-hitting questions, no admission of guilt or remorse, no insights into Epstein's appalling crimes. They don't even get to the bottom of where the bananas are conscious. There's also no indication that Epstein is particularly gifted when it comes to financial management, which is a bit surprising considering Epstein is generally referred to as
American financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The wealthy finance Jeffrey Epstein,
billionaire financier who rubs shoulders with high society and celebrities.
A billionaire financier. And yet, when you watch this video of him talking to Steve Bannon, he seems more like, well, this is how one of his financial clients, the retail billionaire Les Wexner, described him.
Just a guy, but medium haven with dark hair.
Just a guy with dark hair. Although, he's talking about when he first met Epstein. That hair gave way to gray pretty quickly. I spent 5 hours watching Les Wexner's testimony before the US House Oversight Committee last week and it was a lot more interesting than Epstein's interview with Steve Bannon.
You're a banana in a bed.
It was interesting because it might provide an answer to the question at the very core of the Epstein scandal.
How did Jeffrey Epstein really make his money?
Let me tell you, the survivors have said over and over and over, follow the money. The mystery of Jeffrey Epstein's wealth has never been been clarified. The origin of Epstein's money.
For most of Epstein's early 20s, he was a high school teacher with no background in economics. According to just about every report on him, he never showed any particular financial genius.
They were talking about inflation. I didn't understand the concept. I don't understand the concept today.
And this has led to speculation that he got his money from somewhere else. Jeffrey Epstein was working on behalf of intel services. Probably not American.
Epstein was blackmailing powerful individuals and trying to control them. I mean, this is clearly obviously a sexual blackmail. His island was a honeypot. I have spent months that I will never get back trying to find the most likely source of Epstein's money. And this deposition of Les Wexner has provided the clearest and simplest answer yet. So, is this the end of the mystery? Can we trust what Les Wexner has told us? I'm Matt Beavenon and this is if you're listening.
How did you first come to meet Mr. Epstein?
Was really by accident.
Hang on, just pause there for one second. Before we get to Les Wexner's congressional testimony about Jeffrey Epstein, it's worth talking about where this testimony took place. It wasn't in Washington at the capital building. Wasn't in New York or Florida or anywhere that Jeffrey Epstein famously lived and operated. It was in New Albany, Ohio.
Welcome to New Albany, a village that is lined with white fences and Georgian architecture, making it a tranquil, peaceful, lovely place to live.
It is no secret that this is Les Wexner's home turf. When I got off the plane, I saw Wexner's name all over the place. His name is on buildings. It's on medical centers.
New Albany might look like an old country town, but it very much is not.
New Albony was just a farm village. And I bought land here and developed it. Built the schools, built the fire station, built the police station, did all the community um public facilities, planted streets. Wexner is best known as the longtime CEO of the lingerie brand Victoria's Secret.
All of the women I know would like to wear lingerie all of the time.
But he was actually the CEO andor founder of 20 retail brands during his career.
You can't imagine how busy I was. I was engaged. I was married. I'm running 20 businesses. And running all these businesses was extremely lucrative. Wexner was so rich that he even had build my own town money.
I can remember did all the drawings. So I I was I I was the master developer of New Albany as a community.
But despite having grand plans for his own town, Wexner's view on the rest of the world was surprisingly contained. At least according to what he says in his testimony. I never had a birthday party for myself. In fact, I never had birthday parties. I never had personal relations with people that I worked with. I was pretty much a loner. I I never met Prince Andrew. I I never heard the story before. I'd never been to his office. I'd never been to Florida. I was busy, very busy.
In addition to apparently not getting out much, Wexter also seems not to read the news much. For example, during his deposition, he was asked about interactions he may have had with the most famous alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking operation.
Are you aware of who Virginia is?
No. Familiar name, but I don't I've heard it, but I can't don't connect it to anything.
Did you ever have any sexual contact of any kind with Miss Juy? No, how could I have contact? I don't even know.
Now, I find it pretty remarkable that in 2026, after a 20-year business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, this guy wouldn't be able to connect the name of Virginia to the news, especially when she'd made allegations against him, too. M Frey has accused you of um performing sexual acts with her multiple times. You dispute these allegations. She must be confused. Ne. It never happened.
So this is the guy we're dealing with. Seemingly hyperfocused on his family, his town, and his businesses, and uninterested in much else. if we take him at his word. Of course, I think it's important to first understand this story through Les Wexner's eyes. We can decide later if we believe it.
How did you first come to meet Mr. Absene?
Was really by accident. Uh I was friend with with a a couple Bob and Wendy Meister and uh I was in Florida and I'd never been to Florida. So, they were driving me around showing me what South Florida looked like and pasted uh and they showed me the Breakers Hotel and they were just driving around the driveway and they Bob stopped the car and he said, "There's somebody you should meet uh really smart, savvy guy named Jeffrey Epstein." And so they stopped the car. I was sitting in the back seat and they introduced me to Jeffrey and we drove off. That was about it. So, how did Epstein, a guy with no formal education in finance, business, or economics, get to the stage where he was being introduced to billionaires like Les Wexner as a smart, savvy guy? Well, Wexner describes him as
the world Olympic all-time con artist.
And if that is true, then it would go part of the way to explaining his career trajectory. So, let's go back to the beginning. Jeffrey Epstein started his career as a math teacher at the prestigious Dalton School on Manhattan's Upper East Side despite having no teaching credentials or university degree. After less than 2 years at the school, he was dismissed for poor performance, but quickly got a job at the Bear Sterns Investment Bank thanks to a parent of one of his students. In both cases, Epstein was reportedly appointed by bosses known to seek out unconventional hires. He was dismissed from Bear Sterns as well for lending the bank's money to a friend and suspected of insider trading. His talent was in sch smoozing, not necessarily in finance. By the late 80s, he had enough high-profile contacts that a few months after their chance meeting in Florida, he was top of the list when Wexner went looking for a money manager.
I asked Bob about I needed somebody to help me and I think he said, "Do you did you talk to Jeffrey Epstein?"
Mr. Waxner, would you characterize your relationship with Mr. Epstein, at least initially, to be solely business related?
Yes. Did you at any time ever consider him to be a close friend?
No.
Wexner testified that Epstein was only ever a business associate and not a personal friend.
I I don't think I ever went to lunch or dinner or a movie or had a a cup of coffee with Jeffrey. No, I I didn't see Jeffrey as a friend. I saw Jeffrey as I see Matt, my attorney, as friend. We're friendly, but we're not friends.
A harsh thing to say when Matt is sitting right next to you there, my dude.
My My focus was on my business and my focus was on community.
But despite not being friends, Wexner gave Epstein, a guy with pretty untested financial management skills, what many would consider to be an extraordinary amount of control over his personal finances. probably all my personal finance, houses, equipment, cars, just inventorying of stuff, this the stuff, I don't know, all the financial things that someone would handle outside of their business. Uh they have someone do cuz it was so much stuff.
Epstein was given broad power of attorney over Wexner's finances in 1991.
The financial adviser previous to Mr. Epstein. Did that individual have power of attorney?
I don't specifically remember it, but I think he did.
And Mr. Epstein did have power of attorney over your financial matters.
Yeah. And as did Dennis.
Dennis is Dennis Hirs, who succeeded Epstein as Wexner's money guy.
And um why did this become your practice to give them power of attorney? But so busy traveling so much. The papers had to be signed, tax returns filed, people had to act on my behalf, so many things to sign you. I needed to have somebody to do that. Now, he sounds kind of flippant, but we're talking about an astronomical amount of money here. In the time Epstein had power of attorney over his money, Wexner's personal fortune hovered between 1 and4 billion US. With power of attorney, Epstein had the ability to sign documents, pay money, and make investments on Wexner's behalf. It's a huge amount of power and responsibility for someone with a very limited resume. In news articles about Epstein through the9s and 2000s, it was frequently reported that Wexner was Epstein's only known client. Epstein apparently told Wexner he was happy to work for free, no fees, because he was enjoying managing Wexner's money. He claimed that he had lots of other clients.
He would say like, "I'm I'm providing uh financial advice to the founders of Google. I'm financial providing financial advice to Jeff Bezos. I'm finan providing financial financial advice uh for the chief technologist at Google. And I wow I'm in good company cuz these are really smart guys with a lot of money.
Do you think that there's anybody that understands money or understands the world's financial system as good as you?
There must be.
But it doesn't come to the top of the head.
No. Okay, fine. Wexner took Epstein at his word.
If my attorney said, you know, he was qualified to argue in front of the Supreme Court, I'd believe him.
But Wexner and Epstein's finances became more intertwined than any of Epstein's other supposed clients. Take for instance the house
to the uh New York City town home. Um 9 East 71st Street.
Town home is a bit of an understatement. 9 East 71st Street is reportedly the largest private house in Manhattan. If you've ever seen candid news footage of people surreptitiously coming in and out of Jeffrey Epstein's house, it's this house. It is this house in which Epstein committed many of his most horrific crimes. I was one of dozen of girls that I personally know who were forced into Jeffrey's mansion on 9 East 71 Street in New York City when we were just kids.
Yeah, that house. Well, before it was Jeffrey Epstein's house, it was Les Wexner's house. Also, you know this plane.
The pilot said that he remembered well transporting Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Kevin Spacy, and Prince Andrew on Jeffrey Epstein's planes. Yeah, that was Wexner's plane and then it was Epstein's plane.
Do you recall how much you sold the plane to Mr. Epstein for?
Yeah, I I do. It was approximately $6 million.
How did Mr. Epstein um purchase this plane from you?
I presume we wrote a check.
Presumably a check. Now, if that's the case, there's no public evidence of a check being paid for either the house or the plane. No deeds changed hands. No taxes were paid. During his deposition, Wexner says as far as he knows, he got a fair price for the house and jet. How does he know that? Well, that's what his wife Abigail told him.
How do you know it was ever paid to you?
Well, I guess Abigail would have known whether it was a check, whether it was a money order, whether it was or you know a bag of money.
The public hasn't been shown evidence of said checks, money orders, or hang on. Did he did he just say a bag of money? Was it Hessen with a dollar sign? Look, clearly he has no idea what is going on with his money. He by his own admission wasn't paying much attention.
I was busy, very busy. So Epstein was Wexner's moneyman from 1991 until he ran into some legal trouble about 16 years later in 2007.
Would you please state your full name and Jeffrey Edward Epstein and my residence address is 6100 Red Hook Boulevard in Virgin Islands.
By 2007, it was clear to Epstein that he was going to be spending some time in prison.
Have you ever been convicted of a crime?
Yes. What was the crime of which you were convicted?
It two uh counts. One, soliciting prostitution and procuring a minor for prostitution.
At this point, Epstein said that it might be best if Wexner took care of his own finances. Wexner delegated the job to his wife Abigail.
My wife is a M&A lawyer. She worked for Davis Pulk. She's really smart and she took over the finances and kind of concommently she was discovering that he would stole money from us.
Epstein stole money from us.
Subsequently, I found out that it was at least $100 million.
Does that represent the grand total of the amount that Mr. Epstein stole from you?
I don't know. I I don't think I'll ever know. So he found out that Epstein was stealing money from him 19 years ago. In those 19 years, Epstein became the most famous sex criminal in history. And yet, despite these horrific revelations, Wexner seems not to have been interested in investigating even the mechanisms by which Epstein stole from him. The trusts that he was trustee of would receive gifts of limited stock and he would then sell that stock on the New York Stock Exchange and then use a portion of those proceeds for his own personal purposes. Do you have any knowledge or recollection of what I just described?
I'm effing surprised. I shocked I didn't know this. Criminologist Tom Volo suggested that there was evidence Epstein would transfer stock in Wexner's company, Limited Brands, over to his own company account, and then he may have sold that stock and pocketed the profits. According to Wexner, he didn't know this was happening.
Effing shocked. I I just I'm appalled. I never heard that. You know that
there's been a lot of reporting on how much money Epstein allegedly stole from the Wexnerers. Les says it was at least $100 million. In 2019, his lawyers said several hundred million. When Abigail Wexner discovered Epstein's thievery, the Wexners began legal proceedings. Those were apparently settled out of court with Epstein paying the Wexners around $und00 million. I think your council's also represented that he repaid you about $100 million in 2008. Would you have any knowledge of exactly how much he repaid you or how?
No.
Whether that was via check money order or dollar sign sack, we don't know. But when the money was finally transferred, that according to Wexner was the end of their relationship. never talked to him, never saw him, and as far as I was concerned. Once we knew how bad he was, he was dead.
Wexner's lawyers said in 2019 that this misconduct appears to account
for virtually all of Epstein's wealth. And this is the key point, the point we've been circling this whole time. Was Epstein's extravagant lifestyle, the jet, the mansion, the islands, the ranch, the parties, and of course, the vast sex trafficking operation all financed by picking the pockets of a guy who was too busy building a little model village in Ohio to notice. The most solid piece of data we have on Epstein's money situation is an audit of his finances conducted by the US government when he died in 2019. Documents show that his estate is valued at $577 million.
Now, that valuation is a little bit off because it includes estimates of the market value of his properties. And it turned out that his properties couldn't really be sold at market value because, well, they were very famously the location of a lot of very heinous crimes. And nobody is going to pay full price for a location now universally known as pedophile island. What we can be more sure of are his liquid assets, his actual bags of money to borrow oexorism. The total value of Epstein's cash, holdings, equities, etc. at his death was $377 million. We also have access to 18 years of Epstein's business records, showing his personal investment holdings in each year from 1999 to 2017. The absolute peak of his wealth was in the last four years of his relationship with Les Wexner where he was sitting on about a half a billion dollars. That's right. He never appears to have been a billionaire at all.
I'm effing surprised. I shocked.
Aren't we all Les? In 2008, Les cut him off and forced him to pay a $100 million settlement. You can see a big drop in his accounts in that year. In the next few years, his cash reserves drop precipitously until he's rescued in 2014 by a new client named Leon Black, who paid him $157 million for his services. If we take Les Wexner at his word that Epstein stole most of his money from him in the '9s and 2000s, then there's no real mystery here. This isn't an asset trajectory of a financial genius. It's the trajectory of someone who gained access to large resources, invested them pretty conservatively, and drew down tens of millions of dollars a year to fund his extravagant and criminal lifestyle. Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that I've figured out the entire financial history of Jeffrey Epstein. What I am saying is that when it comes to how Epstein became so wealthy, there doesn't need to be a mystery here. It's very reasonable that he could have lived the life that we can see in the millions of photos and emails and videos that have been released by the US Department of Justice just by stealing money from Les Wexner and investing it in pretty basic index funds. He doesn't need to have been a financial genius or a spy or a blackmailer. He just needed to be
a crook and a con man. And in hindsight, you know, uh looking back, he would make Bernie made off look like a boy scout. So complete, so diabolical. I mean, just incredible, sinister,
which we know is true. Now, Les Wexner says that he's a good guy,
and I can't tell you how much I value my own ethics, my own moral compass, that it has a true north.
By his telling, he had no idea about anything the man he entrusted with his multi-billion dollar fortune was doing for the 16 years that they were in business. They weren't friends, he says. Then when it turned out that man was a sexual predator and a thief, he decided that instead of pressing charges, he'd settle for a refund.
You testified earlier that um you did not end up pressing any charges against Mr. Epstein for the theft of your funds. Um could you briefly explain to me why again you decided not to?
Advice advisors advice of advisers.
Advice of advisers. He outsourced that, too. He had a town to build after all. In the end, none of the rich and powerful people in Epstein's orbit did anything about his crimes. It took the bravery of people like Virginia Dury to actually hold Jeffrey Epstein to account. But unfortunately, Liz Wexner can't quite remember who she is.
Did you tell anyone what happened?
I didn't think there was a story to tell. From the ABC News documentary team,
Grace Tobin from Australia
is more expansive than you had imagined.
How did he manipulate? They're always protected, never held accountable.
People want vengeance.
Do you know people who have not yet been named?
Yes.
Do you think you're the devil himself?
No, but I I do have a good mirror.
Diabolical. The Epstein Files. March 2, ABC. and I view.