Jeffrey Epstein: who was the influential convicted financier who now divides the Republican Party rank and file?

Jeffrey Epstein was an American financier and convicted sex offender who was accused of serial sex trafficking of women and girls.

Thanks to his successful financial career, Epstein became a multi-millionaire and developed a social circle that included extremely wealthy individuals, prominent politicians and even royalty. While incarcerated and awaiting federal trial for sex trafficking, Epstein committed suicide by hanging himself.

Questions about the existence of a "client list" allegedly maintained by the financier have rocked the second Trump administration.

Formative years

Epstein was born in 1953 in Brooklyn, New York and was the first of two sons of Paula Epstein and Seymour Epstein. His mother was a homemaker and his father worked as a gardener for the New York Parks Department.

During his teenage years he attended Lafayette High School in Gravesend, Brooklyn. The young man was a student who had a particular talent for mathematics.

He graduated in 1969, having skipped two courses. That same year he enrolled at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, where he studied until 1971, when he transferred to the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University (NYU) where he studied for three years, but never graduated.

In 1974, despite not having graduated, Epstein began teaching physics and mathematics at the private Dalton School in Manhattan, many of whose students were from elite families.

His successful and bizarre career as a financier

Epstein so impressed a student's father with his intelligence that the father recommended Epstein to Alan ("Ace") Greenberg, then CEO of the Wall Street investment firm Bear Stearns and also the father of a Dalton student.

In 1976, Epstein was fired from Dalton and shortly thereafter began working at Bear Stearns.

In 1980, four years after joining the company, Epstein was named limited partner. However, in 1981 he left the company to run his own business. By that time, Epstein's personal financial situation, as well as his business practices, became increasingly murky.

Some of his associates during the 1980s claimed that he referred to himself as a "bounty hunter" who recovered stolen money for the ultra-wealthy.

In 1988, Epstein founded J. Epstein & Company, a consulting firm that provided money management services to individuals with a net worth of more than $1 billion.

In the 1990s, Epstein began running his business from the island of St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands—a tax haven—where he owned the nearby island of Little St. James.

The financier kept a flight log of the people who traveled on his private jet. Among those listed on the registry were former U.S. President Bill Clinton, prominent lawyer and Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz, and Prince Andrew, Duke of York.

A first conviction for sex crimes

In 2005, the Palm Beach District Attorney's Office launched an investigation against Epstein for underage prostitution.

The FBI soon became involved. More allegations began to emerge, and by the time U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Alexander Acosta began building a criminal case, the number of alleged victims had reached about 40.

In 2008, Epstein avoided a federal trial by taking a controversial plea deal on lesser charges of solicitation of prostitution, serving 13 months under a "work release" regime and gaining immunity for possible accomplices. This deal was harshly criticized for protecting implicated third parties and for opacity in identifying other perpetrators.

The bizarre death of Jeffrey Epstein

In 2018, an investigative reporter for the Miami Herald identified some 80 alleged survivors of sexual abuse by the financier and his associates. The report prompted new examinations into allegations of sex crimes against Epstein, and a new federal criminal case was launched against him in 2019.

In July he was arrested at the airport in Teterboro, New Jersey, charged with sex trafficking and held without bail. In August, Epstein was found in his Manhattan jail with injuries indicating he had committed suicide by hanging himself.

In 2022, Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's romantic partner, was convicted of aiding the financier in the procurement and sexual abuse of underage girls. A federal jury found her guilty of five counts, including conspiracy and sex trafficking of minors, imposing a sentence of 20 years in prison.

In 2023, banks JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank AG were accused in civil lawsuits of allowing Epstein to commit sex crimes.