'More widespread than previously known': Wall Street companies stuck with Epstein until the end

The Wall Street Journal reports convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein “never got kicked out of Wall Street’s VIP club.”

Epstein’s estate recently turned over to Congress a list of more than 20 banks that held accounts for Epstein and entities related to him, according to unnamed sources, and much of that information reveals Epstein’s banking and investment activities in the years before his 2019 death were “more widespread than previously known.”

Documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and “people familiar with the matter” show Epstein held accounts at several banks as well as large transactions with well-known hedge funds.

“The documents … show that in the years before he died, Epstein moved at least $60 million into Honeycomb Partners, an investment fund; received $13.5 million from a hedge fund run by Paul Tudor Jones; and sold $15 million worth of private company shares to crypto investor Blockchain Capital,” said WSJ reporter Khadeeja Safdar.

Honeycomb lawyer Reed Brodsky told the Journal that “no one at Honeycomb ever had any personal or professional relationship with him.” A Tudor Investment spokesman claims the same.

Safdar added that Epstein or Epstein-related entities had accounts with several banks in his later years, including Wells Fargo WFC, TD Bank and FirstBank Puerto Rico, according to sources.

A spokesman for TD Bank told WSJ that accounts held by Epstein’s lawyer and accountant were closed and the relationships terminated in 2019, while a spokesman for FirstBank Puerto Rico said Epstein was a “legacy relationship” acquired when the bank purchased Chase banking operations in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2002.

A spokesman for Wells Fargo declined to comment.

“The documents also confirm some of Epstein’s transactions that have been previously reported with well-known associates, including tens of millions of dollars in transfers from private-equity billionaire Leon Black, one of Epstein’s financial clients; more than $20 million that Epstein invested in Valar Ventures, a VC firm anchored by tech billionaire Peter Thiel; and $25 million that Epstein received from the Rothschild banking family,” WSJ reports.

In addition to this, the documents reveal payments to known Epstein associates that haven’t previously been reported, including $85,000 to attorney and conservative pundit Alan Dershowitz in 2016 for an “overdue payment,” according to Dershowitz; $1 million between 2014 and 2015 to former MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito; $250,000 to Norwegian diplomat Terje Rod-Larsen in 2015, and $1.2M to consultant and former treasury secretary Larry Sumers, among others.

The Wall Street Journal reports The House Oversight Committee is expected to subpoena banks for their records.

Read the Wall Street Journal report at this link.