Transcription
On July 2nd, 2008, an $85 million Powerball jackpot was won in Oklahoma, and it was claimed by an entity called the Zoro Trust. The same name of a trust created by Jeffrey Epstein, linked to his ranch in New Mexico.
I went into the Department of Justice archive and pulled every Epstein file tied to his lottery purchases, how often he played, how much he spent, and who he bought tickets for. What I found was deeper than I expected. So, I brought this to the nation's top lottery attorney, Ker Ponus.
"The general rule is people with wealth do not play the lottery."
And yet, that's exactly what the records show. It starts with this Epstein file. It's a tip that was sent to the FBI one year after the jackpot was hit. It says some interesting facts that should be passed on to the investigative agent on the Epstein case.
"Zoro Trust, belonging to Epstein, won an $80 million lottery ticket in New Mexico. Zoro Ranch belonging to Epstein sits close to US Mexican border where most traffic children are routed prior to being dispersed to the east coast."
Now, if you take a closer look at this email, you will see that it was forwarded to someone else. The forwarded email reads, "For what it's worth, it was forwarded a second time. This time, it reads, FYI, call me if you feel we should discuss further."
We also see a portion of who forwarded this. And you will see that it says FBI. The letter in front of FBI is O, which stands for organization. So, the FBI forwarded this email. Who it was sent to is redacted. It just says USA. I did some research and found out that it's likely the US attorney's office in the Southern District of Florida where the early stages of the Epstein case played out.
One year later, Epstein's longtime pilot, Larry Vasoski, was questioned by an attorney amid a defamation lawsuit against Epstein. One of the questions attorney asked was quote, "Are you aware of the Zoro trust winning an $85 million Powerball lottery in 2008?" Vizoski responded, "No." The attorney asked again. Vizoski again responded, "No."
As you can see, this wasn't some internet rumor that was just floating out there. The prospect of this lottery win was forwarded within the FBI's internal email chain and it was serious enough to make its way into sworn testimony.
So where was Jeffrey Epstein on the day that this $85 million jackpot was won in Oklahoma? Well, he literally just started his jail term and was only in jail for a few days when that jackpot was won. But here's the interesting thing about that.
Dozens of DOJ files show Epstein frequently authorized lottery purchases through his longtime accountant, Richard Khan, who regularly reached out to Epstein, asking whether he wanted to purchase tickets either for himself, his employees, or for the girls. Check this out.
This is an email from Richard to Epstein dated November 28th, 2012. It says, "Attached are copies of $500 worth of tickets, originals will be held in safe. Good luck." Two days later, Richard sends Epstein another email saying, "Jess cashed in tickets and $74 was returned from $500 investment."
It's so interesting that he calls it an investment because remember Jeffrey Epstein was supposedly this financeier who spent most of his life around money. Yet his accountant is comfortable enough to call this an investment without Epstein saying, "You loser, this is the way you gamble your money away." called it an investment, which may suggest the way that Jeffrey Epstein viewed the lottery. Either he played it enough to where he considered it an investment or it may suggest something about the way that Jeffrey Epstein viewed the lottery in ways that other people don't.
Keep watching. Here's another email from Richard to Epste. It says, "Friday's Megaillions is 400 million. Would you like me to buy you tickets? If so, please advise on amount." Epstein responded a few hours later telling Richard to call him.
In 2016, Epstein responded to Richard's email with a subject line saying, "No winner for 900 million Powerball jackpot. Wednesday's drawing is worth 1.3 billion." Epste responded, "Okay, do it again."
And as I said, the lottery ticket purchases weren't just for himself. Here's an email 2 days later from Richard to an unknown person. It reads, "The prize for Wednesday's Powerball lottery is $1.5 billion and will probably go higher. Jeffrey wanted me to purchase $24 in tickets for you again. Attached are your numbers, which can be checked via website after 11:00 p.m. Wednesday evening. Good luck, and in case you win, I am holding your tickets in the safe." The same email was sent to an associate the next day, but she got $100 worth of tickets.
There are more emails like this that I dug up, but now I want to show you just how structural and meticulous some of these ticket purchases were. Take a look at this email. Richard said, "Price is 485 million for Wednesday drawing. Please advise if you would like me to purchase tickets for you and or girls. If so, what amounts?" Epstein responded, "100 tickets give out to girls." An hour later, Richard sent another email saying, "12 tickets, six girls, 17 tickets each. Please advise if amount and names are okay." Epstein responded an hour later. His message was redacted. After that email, Richard responded, "Thank you. I had a feeling a name was missing."
Epstein and his accountant Richard were so particular even for the smallest wins. Here's an email in 2013 from Richard to an individual that was redacted. It said in part, "PS, your last ticket won $1, which I will give you when I see you next. Even Epstein was CCd in this email for a $1 win."
Now, I'll admit there were some emails that I found on the DOJ website that at first glance sucked me into a rabbit hole. This was a prime example of one. Less than a year before his death, Epstein sends this email to an unknown person that said, "I've just heard that you chose not to cash in your winning lottery ticket because it conflicted with a modeling job. I'm very disappointed as I thought you understood what you had been offered." The next day, that unknown individual responded. "Unfortunately, I would have to fly today and fly straight back, which would be a little tight. I understand that the meeting date was slightly flexible, but I had misunderstood. Thanks for your time. Good luck with your new business."
So, what do you make of that? Well, it's important to also note that the Epstein files also returned dozens of results for the term green card lottery as Epstein facilitated and tried aiding several individuals to come to the US. That email could have potentially been referring to something like that.
But let's go back to the top for a second. The $85 million Powerball jackpot was won in Oklahoma, which is one state over from New Mexico where Epstein's ranch was. It was purchased specifically at a Stripes convenience store in Altus, Oklahoma, which is about a 6 to 7 hour commute. So, is there even a connection between Epstein and Oklahoma?
Well, we know that Epstein owned private planes. And when I searched the DOJ's Epstein file library for the word Oklahoma, more than 900 results came back, mostly tied to FAA aircraft registration documents filed through Oklahoma City. So while that doesn't place Epstein in Altus, it does show Oklahoma appears throughout his aviation and financial paperwork.
Speaking of which, I personally reached out to the Oklahoma Lottery Commission to ask them about that $85 million win. And they confirmed with me that the July 2nd, 2008 Powerball jackpot was claimed by Zoro Trust with a payment administered through the Heritage Trust Company. Again, Epstein had a trust called the Zoro Trust.
But I also wanted to know if there was any nexus between Epstein and this Heritage Trust Company which administered that lottery payment. So I searched for the term Heritage Trust Company in the Epstein files and there was only one hint. Here it is. This is a stock certificate dated 3 years prior to the lottery win. It shows that Financial Trust Company Inc. an entity Epstein operated is the shareholder in this certificate which was countersigned by Heritage Trust Company which acted as the transfer agent.
So, is this just a coincidence that Epstein operated a Zoro Trust in a trust called the Zoro Trust, claimed that $85 million win, and the name of the entity that administered that jackpot payment called the Heritage Trust Company is also a name that appeared in one of Epstein's financial records. I mean, at this point, it is a name overlap worth documenting.
Now, with all that said, in no way, shape, or form am I trying to uh draw a connection, a nefarious connection between the two, and it is possible that there could be multiple Heritage Trust Companies out there. I am still trying to verify if this is the same one. But there is one thing that is true. There aren't too many Heritage Trust Companies out there, and there were even fewer back in 2008.
But here's the big question. Did federal officials ever reach out to the Oklahoma Lottery Commission about this jackpot win? When I asked the commission, they said, quote, "No inquiries have ever been made about this particular claim." End quote.
But here's the thing. If federal investigators really wanted answers into this, they wouldn't need to call the lottery. So, I asked Kurt how this actually works.
"Does the FBI have have more power? Yeah, I think the FBI through, you know, their abilities to get at tax returns could easily go to the the uh the Zoro trust tax return back then and look at it to see, you know, who who was involved with this trust. The trust is created by someone. So, there's a creator of the trust, there's the trustee, and then there's something called beneficiaries. Now, they could all be the same. In this particular case, you know, they could find out who are the beneficiaries of this trust of this Zoro trust. They could easily do that. There's a there's a form when you when you have money that's being distributed out after it comes into a trust, there's a form K1 that goes out to all the beneficiaries. So, they can look at who are the beneficiaries and who got K1s and, you know, that would be who it got reported to. So, I mean, the FBI has a different set of rules to play by than you and I have or you as a reporter looking into this."
In other words, just because the lottery commission says no one asked, it doesn't mean no one looked. But here's where things get even a little more complicated. Even if someone did look, what would they actually see? Because when a lottery win is claimed through a trust, they don't see a person. They see a structure. And for anyone on the outside, that structure can be difficult to get through.
So, how strong is it?
"The trust is a nice shield when it's when it's done correctly. We're not taking your estate planning trust with names of individuals and your family members and making that part of potentially the public record. We're going to do our own trust."
If it isn't clear already, anonymity is designed. Again, the lottery commission also confirmed that the payment to the Zoro trust was administered through Heritage Trust Company. My question is if a if a trust uses a corp corporate trustee like a trust company administering the payment, does that does that increase anonymity?
"I've never seen that before."
"So, yeah. So, um it's unusual, but you have to remember um things were different back in 2008 than now. In most states, you had to identify who the winners were um no matter what. So, so you know, in this particular case, they went to a corporate trustee, a bank probably in in their town or in their area, and said, "Hey, we need a trust." Obviously, a corporate trustee would go along with that trust instead of having the attorney take care of the whole thing. So, we don't know who Zoro Trust is and who they went to. um did they go to an attorney or did they go to a financial planner right away and said, "Oh, go to the trust company. They'll act as your trustee." And so they created a trust document to get the money into their financial institution to invest for for the winner or winners."
So a corporate trustee adds a layer of protection, but it's not the only layer that can exist. Have you ever ran into an issue like this where someone is trying to hound and find out who the lottery winner is and try to, you know, pierce your trust?
"Yes. Um, you know, there was a a a state in the Northeast that I that I did some documentation for and I was brought in as the expert from another another law firm that said, "Hey, we have a client who uh who won." And I said, "No problem." And of course, the state law said um if you claim it in a trust, we will identify who the beneficiaries of the trust are. And so, you know, their law said you could claim it in a trust, but we get to declare, we would publish who the beneficiary of the trust was. So, I said, "Okay, fine." And I said, "Well, we'll still claim it in a trust, but the trust won't be for an individual. The trust will be for a limited liability company." So, what I did is I created a limited liability company, but I further created a trust for each member. So the LLC identified a manager. So the question was who's the manager? Well, that would be me. So they identified me as the manager and then as the manager of the LLC, I created a trust and named myself as trustee of the trust and claimed it for the LLC with a trust. So when it came down to identifying who the winner was and there was a request for this information. They said hey state law allows for identification of who the beneficiary was of the trust that we told the state fine you could tell you could tell them who the beneficiary of the trust was. Beneficiary of the trust was Kurt manager of an LLC. So you know they didn't get anywhere. So I use a double trust system and I do that to keep them from being identified even if the state releases the information about the trust. So you know these are all the little tricks in the trade that I use and that kind of structure creates distance between a name and the money."
Now it's also important to note that the Oklahoma said that they spoke to an employee at the store where the winning lottery ticket was sold. That employee told the Oklahoma that it was actually their co-orker who purchased the winning ticket. That employee did not provide the name of that alleged winner. At this point, it is only a claim. I looked everywhere online. I couldn't find any other source that corroborated that claim.
With that said, there is no confirmed evidence that Jeffrey Epstein won this jackpot. What we do know is this. The jackpot was claimed by something called the Zoro Trust. Jeffrey Epstein operated a trust by that same name. The payment was administered through Heritage Trust Company, a name that also appears in one of Eps's financial records. And we know he played the lottery often and purchased tickets for others. The possibility of Epstein winning even circulated inside the FBI and surfaced in sworn deposition questioning.
Maybe this is all a coincidence, maybe it isn't. Right now, there's no public record that could answer that question, but I'll keep looking. Thanks so much for watching the BW Report. Bye now.