Who Was Jeffrey Epstein, and Who Was Linked to Him?

Jeffrey Epstein rose from an unlikely background to enormous heights of wealth and power, which he then used to sexually victimize many young women and girls. He moved in elite circles, with figures like Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Bill Gates flying on his private jet at different times. Epstein took his own life in a federal jail in New York in 2019, but his name lived on in various legal matters. A trove of legal documents relating to Epstein was unsealed in January. Overall, the names of more than 150 people who had some association with him were revealed, though the documents contained few revelations that hadn’t already been reported elsewhere.

A college dropout, Epstein was able to get a teaching job in the early 1970s at a Manhattan private school. There, he made a connection with Bear Stearns Chief Executive Officer Alan Greenberg that he was able to parlay into a job at the bank. He eventually became a money manager for billionaires such as Limited founder Leslie Wexner and Apollo Global Management Chairman Leon Black, and he accumulated a fortune for himself in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Epstein had private aircraft, one of the largest mansions on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a private island in the US Virgin Islands, a Palm Beach, Florida, estate, a ranch in New Mexico and other properties. He made substantial gifts to Harvard University and other prominent institutions, and was courted for donations by many others.