[39] He swiftly moved up to become an options trader, working in the special products division, and then advised the bank's wealthiest clients, such as Seagram president Edgar Bronfman, on tax mitigation strategies.

[39] In August 1981, Epstein founded his own consulting firm, Intercontinental Assets Group Inc. (IAG),[43] which assisted clients in recovering stolen money from fraudulent brokers and lawyers.

[27][44] Spanish actress and heiress Ana Obregón was one such wealthy client, whom Epstein helped in 1982 to recover her father's millions in lost investments, which had disappeared when Drysdale Government Securities[45][46][47][48][49] collapsed because of fraud.

The power of attorney allowed Epstein to hire people, sign checks, buy and sell properties, borrow money, and do anything else of a legally binding nature on Wexner's behalf.

[65] Other bidders included advertising executive Donny Deutsch, investor Nelson Peltz, media mogul and New York Daily News publisher Mortimer Zuckerman, and film producer Harvey Weinstein.

[70] In August 2006, Epstein, a month after the federal investigation of him began,[73] invested $57 million in the Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage hedge fund.

[75][74] By the time that the Bear Stearns fund began to fail in May 2007, Epstein had begun to negotiate a plea deal with the U.S. Attorney's Office concerning imminent charges for sex with minors.

[85] Epstein installed concealed cameras in numerous places on his properties to allegedly record sexual activity with underage girls of prominent people for criminal purposes such as blackmail.

[92] Epstein implied that he had blackmail material when he told a New York Times reporter in 2018, off the record, that he had dirt on powerful people, including information about their sexual proclivities and recreational drug use.

[95] Adriana Ross, a former model from Poland who became an Epstein assistant, reportedly removed computer drives and other electronic equipment from the financier's Florida mansion before Palm Beach Police searched the home as part of their investigation.

[95] Eventually the FBI compiled reports on "34 confirmed minors" eligible for restitution (increased to forty in the non-prosecution agreement) whose allegations of sexual abuse by Epstein included corroborating details.

[54][55][114] Epstein agreed to plead guilty in Florida state court to two felony prostitution charges, serve eighteen months in prison, register as a sex offender, and pay restitution to three dozen victims identified by the FBI.

The Palm Beach police chief accused the state of giving him preferential treatment,[94] and the Miami Herald said U.S. Attorney Acosta gave Epstein "the deal of a lifetime".

[151][152] A document filed in court alleges that Epstein ran a "sexual abuse ring", and lent underage girls to "prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders".

A "John Doe" asked the judge on September 3 to permanently keep the documents secret, claiming "unproven allegations of impropriety" could damage his reputation, though he had no evidence his name was included.

The plaintiff, who had filed anonymously as Jane Doe, was scheduled to appear in a Los Angeles press conference six days before the 2016 election, but abruptly canceled the event; her lawyer Lisa Bloom asserted that the woman had received threats.

[154][180] On April 16, 2019, Maria Farmer went public and filed a sworn affidavit in federal court in New York, alleging that she and her 15-year-old sister, Annie, had been sexually assaulted by Epstein and Maxwell in separate locations in 1996.

[186] In October 2019, Araoz amended her complaint to include over twenty corporate entities associated with Epstein and named the additional individuals Lesley Groff and Cimberly Espinosa as enablers.

[193] On December 3, 2019, lawyer Jordan Merson filed a lawsuit in New York on behalf of nine anonymous accusers (Jane Does 1–9) and against Epstein's estate for battery, assault, and intentional emotional distress.

[178][179][18] Several of Epstein's household employees testified in 2009 that Maxwell had a central role in both his public and private life, referring to her as his "main girlfriend" who also handled the hiring, supervising, and firing of staff starting around 1992.

[27] Epstein was a longtime acquaintance of Prince Andrew and Tom Barrack,[209] and attended parties with many prominent people, including Bill Clinton, George Stephanopoulos, Mark Zuckerberg,[210] Donald Trump,[211] Katie Couric, Woody Allen,[212] Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin,[213] Naomi Campbell, Stephen Hawking,[214] and Harvey Weinstein.

In November 2004, Epstein and Trump's friendship ran into trouble when they became embroiled in a bidding war for a $40 million mansion, Maison de L'Amitié, which was being auctioned in Palm Beach.

Epstein lost "large sums of money" in the 2008 financial crisis, and "friends and patrons"—including retail billionaire Leslie Wexner—"deserted him" following his pleading guilty to prostitution charges in 2008.

In the Paradise Papers, records showed that Epstein in February 1997, became a client of Appleby, a Bermuda-based law firm which specialized in the creation of offshore companies and investment vehicles for the ultra-wealthy.

[291] As U.S. Attorney in Florida, the later U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta reached a settlement with Epstein's lawyers (including Alan M. Dershowitz) in 2008, which allowed him to receive a very light prison sentence.

[128][294][295] In 2019, Forbes deleted a 2013 article that called Epstein "one of the largest backers of cutting edge science" after The New York Times revealed its author, Drew Hendricks, had been paid $600 to submit it falsely as his own.

[303] It was reported in August 2019 that Epstein had planned to "seed the human race with his DNA" by impregnating up to twenty women at a time using his New Mexico compound as a "baby ranch", where mothers would give birth to his offspring.

[12] The United States Department of Justice's Inspector General's investigation report released on June 27, 2023, criticized jail officials for repeated "negligence, misconduct, and outright job performance failures" in connection with Epstein's incarceration and death.

"[331] On August 14, 2019, Manhattan federal court Judge Richard M. Berman, who was overseeing Epstein's criminal case, wrote to the Metropolitan Correctional Center warden Lamine N'Diaye inquiring as to whether an investigation into the millionaire's apparent suicide would include a probe into his prior (July 23) injuries.

"[333] President Serene Gregg, of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3148, said MCC is functioning with fewer than seventy percent of the needed correctional officers, forcing many to work mandatory overtime and 60-to-70-hour workweeks.