Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / Mega Edition: A Deep Dive Into The Relationship Between Jeffrey Epstein And Les Wexner (3-4) (7/26/26)

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Mega Edition: A Deep Dive Into The Relationship Between Jeffrey Epstein And Les Wexner (3-4) (7/26/26) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, we're gonna dive right back into the Vanity Fair
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: article by Gabriel Sherman and continue profiling the relationship between
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein and Les Wexner. Let's jump right back in.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Epstein claimed he could discern hidden patterns in financial markets,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: but his true money making gift was reading people. He
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: surely recognized Wexner was deeply lonely. And for all of
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the shit, I give Jeffrey Epstein for not believing he's
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: not a smart person like people said he was, or
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: not believing that he's this epic financial wizard like people
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: said he was. One thing I will say he had
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: an uncanny ability to collect people.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: There's no doubt about that now.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: He would find weaknesses in people and target them. He
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: would look at people's proclivities and target them. And at
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, Jeffrey Epstein was most certainly,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: most certainly somebody who zeroed in on wealthy and powerful
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: people and did everything he could to bring them into
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: the web. That is for sure a hallmark of Jeffrey Epstein.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Business was less's life, said Wesner's childhood friend Peter Halliday,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: whose Ohio bank prepared the limited his first stock offering.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Wexner was born in Dayton, Ohio, in nineteen thirty seven
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: to Russian Jewish parents who worked in the garment business.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: And you know, you hear all of these stories, right,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: and they are the typical American success story from years
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: gone by, you know, the same stories where people are
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: still trying to pitch it to you now that it's
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the same way, right.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, go to work, work hard at your nine.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Dollars an hour job, and one day you might have
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: yourself a twelve hundred square foot house too.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, some American dream.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: But back then, when less Wexner was around, that dream,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: well it was available. And unfortunately, this dickhead Les Wexner
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: could have had this fantastic story of nothing coming from
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: nothing to being this great businessman, but he squandered it. Instead,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: he'd rather paler around with Jeffrey Epstein. Instead, he'd rather
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: enable Jeffrey Epstein's abuse. And according to Virginia, he also
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: likes to take part. So you remember in the movie
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: A Bronx Tale when Sonny says to Kolodjuno about wasted talent, Well,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: that's what we're seeing here all over the game board,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: folks with all of these rich, so called smart people
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: wasted talent instead of helping the world, instead of doing
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: some good in the world.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Well, you all know what they were up to. Instead.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: When Wexner entered high school.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: His family moved from Dayton to Columbus, where his father, Harry,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: opened a small women's apparel store called Leslie's. It was
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: tough moving into a new community. Less didn't make a
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: mark for himself. Holladay said, Oh, did poor little Lessie
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: not fit in with the other kids in the neighborhood.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, come on, really. Wexner hoped to become an architect,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: like Howard Rourke, the libertarian protagonist of Anne Rand's The Fountainhead.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Harry insisted he studied business at Ohio State. Less briefly
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: enrolled in law school, but dropped out to work for
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: the family business. As the story goes, Less wanted Harry
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: to carry a limited inventory focused on casual clothes, and
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: when Harry did agreed, let's quit. In nineteen sixty three,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Less open the limited with a five thousand dollars loan
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: from his zan Eida. I built the business so I
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: could create my own world. Less later told The New
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: York Times. Within a year, Harry closed Leslie's and was
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: working for less. Now look again, I'm a big fan
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: of the American dream, right, I'm a big fan of
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: people coming from nothing, scratching and clawing their way to
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: get a little something. I've seen a lot of that
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: in my life, a lot of it with my own
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: family in fact. And there's nothing like getting to the
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: top of the mountain when you've been stuck at the
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: bottom for so long. You scratch and you claw, and
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: you think back to the days where you didn't even
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: know how you're gonna put food on the table. Got
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: some crying kids. They want some new nikeer Jordan's. They
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: want the new, latest, updated fads and trends. You're busy
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: just trying to make ends meet. But when you work
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: hard and you're diligent about your job, at least in
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the past, you were able to scratch out a little
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: something something for yourself. Unless Wexner did a lot more
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: than that, but again, wasted talent, he squandered it. Wexter
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: may have been CEO, but it seemed that his mother,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Bella was the boss.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: All right. Let's be real.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: If you're Italian and you're listening to this podcast, Well
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: you know that your mother most certainly is the boss.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: For thirty four years, she served as the Limited corporate secretary.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: A former executive recalled that Bella belittled her son in
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: meetings when she didn't like his ideas. It'll never work,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: don't do it. Bella would yell at him in front
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: of his staff. What is she the grandmother from The
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Red Dragon, the Thomas Harris Hannibal Lecter movie. What is
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: she running around telling Francis dollar Hide that if he
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: wets the bed again, she's gonna cut it off. There's
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: always you know, you look at these people like Les Wexner,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and then you see like their parents, and you understand
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: completely why they're such lunatics, why they're such maniacs and
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: not well adjusted people. I remember sitting there thinking, how
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: dare this woman? The executive said. Less seemed to be
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: terrified of Bella. According to Measter, Less would sometimes stay
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: at Measter's house in Palm Beach, so that Bella, whose
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Palm Beach house was near Less's, wouldn't know Less was
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: in town. He was afraid of her. She was running
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: his life. Measter said, And again, that's I've seen a
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: lot of that with a lot of Italian friends. Right, Look,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: your mom plays a central role in your life when
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: you're a Paisano for sure, and I mean honestly, with
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Italian parents. Italian moms, they want you to live home
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: until you're married.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: You could be thirty five living home with your parents,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: and that's a pretty normal thing for uber Italian families.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: So I kind of understand the situation of mom's yelling
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: at them all the time, and shit, here, I get that.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: So I don't know how that could be like a
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: impediment on Les Wexner. Let's be real, you're that soft
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: bro that your mom breaking your chops in front of
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: your coworkers is so tough that you have to go
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and sleep at your friend's house. Get some backbone, bro,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: He's lucky his mom didn't show up to those boardroom
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: meetings with a wooden spoon.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: So I'll tell you what.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: If I was ever paling around with somebody like Jeffrey Epstein,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: like I said, you won't have to worry about the cops,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: you won't have to worry about the FBI, My mother
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: would beat the ever living shit out of me. And
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: that's not a guess that's a promise, folks. Okay, grown
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: ass man forty one years old would still get his
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: ass whooped by his mother with a wooden spoon as
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: she drags him to the FBI's office bya his ear. Factual,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Ask anybody who knows my mother, that is exactly what
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: would occur. By nineteen seventy six, the Limited operated one
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: hundred stores. Two years later, Wexner risked bankrupting the company
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: when he borrowed thirty million to acquire the logistics company
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Massed Industries, which operated a dozen factories in Asia and
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: contracted with hundreds of others around the world. The Gamble
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: proved to be Wexner's genius move, akin to McDonald's revolutionizing
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: fast food. And it's not even hyperbole, right, what Limited did,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: what Les Wexner did with his companies is pretty amazing
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: to start where he started and build it up to
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: what he build.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: It up to.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: That from a business point of view as an entrepreneur,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: and you look at that, you say, holy shit, that's
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: a quality job. Well, holy nice job. But that's where
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: it ends for me. That's where the praise ends for me,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: because after he built it, well, that's when the exploitation began.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Why can't any of these people just be decent human beings?
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Is it really that difficult. I'm not exactly what you
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: call the you know, the happiest guy in the room
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: by any stretch of the imagination. Right. I can be prickly,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: I can be confrontational all of that stuff, But at
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, I want what's best for us,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: everybody around me, not just myself. And that goes for
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: strangers as well. People like this, on the other hand, Well,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: let me tell you what these kind of people. They
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: don't give a shit about nothing but themselves. By controlling
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: production and shipping, Wexner globalized the apparel business. Wexner's core
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: insight was that baby boomers viewed shopping as a form
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: of entertainment. The limited supply chain allowed Wexner to rapidly
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: roll out new clothing lines at lower cost and keep
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: customers coming back. Look, the business model was solid. How
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: many girls did you see growing up, people in my
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: age range, you know, forty years old or so. How
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: many times growing up when you were younger were girls
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: wearing stuff from Victoria's Secret pink et cetera, et cetera.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Abercrombie and Fitch.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: When I was growing up, pair of those Jeenes were
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: like one hundred and twenty five bucks. So this guy's
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: business model was solid. Les Wexner had a good business model,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: knew what he was doing as far as you know,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: this whole globalizing of the clothing industry. And if he
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: would have just focused on that and stayed on course
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: and continued on building his empire and not getting in
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: bed literally with Jeffrey Epstein, well he wouldn't have any
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: of these problems. So again, just like everybody else who
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: has rolled into Jeffrey Epstein's life, I have no compassion,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: no empathy, and I really don't care what happens to
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: these people at this point. I don't care if your
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: business goes bust, and I certainly don't care if you
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: go to prison, because honestly, with some of the accusations
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: we've seen leveled at some of these people, they all
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: be in prison. As shopping malls spread across the country,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: the limited boomed, Wexner went on an acquisition spree. By
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, he took over the Lane Brian and
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Lerner chains, the department store Henry Bendel, and a struggling
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Paulo Alto lingerie store called Victoria's Secret. At the time
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: he met Epstein, the limited had an annual revenue of
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: three billion dollars. Despite the success, Wexner remained little known
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: outside Ohio. Meister recalled a party in Aspen when Donald
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Trump walked up to Wexter and said, nice to meet you. Now,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: how did you get so e f and rich? That
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: sounds like something Trump would say, right, walk up to
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: some dude, disregard all sorts of uh, you know, courtesies
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: or whatever, Hey, asshole.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: And'd you get so Fen rich?
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: As he's chomping on three McDonald's whopper, I mean three
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: McDonald's big Max. Wexner and Epstein soon became virtually inseparable.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: There were an odd pair.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Websner was in his late forties with a round face
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: and big ears. Epstein was in his early thirties and
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: dashing from the right angle. He looked like Richard Gear.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: What SAYSU Helen Keller, What do you mean, Richard Gear.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: That's one of the funniest comparisons I've heard yet, Richard Gear.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe if Richard Gear was Rocky Dennis from Mask, maybe
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about here, Richard gear Huh, okay,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: all right? Les knows everything about me. He knows every
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: experience I've had, Epstein once told a friend Wesner's public
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: image continued to grow after his hiring Epstein. A nineteen
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: eighty nine Boston Globe profile that detailed Wesner's rock reported
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: that as September, first diary entry that year read.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I finally like myself.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: In a film deposition featured in the Netflix documentary Filthy
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: rich Brad Edwards, a lawyer for some of Epstein's survivors,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: asked Epstein if he had a sexual relationship with Wexner.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Epstein denied it, and again there we talked about this yesterday.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of rumors to that effect, right,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: that Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein were involved romantically, that there
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: was more there than a relationship.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Look, I don't I can't call it.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I wasn't there, folks, I didn't you know, I didn't
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: witness anything firsthand. All we could do is talk about
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the speculation and the rumors. And it was a big
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: enough question that Brad Edwards asked it. So I don't
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: think that it's too out of line to wonder the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: same thing. Was there something else going on with Epstein
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: and Les Wexner? Again with Epstein's psyche, it's not out
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: of the realm of possibility in my opinion, that he
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: would try and seduce somebody like Les Wexner.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Remember who we're dealing with here.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Merritt, the Limited Security chief, was unnerved by the sudden friendship.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Merritt recalled a weekend in the late nineteen eighties when
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Wexner invited Epstein to shoot at targets on land Wexner
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: owned in rural Ohio. Lest It started collecting guns, but
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: less did know which end of a gun worked, Merritt said.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Merritt recruited a world class trap shooter named Jim Forsbach
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: to teach Wexner to shoot, but Merritt said Wexner relied
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: on Epstein. Epstein had this magnum p I gun. He
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: didn't know what he was doing. It looked like he
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: had never taken it out of the holster. Merritt recalled,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: for sure, look these guys fake the funk all the time.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Right when you got all that money.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: You can go out and get yourself a gigantic dirty
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Harry kind of gun. If you want doesn't mean you
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: know how to use it. But for some reason, Les
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Wexner thought that Jeffrey Epstein, along with all of his fantastic,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: fashionable financial advice, was also the guy to go to
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: to become a marksman. This Jeffrey Epstein sure was a
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: jack of all trades, right, No, not really, Bobby, he
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: was really a jack off of all trades. Epstein was
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: a social connector who populated Wesner's introverted life with glittery people.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Novelist Christina Oxenberg remembered being invited by Epstein to a
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: dinner party at Wexner's Upper east Side townhouse not long
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: after Epstein took over Wexner's finances. Less seemed like this rumpled,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: sweaty schlub. He was so ill at ease, and there
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: was Jeffrey facilitating the conversation. Oxenburgh told me, you know,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: I'm not too sure about Christina Oxenberg. Honestly, folks, I'm
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: always a bit cautious about members of the so called
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: elite who come out and act like they're one of us,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: you know, regular common people. Very hard for me to
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: at this point trust any of these so called elite.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: So even when Oxenberg first came out, I had questions
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: about what she was talking about and stuff like that,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: and those questions still remain. Dershowitz said, the first time
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: he met Epstein at the Martha's Vineyard home of Lynn
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Forrester de Rothschild, Epstein invited him to be a guest
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: of honor at Wexner's upcoming birthday dinner. Jeffrey said something like,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: for a present, my friend Leslie Wexner wants me to
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: invite the most important man I met this year. Dershowitz
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: recalled the flattery worked. Dershowitz attended. Other guests included astronaut
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: John Glenn and former Israeli Prime Minister Shimone Perez.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Well, of course it did.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: We know how close Jeffrey Epstein was to a lot
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: of people in that realm, the Shimone Perezs of the world,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: the Bill Clinton's of the world, the Donald Trumps of
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: the world. We know how close he was to all
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: of those people, the Ehud Baracks. So when you hear
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: about people like Shimone Perez being around, you hear about
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: all of these dignitaries and these people who had positions
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: in governments around the world. It shouldn't shock you, especially
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: when you look at what Epstein was building, at what
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: he was really trying to mold here. People like Wexner
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: were integral to his operations. All of these people, these rich,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: powerful people, all had a part to play, and every
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: single one of them played their part in helping Jeffrey
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Epstein run this criminal enterprise for this long, Wexner's physical
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: appearance changed. A former Victorious secret executive or called Wexner,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: died his hair, he hired a live in personal trainer,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: and adopted a new wardrobe. Less would wear the tightest
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: jeans you saw. I don't know how he didn't cut
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: off blood supply to his private parts, the former executive said.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Wexner's colleagues referred to this look as Chairman's casual. So
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: less Wexner went from being Captain Dorky dork Dorkington to
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: rock and tight jeans like he's machine gun Kelly, all
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: of a sudden hires a live in personal trainer. Him
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: and Jeffrey Epstein are inseparable.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: The rumors stand were they engaged in a sexual relationship
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: with each other? Epstein and Wexner, I have to say,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I lean towards there might have been some sort of
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: seduction there, but I'm hesitant to go all the way
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: considering right, I need to have more tangible evidence, more
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: people coming out and saying that before I can, you know,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: hitch my my cart to that horse. But it's certainly
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: something worth exploring. According to sources, Epstein took an interest
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: in Wesner's romantic life. In nineteen eighty five, New York
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: magazine put Wexner on the cover with the headline the
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Bachelor Billionaire. Wechner dated, but the relationships didn't tend to last.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Around the time Wesner met Epstein, Wexner broke up with
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: a Columbus woman. According to Epstein, showed up at her
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: house with a multimillion dollar check and told her to
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: stay away from Wexner. The woman declined requests for comment.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Well again, you see it still to this day. Jeffrey
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Epstein's lingering power Jeffrey Epstein's lingering shadow over people who
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: were involved. People don't want to talk about it, people
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: don't want to come forward, people don't want to go
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: on the record. And then you see people like this
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: woman who obviously got to pay out and you wonder
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: what sort of clause they had to sign, right, because
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: you know, people like Epstein, people like Wexner, they're gonna
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: make sure that they're in control of the situation no
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: matter what.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: The friendship vexed.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Wexner's mother, Bella, Sources said she wanted Less to settle
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: down and get married. Bella hated it Epstein she was
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: so blunt, merit said. Around nineteen ninety, Wendy Measter introduced
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Wexner to a corporate lawyer in her late twenties named
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Abigail Coppel, who worked in the London office of Davis Polk,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the limited's outside law firm. Abigail was so secretive about it.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: A friend from London recalled. She said, don't tell anyone.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: I don't want to jinx it. I mean, what are
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: you twelve? Oh, don't tell anyone I'm dating Less Wexner.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: I don't want you to jinx it. But up to
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: this point, until he met her, he was running around
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: with Jeffrey Epstein, right changed his whole lifestyle, rocking some
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: tight jeans, thinking he's in a boy band. What else
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: was he doing with Jeffrey Epstein at this time? We
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: know what Epstein was up to what exactly was good
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: old less Wexner up to while he was hanging out
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: with Jeffrey Epstein.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Well, we know what Virginia has had to say.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: I wonder what all of those unnamed girls from Eastern
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Europe and elsewhere would have to say. I wonder what
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: sort of song they would sing. But Epstein stayed very
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: much in the picture. He reportedly arranged Wexner and co
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: A Copple's prenuptial agreement and was one of fifty attendees
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: at their January nineteen ninety three wedding ceremony. Wexner even
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: gave Epstein bellis seat on the board of the Wexner Foundation.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Boy, isn't that nice? Huh?
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Boots his mom off the board. All right, Mom, you
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: gotta go fat enough for you. I'm gonna replace you
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: with good old Jeffrey Epstein, mister solid reputation, pillar of
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the community, salt of the earth, Jeffrey Epstein.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: What could possibly go wrong?
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Epstein soon began traveling to Ohio with Gilann Maxwell, the
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: on off girlfriend, co conspirator, general all around scusbag, fellow
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: child abuser by people, serpent who had helped burnish his
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: society connections in Manhattan.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: She was with Jeffrey everywhere.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Merritt said, to some it seemed like the age appropriate
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Maxwell was a public front for Epstein's crimes involving underage girls.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: It's a useful beard situation, said Oxenberg, Maxwell's former friend.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Epstein and Maxwell were also social with the Wexners outside
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: of Ohio. When the Wexners traveled to Europe, Epstein and
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Maxwell joined them on their shopping trips, And Oxenburg is
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: not wrong about that. I've always made the point that
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Maxwell and Epstein weren't in some kind of lovey relationship.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: There weren't you know, love birds who were engaging on
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: this journey of love together. Hell No, calling a beard
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: is the perfect explanation, honestly, because that's what she was.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: She was there to give Jeffrey Epstein credibility so he
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: didn't look like a middle aged man without a girlfriend,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: without a wife, you know, those creepy types. So he
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: didn't look like that, and also so she could open
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: those doors to some of the more elite within that
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: world that Epstein and his gruff behavior didn't have access to.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: By this point, Epstein was representing himself as something of
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: a problem solver for Wexner. One time, Epstein called Dershowitz
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: and asked if the lawyer knew someone in the Clinton administration.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Epstein claimed Wexner was in a panic because custom agents
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: at Teterborough Airport in New Jersey sees thousands of dollars
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: of Cuban cigars and fifty thousand dollars in cash from
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: his private jet. Dershowitz said he did not know anyone
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: who could help. A person close to Wesner's family with
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: knowledge of the allegation emphatically deny that any event occurred.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Vanity Fair has found no mention of the alleged incident
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: in court or law enforcement records. Well, just because you
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: can't find it in court records and law enforcement records,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: well it doesn't mean it didn't happen. We know that
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: law enforcement in certain places, in certain situations are not
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: exactly above board, and especially when we're dealing with people
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: with this kind of money. The fact that they thought
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: they could call Dershowitz also cracks me up. And you know,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: according to Dershowitz, well he didn't know anybody he can't help. Yeah, Okay,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Dershowitz is smarmy folks, and he's slick. He's gonna be
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: real careful what he says to people, especially journalists.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: When it came to Jeffrey Epstein. During the nineteen nineties, both.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Epstein and Wesner's profile grew on the world stage. In
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, Wexner co founded a philanthropic organization of
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Jewish billionaires known as the Megagroup, which uses some of
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: its vast resources to shape Middle East policy.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Now, the Megagroup is a huge, huge, huge part of
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: this story.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: All of these people behind the scenes working hand in hand,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Wester Epstein, Ehud Barak, etc.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Etc.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: We're talking about very, very, very powerful people, and Epstein
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: had access to all of them. In two thousand and three,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Wesner's foundation commissioned GOP messaging guru Frank Luntz to advise
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: American Jewish leaders on had to rally support for Israel
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: for a year, a solid year. You should be invoking
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: the name of Sodom Hussein and how Israel was always
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: behind American efforts to rid the world of this ruthless
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: dictator and liberate their people. Lunch recommendation stated, so again,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: you have these people working in the mega group, people
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: like Jeffrey Epstein with a lot of pull, a lot
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: of push, and a lot of sway, and they're a
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: hammering this home about Saddam, this message home about Saddam
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Hussein and how he's this big threat to Israel trying
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: to impact American foreign policy. That is terrifying. Epstein kept
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: close in that circle of influence. You an Ambassador Bill
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Richardson and Middle East Envoy George Mitchell allegedly participated in
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Epstein's sex ring, according to a lawsuit filed by Robert
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent glad that that was involved and put
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: into this story, because that's not mentioned enough. Those allegations
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: by Virginia are not mentioned nowhere near enough when it
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: comes to this story. We're talking about big time players here, folks,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Bill Richardson and George Mitchell. How is the legacy media
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: all over this? Richardson and Mitchell adamantly deny the allegations.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Israeli Prime Minister whod Barrock was an Epstein confidant. Epstein
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: invested one million dollars in one of Barrock's business ventures.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Barack reportedly visited the East sixty sixth Street condo building
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Dershowitz told me he once arrived at Epstein's townhouse as
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Epstein and Barack were wrapping up lunch. On a chalkboard,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Barack had drawn a map of how the West Bank
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: should be divided. Barack could not be reached for comment.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, he denied any wrongdoing related to the
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: condo visit. Now we've talked about Ehud Barack extensively here
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: on the podcast. In fact, I have a two part
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: deep dive into him and his relationship with Epstein in
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: the catalog if you're interested in checking that out as well.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: But this is another high profile player on the stage,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: another big time intelligence guy. Palin around with Jeffrey Epstein,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: breaking bread with Jeffrey Ebstein, get a million dollars for
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: his business from Jeffrey Epstein. But he had no idea.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: He didn't know who Jeffrey Epstein was or what he
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: was doing. Stop But how dare you asked that conspiracy theorist.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: During his time as Wexner's financial guru, Epstein's holdings grew tremendously,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: sometimes by acquiring properties formerly owned by Wexner, such as
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: the townhouse on East seventy first Streat Manhattan, one of
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the largest private homes in Manhattan. While it has been
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: reported over the years that the home was transferred to
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: him in a dollar transaction, and Epstein may have led
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: people to believe that, documents show he paid Wexner twenty
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: million for it. In Columbus, Epstein owned a ten thousand
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: square foot house next to Wexner, and, according to Merritt,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: paid a below market price for one of the limited's
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: private jets. So you see, Epstein was getting the Homi
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: hookup working with less Wesner right, he was reaping all
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: of the benefit. You know that Epstein was all over
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: the benefits package that came with being Less Wexner's friend.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: And again, it was just all part of it for
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein, all part of the big game. I guess
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: he would call it. In Jeffrey Epstein's mind. Folks, remember
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: that's what all of this really was. Everybody was just
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: a piece on the chessboard, and to him it was
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: a game. Meanwhile, real people were suffering, real people were
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: having their lives ruined, all of these survivors, and to
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein and all of his friends, though people like
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Ehud Barak, people like Les Wexner. It was just a game.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: During his time as Wexner's financial guru, Epstein's holdings grew tremendously,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: sometimes by acquiring properties formerly owned by Wexner. Sorry about that, folks,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: we already covered that part. Let's skip back down to
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: where we were at. Epstein's predecessor, Harold Levin described a
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: possible scenario by which Epstein could have taken control of assets.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: We didn't put a mortgage on any of those properties.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: We used the limited stock to buy them, so there
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: were no leans, Levin said. In other words, because Wexner
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: didn't oh banks any money, his properties could be controlled
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: by Epstein and there would be scant public record of it.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: So the hustle was on right, folks. These guys were
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: totally engaging in what they knew would be best for them,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: as far as you know, taxes, paying their fair share,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: paying off any sort of you know, maybe if they're sued,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: there's no leans available because of the moves they're making.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: So again, doing all of the things that these scuzzbag
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: billionaires love to do. And it happened over and over
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: and over again, year after year. Jeffrey Epstein was the
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: King of it. He was great at it. He was
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: one of these guys that had this hustle down like
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: it was nobody's business. You add that to the Gratz
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: hustle and all of the other things he was working on,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: and boy, oh boy, you got yourselves quite the shit show.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: And throughout the whole entire thing, Jeffrey Epstein and Les
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Wexner were connected at the hip basically, as you can
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: see so far from this article, Jeffrey Epstein and Les
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Wexner were very very close. Nobody else that was working
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: for Wexner had the keys to the kingdom. Nobody else
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: that was working for Wexner had full financial control about
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: what over the country, I mean, over the company. But
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: yet here's this Jeffrey Epstein character showing up out of nowhere,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: knocking all of Les Wexner's top dogs off of their
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: perch and becoming the top dog himself. It's pretty amazing
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: when you think about it. And then when you start
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: to really get into the weeds and pull the kurt
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: and back, it's obvious that there is more going on here,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: that there is more going on in the dark, dirty
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: room that has been hidden by this veil of secrecy
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: for so long, and piece by piece, story by story,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: and day by day, things start to become much much
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: clearer about what was going on with Jeffrey Epstein, Les Wexner,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: and the arrest of his gang that most certainly can't
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: shoot straight. Let's dive right back in and pick up
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: where we left off. As Epstein's wealth grew, his predatory
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: behavior became more brazen. He sometimes used his connections to
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Victoria's Secret and his schemes a pattern at least some
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: executives at the company were aware of. There's no doubt
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: about it. Multiple people working with Victoria's Secret knew the deal,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: and less Wexner put the kabash on all of it.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Would be my guess these people would bring complaints to
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: less Wexner. He'd listen to their complaints, probably, oh yeah,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: I'll talk to Jeffrey. I'll take care of it, and
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: then everything would just continue going in the same direction
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: that it's been going. For these executives at Victoria's Secret
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: to act like they had no idea is laughable at best. Now,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying they had an idea of the whole
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: scope of the criminal enterprise, but you have to have
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: an idea of the type of sick bastard that Jeffrey
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Epstein is. One afternoon in the spring of nineteen ninety three,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: an executive rushed into the office of Victoria's Secret Catalog
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: president Cynthia Fetus Fields with disturbing news. A model told
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: a hairdresser at a photoshoot that a man named Jeffrey
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Epstein was running around New York presenting himself as a
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Victoria's Secret scout. Now we know Epstein definitely used this ploy.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: We know that he.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Used the relationship with Les Wexner, and in turn, the
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: relationship with Victoria's Secret to position himself and act as
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: if he was some sort of talent scout for Victoria's Secret.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: That way, he could play into the dreams and the
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: aspirations of these young girls, who all they wanted to
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: do was model right, become the next face of insert
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: trendy jeens here, and instead what they got was their
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: whole entire life lives ruined by Jeffrey Epstein using Victoria's
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Secret l brands and less Wesner as a vehicle. Fields
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: knew Epstein was problematic. Fields, then in her forties, had
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: met him the previous year and rejected several inappropriate propositions
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: from him to go out, one of which included a
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: weekend date to Wesner's house in Aspen. Fields declined Epstein's advances.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: So obviously, Epstein and Wexner were close enough that Epstein
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: felt comfortable inviting her out to Aspen to Wexner's pad
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: for a weekend of according to her, an appropriate behavior.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Whatever that means. Now, again, as you all know, whatever
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: two adults do too, consenting adults do.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: In a bedroom. I really don't care about one way
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: or the other.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: What you know, as long as people are consenting, it's
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: really no one's business what happens in someone's bedroom. But
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: that certainly is not the case here. What she is
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: saying is that mister Epstein had some pretty inappropriate plans
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: that Miss Fields wanted nothing to do with. And you
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: see a pattern, right. Jeffrey Epstein's propositions and his fishing
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: schemes very rarely worked on super successful women. Women who
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: come from a confident place of you know, a home
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: life where they were you know, had both parents around,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: where they had some sort of structure. A lot harder
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: for Jeffrey Epstein and people like Jeffrey Epstein to get
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: their hooks into people like that, and Epstein recognized that,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: and that's why he went after the kind of girls.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: That he did.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Field sow the executive to report Epstein to Wexner immediately.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: According to a source briefed on the conversation, Less said
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: he would stop it. The source recalled and like I
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: just said a second ago, Yeah, right, he would. They
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: went to Less Wexner. Wexner says, oh, sure, I got this.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Don't worry. I'll take care of Jeffrey.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: You don't worry about that.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: I'll make sure he doesn't do that ever again. Meanwhile,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: they're paling around having some white Castle that night or
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: whatever the hell it is. They're eating and yapping it
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: up about their conquests. That's my guess. Anyway, we know
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: that these people, the Leon Blacks of the world, the
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein's of the world, the Less Wexner's of the world,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: aren't sitting around discussing world peace. They're not sitting around
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: at the table talking about the betterment of mankind. And
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: people like this, well, it's an exclusive club, folks, like
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: I always say, fellow travelers. Merritt remembered one lunch around
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: this time when Epstein boasted he was the personal director
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: for Victoria's Secret. In May nineteen ninety seven, an aspiring
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: model named Alicia Arden told the Santa Monica Police that
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Epstein sexually assaulted her in a hotel room after he
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: posed as a Victorious Secret scout. So you look, the
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: profile has been there for a hot minute with Jeffrey
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Epstein and trying to use his relationship with Les Wexner
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: to further his disgusting desires. What it really comes down
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: to at this point is what do you believe. Do
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: you think that there's enough evidence there to point you
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: in the direction that Les Wexner had no idea what
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: was going on, that Les Wexner was just you know,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: a shrinking violet in all of this, or did Wexner
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: have an idea of what was going on? Did Wexner
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: have an idea that his good friend Jeffrey was a
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: sick bastard. All the telltale signs were there, all the
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: warning signs were there. In fact, according to this report,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: his own executives were reporting what was going on, what
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: the situation was, and that they had serious concerns about
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: good old Jeffrey Epstein and What was Les Wexner the key,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: the king, the man down in Columbus, the guy who
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: really set all the rules for the company. What did
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: he do about it? Did he stop it? Did he
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: get rid of Jeffrey Epstein? Did he initiate an investigation
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: with all of his money and all of his ties
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: to security? No, folks, he didn't do any of that.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: He continued to paler around with Jeffrey Epstein, and he
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: continued to let Jeffrey Epstein have the keys to the kingdom. Again,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: do you really believe less Wexner had no idea. According
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: to the harrowing story of accuser Maria Farmer, Epstein even
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: brought the abuse to Wexner's doorstep in Ohio. Look, everyone
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: listening to this podcast should be familiar with this story.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: By now.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Maria came out and she really dished on what occurred
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: when she was around Epstein and certainly about what happened
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: at the house in New Albany. I had Maria on
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: the podcast twice and she discussed her experience here on
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: the podcast. You can find that in the catalog. She's
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: also been on a ton of other shows, and if
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: you're interested, you can just google Maria Farmer and interview,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: and you can find a ton of them. But Maria's
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: story is, you know, it's a cautionary tale about these people,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: and it certainly shines a light right on the FBI
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: and the limp wristed police services that are supposed to
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: protect people like Maria who instead were beholden to a
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: scumbag like Les Wexner. In the spring of nineteen ninety six,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Farmer was miserable working as Epstein's personal assistant in New
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: York when she received a dream assignment. Film producers wanted
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: the twenty five year old to create paintings that would
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: be featured in the Jack Nicholson movie As Good as
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: It Gets. Epstein begged Farmer not to quit and made
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: an incredible offer. His client, Les Wexner, wanted Farmer to
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: spend the summer working on the paintings at Wexner's three
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: hundred acre compound in the town Wexner was building from scratch,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: as reported and filthy rich. Farmer spoke to Vanity Fair
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: reporters in two thousand and three, but the magazine did
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: not publish her accusations against Epstein. And when they say
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Vanity Fair reporters, they mean Vicky Ward. So Vicky Ward
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: had all of this information, right, and this is directly
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: from Maria. Vicky Ward had all of this information. Maria
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Dish gave it all up, told everything she knew about
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein to Vicky Ward. Vicky Ward and her editor
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Graydon Carter, well, they decide they're gonna kill that story.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: There's not enough there, We're not going to report on it.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: And now, mind you, this is all the way back
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: in the mid nineties, okay, all the way back in
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: the mid nineties, and these people, if they would have
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: taken it seriously when Maria reported what was going on,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: how many people's lives would they have changed, how many
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: people would not have had to go through the abuse,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: if law enforcement would have taken things seriously, if Vicky
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Ward would have done her job correctly. And now when
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: she runs around acting like she's some kind of champion
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: for these girls, it's honestly sickening. The grifting is just
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: out of control. Vicky Ward and Vanity Fair, to be
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: honest with you, are an embarrassment over that whole entire escapade. Now,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: obviously Graydon Carter is no longer with Vanity Fair, and
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Vanity Fair is doing a noble job here trying to
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: get back on track. Right, this is a good article,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: this is good work, but we have to call it
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: out for what it was. It was straight trash, straight garbage,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: straight propaganda, straight gas lighting, and in fact, it was
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: enabling of Jeffrey Epstein. So let's just call it what
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: it is, right, and let's name the reporter. Let's not
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: just say a Vanity Fair reporter. That's kind of the
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: punk way out right. Sometimes being uncomfortable is just part
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: of it. And even if you know it's the publication
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: that you're writing for or a company that you work for.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: When they're out of line and they're wrong, they're wrong.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: And Vicky Ward and Vanity Fair were way out of line.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: And in fact, that's the kind of behavior and the
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: kind of negligence within a reporter that I can't ever forgive.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: There is not a piece that Vicky Ward could write
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: that I could even bother reading. At this point, although
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: Farmer was broke and living in a tiny Greenwich Village apartment,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: her instinct was to turn it down. Epstein's relationship with
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: Wexner seemed odd to her. Farmer recalled the first time
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Epstein gave her a tour of his townhouse. Jeffrey said,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: see all of this stuff. I don't need any of it.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: I could live in a tent, but Less gave this
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: to me for a dollar. Less would do anything for me.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: And like I said, it's one thing to read it
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: on the page here, right, and one thing to hear
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: me relate it to you. It's another thing when Maria
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: tells you in her own words. So I highly suggest
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: you check out those interviews, either here or elsewhere or
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: wherever you want to check them out, but you should
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: definitely hear her in her own words. And I highly
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: suggest you do that with all of the survivors because
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: reading it's one thing. Hearing it from me is one thing.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Hearing it from someone else is another. But when you
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: hear it right from them, from the girls themselves, when
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: they discuss what they went through, it has a much
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: more visceral effect, at least it does on me, because
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: there's no middleman there, right, there's no wiggle room. With
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: all of the stories that these girls have told and
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: the evidence that backs them up. I believe what they're
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: saying here, folks. I believe their stories, and I believe
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: that Jeffrey Epstein and all of these people named in
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: the court documents all had a hand in this. Farmer
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: was also unsettled by strange visitors coming and going at
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: the house. She recalled government officials making pilgrimages to meet
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Epstein for unexplained reasons. And there was always a bevy
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: of government officials, powerful business magnates, academics, scientists, you name it,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: buzzing around Jeffrey Epstein at his properties, hanging out at
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: his house down on the island, whatever it may be.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: But they were always around him. What were they doing there?
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: Why were they always around? What could he possibly have
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: that they want? I don know rhetorical question, but obviously
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: it still needs to be asked because the legacy media
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: is not willing to take that leap when the writing
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: is on the wall. All of these people that were
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: hanging out over at Epstein's a level three sex offender's house,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: especially after the first arrest, all of these people have
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: some explaining to do and to see them get off
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: the hook, like Chelsea Ham got off the hook. And
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: the way these people get treated with kid gloves over
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: their relationship with Epstein, straight up bs, and we shouldn't
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: be shocked obviously. I mean, Vicky Ward set the standard
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: back in the day, so why should we be shocked
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: when the rest of them follow suit. What frightened her most, though,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: were the children. Farmer said she witnessed Maxwell escorting countless
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: high school age girls to meet Epstein, supposedly to interview
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: for modeling jobs. Every afternoon, Gilane would run out saying
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: I need to get new buyles. Farmer recalled. Maxwell's attorney
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: did not respond to a request for comment. Now, Maria
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: says that Gilan Maxwell would cruise places like Central Park,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: There was a school right down the block, the mall,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: you name it, any place that you can think of
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: where teenage girls could be hanging out. And according to Maria,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: you know they were coming and going for modeling gigs,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: and this, that and the other thing. Meanwhile, under the surface,
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: hidden just below, a whole entire scenario was unfolding. Nonetheless,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: Farmer accepted Epstein's offer, and that May she packed her
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: supplies into a truck and drove west to Wexner's Ohio village.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: But what seemed like a dream would turn into a nightmare.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: This account is based on my interviews with Farmer and
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: a sworn affid David she submitted in federal court in
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. Now again, most of you here should be
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: familiar with all of this stuff already. If you've been
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: following this case, you know that Maria has been so
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: vocal about what went down on that in that farmhouse
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: at Wexner's property. Early in her stay, Farmer began to
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: feel like she was being watched at all times. Maxwell
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: called Farmer from New York, screaming at her because she
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: accidentally spilled Hannah dye on a white rug. Gilaane yelled,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: You're going to have to leave right now. Jeffrey later
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: called and apologized. Farmer recalled and Epstein and Maxwell. They
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: really played good cop, bad cop off of each other,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: according to the survivors. One day it would be Maxwell,
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: one day it would be Epstein. But they played good cop,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: bad cop off of each other. And that was another
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: way to perpetuate the abuse, the mental abuse. Right, You
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: never knew who your ally was going to be. It
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: always kept you walking on eggshells with the both of them.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: In interviews, Farmer said she needed Abigail's permission to go
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: jogging outside because the grounds were patrolled by armed guards
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: and dogs. In a twenty nineteen statement to The Washington Post,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: the Wexner family said either Less nor Abigail knew who
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Farmer was before her accusations were made public. And while
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: we don't know with whom Miss Farmer may have spoken,
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: who may have claimed to be Miss Wexner, it was
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: not Miss Wexner, a family spokesman set at the time.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: So again it comes down to what do you believe.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Do you believe the Wexners or do you believe Maria's
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: story which she's been dishing since the mid nineties. I
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: know who I believe, but I'm not here to convince anybody. Right,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: everybody out there listening to this show well within the
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: means of making up their own minds about what they believe.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: I think there's too many people that are trying to
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: convince people of things when it comes to this case. Me,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: I'm just calling it how I see it. This is
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: the Jeffrey Epstein shit show. From my perspective, that's all,
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: nothing more, nothing less. But from the evidence that I've
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: looked at the hundreds and thousands of articles that I've read,
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: it's obvious that these girls. These women are telling the truth.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Epstein and Maxwell were Farmer's only connection to the outside world.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: They flew in on weekends and took Farmer to see
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: movies like Independence Day and go food shopping out Walmart. Now,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you're familiar with artists in residence,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: but it's usually a pretty solitary lifestyle. I have a
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: couple of friends who have had the uh the luck
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: to do similar things, but at like national parks and stuff.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: But it's a very lonely lifestyle. You're not around anybody.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: You're pretty much just involved in your artwork, trying to
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: hit that elusive flow. Those of you out there who
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: were artistic or who play sports, you know exactly what
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: I mean about the flow. So when you're there by
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: yourself and you're an artist or a musician or whatever
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: it is, it's easier. So they say, to hit that flow.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: So it's a life of solitude, Farmer thought. Epstein and
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Maxwell acted more like kids than adults. They would do
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: things like pants each other while waiting in line to
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: buy movie tickets. Farmer recalled, so, no imagine this Oxford
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: educated woman and mister Jeffrey Epstein financed mogul himself sitting
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: around there and pantsing each other. Now, don't get it twisted.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: I like a good pantsing around the campfire every now
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: and then, right, might be hammered out by the pool
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: your cousin rolls by, and you can't help yourself because
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: you grew up watching Beavis and butt Head. I get it.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: But when you're out at a movie theater and you're
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: some big business professional and you're some Oxford trained and
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: studious person like get that Maxwell, you probably shouldn't be
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: pulling each other's pants off in public. Over time, socializing
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: with a couple nearly twice her age felt almost normal.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: Farmer invited her two elementary school age brothers to live
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: with her at Epstein's Ohio house. Les knows everything about me.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: He knows every experience I've had, Epstein once told a friend.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: And that's significant, right. It goes to the heart of
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: it all, the fact that Wexner intimately knew Jeffrey Epstein.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: No matter what he tries to say, there are way
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: too many people on the record, on the books who
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: have said that this relationship was way tighter than Wexner's
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: trying to let on one night about two months after
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: she arrived in Ohio, Farmer said Epstein and Maxwell invited
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: her to their bedroom and sexually assaulted her. Farmer said
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: she fled, locked herself off in her room, and called
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: nine to one one she set The sheriff's dispatcher responded,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: we worked for Wexner. Now imagine that. Huh you call
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: the sheriff's department and you're greeted with that response. I'm
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: terrified I've been sexually assaulted. H Okay, ma'am. What's your location. Oh,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: I'm over at Less Wexner's house in New Albany. Well, ma'am,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: we work for Less Wexner. What sort of dystopian handmaiden
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: tails type shit is that? Terrified Farmer called her father
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: in Kentucky. He agreed to drive overnight to pick her up.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: A spokesman for the Frankly County for the Franklin County,
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: Ohio Sheriff's office confirmed to The Washington Post that its
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: officers had been contracted for Wexner's security detail at the time,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: but said it had no remaining records of such a call.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: They never have any records remaining, right, and why did
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: les Wester need a bunch of cops guarding him. What
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: else was he up to? What was the Mega group
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: up to? Is the legacy media ever going to ask
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: these questions? Or are they just going to hint and
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: walk around and make pretend that they're digging deep, Because
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of glaring questions here, folks, that definitely
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: need to be answered. Farmer said that when she returned
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: to New York, her sixteen year old sister Annie, whom
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: Epstein was also helping financially, revealed that Epstein and Maxwell
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: had touched her inappropriately at Epstein's New Mexico ranch. Oh well,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: you know, I'll never pass up an opportunity to go
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: harden the paint on Zoro Ranch and New Mexico. Anybody
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: out there in New Mexico ever gonna raid this place?
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Maybe guy's ever gonna, you know, kick in an investigation
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: perhaps and bring some people in to question them, anything,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: anything that even resembles an investigation. Nah, we're not gonna
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: see that. I guess Bill Richardson still has way too
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: much pull there. I guess the Santa Fe Institute still
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: has way too much pull there. Very unfortunate that they're
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: gonna let what happened in New Mexico die on the vine.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: At least they hope that's what's going to happen. Well,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: they might be in for a surprise. Officers said they
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: had no jurisdiction in Ohio and instructed her to talk
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: to the FBI instead. Farmer said she did, but the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: FBI never followed up. Now that shouldn't shock anybody. If
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: you're listening to this podcast, you already know how I
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: feel about the FBI. And I'm not talking about the
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: rank and file guys. You know, ladies and men who
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: get up every day and go out and try and
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: cat that's real bad guys. My hat's off to people
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: like that. It's a hard ass job. I certainly would
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: never do it, but hey, hats off to you. My
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: big problem is with the bureaucratic assholes, the morons who
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: kill these cases, the people who have higher aspirations than
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: just being oh, I'm going to be an FBI agent. No,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: these guys want to be politicians and judges and all
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: the other nonsense. So things become highly politicized. And that's
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: what happens with the FBI. What you think when things
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: get kicked up, it doesn't just get lost in the
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: Sauce magically disappear. In September nineteen ninety seven, Wexner celebrated
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: his sixtieth birthday with a dinner at his Ohio estate.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: Meister says he used the occasion to once again tell
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: Wexner how untrustworthy Epstein was. My wife and I told
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: him and Abigail hundreds of times to stay away from Epstein,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Measter said, in front of guests, including former Senator Joe
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: Lieberman and real estate developer Marshall Rose. Meister said he
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: begged Wexner to sever ties with Epstein. Less wouldn't listen.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: Measter said it was the last time Measter visited Wexner's house.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: It was obvious to anyone at that point that Les
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: Wexner had made his decision on who his guy was,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: who his right hand was, who his you know, his
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: number one confidant was going to be Jeffrey Epstein, and
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: nobody was going to tell him any different. And nobody
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: was able to tell a guy like Les Wexner any different.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: Nobody was twisting his arm. He chose Jeffrey Epstein as
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: a confidante, as a best friend, as basically a brother. Meanwhile,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: Epstein was driving a wedge between Wexner and the executives
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: at the Limited. Executives didn't stand why Wexner, a brutal
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: boss and famous control freak, allowed Epstein such latitude. Less
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: berated people. I once saw Less smack an executive on
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: top of the head. A former victorious secret executive said
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: Less could be a complete asshole. Recalled another former executive.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: His favorite thing was to yell, you have shit for brains.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: But with Epstein he took a more sympathetic stance. Less
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: would defer to him in any meeting. Less would put
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: his hand on Epstein's shoulder. So they had like this
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: father's son, creepy type of you know, Jamie Lanister, Circe
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: Lanister type of relationship. Right, and again it goes back
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: to the rumors and the whispers about them perhaps being
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: involved romantically. And it's certainly something that I give some
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: weight to. Definitely don't put it out of the realm
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: of possibility. Epstein often invoked Wesner's authority to make employees
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: feel as if they work for him. Epstein would call
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: you and wouldn't give his name. He'd just start talking
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: and expect you to know who it was. A former
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: senior executive said he was becoming more and more active
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: in the business. It was really upsetting people. In nineteen
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: ninety six, as the Limited was preparing to spin off
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: Abercrombie and Fitch into a separate company on the New
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: York Stock Exchange, Epstein flew to Columbus and told executives
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: that he would decide the share price. Imagine that. Imagine
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: you were one of the executives from the Limited and
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein's bitch ass gets off the plane and starts
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: hooting and hollering about he's making up share prices. I
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: don't know how one of these executives didn't just haul
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: off and crack them one. Oh you are are you well? First,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: you're going to the dentist, and I suggest you bring
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: all of these teeth that I'm about to knock out
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: with you so you can get them.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: Put your head.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: You're making the share price while lo angol, you're making
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: the share price.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: That would be my answer.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: Anyway. Executives worried Epstein was committing insider trading because days earlier,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: someone they assumed Epstein had sold an unusually large chunk
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: of Limited stock. There was so much concern that One
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: of the lawyers looked around the room and said, are
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: we going to have to go to jail for this?
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: We're called an executive who attended the meeting. According to
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: the executive, Epstein got his way. So that's the kind
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: of power this scumbag was wielding their folks. I want
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: to drive that point home. Epstein was such a powerful
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: figure in Wexner's life that he could get away with
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: shit like this, basically insider trading. And he probably was
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: involved in some insider trading here. Do I have the
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: evidence for that? No, but Ockham's razor, and all right,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: we know that this guy was up to his forehead
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: and insider trading, working on the Gratz hustle, you name it.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: The Limited's vice chairman, Tom Hopkins, told Wexner that Epstein
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: was a con man. Sources said Wexner brushed aside the
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: complaints less thought he knew more than the people around him.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: A former executive said, yeah, guess not. How's that working
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: out for you now? Oh? Less you know, the saying
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: you should dance with the girl that you brought. Well,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: Wexner forgot all about that. He abandoned the people that
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: helped make him successful. He abandoned the people who helped
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: make l brand successful and instead started riding shotgun with
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein instead, Merritt said, Beginning in the early aughts,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: Epstein spent less and less time in Ohio, but publicly
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: Wexner still had glowing things to say about his money manager.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: In two thousand and three, Wesner told a journalist that
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: Epstein had excellent judgment and unusually high standards, adding he
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: was always the most loyal friend. So, according to Wexner,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: Epstein had excellent judgment and unusually high standards. High standards
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: for who exactly, high standards for Djankis Khan. Again, it
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: just goes to show you that all the bs Les
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: Wexner wants to pitch about how Epstein deceived him and
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: stole from him and all of that stuff, I don't
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: buy it for a second. It's all straight garbage, straight trash,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: and every single thing that they talk about when it
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: comes to the relationship between Les Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: needs to be examined. On the face of it, these
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: two men were vastly different in temperament. Epstein was about
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: flamboyant and not private at all. About his sexual appetites,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: even if most everyone was unaware of the age of
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: his survivors. Oh yeah, okay, sure. Epstein filled his house
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: with erotic art and displayed a copy of Nabakhov's Lolita
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: and a book by the Marquise de Sad on his desk.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: Sounds like a fantastically well adjusted guy, right, because that's
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: the kind of thing that's on everyone's desk when you
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: walk into their house. Wexner was a preshy billionaire who
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: literally built his own fiefdom in the middle of an
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: American rust belt. It's hard to ultimately define their dealings,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: but I am certain that the vast sums Epstein earned
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: from Wexner were the source of his power. One of
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: the tragic ironies of this story is that Wexner's teenage
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: customer base was made up of the kinds of girls
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: that Epstein preyed upon. Epstein used the money and legitimacy
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: has worked for Wexner and others afforded him to bring
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: about unspeakable human suffering. Fair enough, he sure did. He
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: most certainly did, and the disgustingness of it. The whole
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: young girls and the pink brand that victorious secret and
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: all of it when you look at it through this scope,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: is so disturbing that it is it almost takes your
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: breath away, honestly, with how disturbing the whole entire thing
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: is when you look at it all as one. Since
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: Epstein's death in August twenty nineteen, Wexner's professional life has
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: been in a tailspin. The board of L Brands, the
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: Limited was renamed in twenty thirteen, hired Davis Polk to
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: conduct an investigation into Wexner's relationship with Epstein. The investigation
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: was never made public, but months later Wexner stepped down
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: as CEO, ending his run as the longest serving chief
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: executive in the S and P. Five hundred. He remained
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: chairman of the board. So that investigation whatever right Again,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: anytime they have one of these so called independent investigations,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: I roll my eyes. You want to be impactful, you
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: want to do the right thing, Go and speak to
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: the FBI, willingly, go under oath and talk to them
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: about all the things you saw well you were around
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein. Short of that, it's all bs. In my opinion,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: Wexner's problems only deepened. Shareholders sued L Brands, alleging the
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: Davis Polk investigation was a whitewash. L Brands retained the
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: law firm walked Ol Lipton to conduct a second investigation
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: into Wexner and Epstein's dealings. This past May, Wexner stepped
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: down from the L Brands board, ending his last official
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: role in the company he founded more than a half
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: century ago. So we know that he's still, you know,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: friendly with people on that board. We know that he
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: still has some sympathy on that board. But at least
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: he had to suffer stepping down, right. I know it's
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: a small victory, but at least it's showing some progress
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: that there's going to be some sort of penalty for
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: these people, because, like I said earlier, I am not
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: too confident in people like Wexter getting charged by the
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: government or anything like that. All right now, I'd love
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: to be wrong, and I'd love to see the government
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: go hard, but their track record is not great. Meanwhile,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: Dershowitz has subpoenaed Wexner to testify as part of his
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: defamation lawsuit against Virginia Roberts, who alleged Epstein effect her
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: to Dershowitz. Dershowitz denies Robert's allegations. L Brand shareholders are
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: suing board members, including the Wexners, in a Delaware court,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: accusing Abigail Wexner of not doing enough while Epstein and
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: Gilain Maxwell sexually assaulted Maria Farmer in the New Albany compound.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: Now imagine that shareholders are suing board members over what
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: happened to Maria. That's putting a stamp on Maria's story.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: Huh.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: The shareholders believer her, Obviously their lawyer's believer. Obviously, It's
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: too bad the FBI didn't. The Wexners have declined to comment,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: citing pending litigation. Maxwell's sex trafficking trial is scheduled for
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: the fall. She has pleaded not guilty. Wexner's name is
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: bound to be discussed during testimony. Those who have known
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: Wexner longest have experience the range of emotions as they've
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: watched his fall. It's not the less I knew, and no,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: former Columbus Mayor Greg Les Shutge told me Harold Levin,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: the former financial advisor who feuded with Epstein, feels a
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: small measure of vindication. When Epstein was arrested, my ex
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: wife called me and said you were right, he told me.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: Wesner's childhood friend, Peter Holliday thought that the full extent
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: of what Epstein's trail of destruction has yet to be told.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: I know the story isn't finished, he said. When the
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: whole story does come out, I just hope Less is dead. Wow.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: That's powerful stuff from his buddy Peter Holliday, powerful stuff
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: about Les Wexner and an indictment in my opinion, on
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: him and his long long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Folks,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: that concludes the Vanity Fair article detailing the relationship between
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein and Les Wexner. If you'd like to contact me,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: you can do that at Bobby Kapuchi at ProtonMail dot com.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: That's b O B B Y c A p u
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: C c I at ProtonMail dot com. You can also
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: find me on Twitter at b O B B Y
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: Underscore C A p u Cci. All of the links
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: that go with this episode can be found in the
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: description box. All right, folks, I'll be back later and
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: we will pick up where we left off. Have a
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: great day, everyone,