mirror-epstein-docs/results/IMAGES012/DOJ-OGR-00032074.json

{
  "document_metadata": {
    "page_number": "35",
    "document_number": "17-295",
    "date": "07/26/17",
    "document_type": "Public Records Request",
    "has_handwriting": false,
    "has_stamps": true
  },
  "full_text": "being so brutal as to be \"irresponsible.\" One reporter, in fact, received three threats from Epstein while preparing a piece. They were delivered in a jocular tone, but the message was clear: There will be trouble for your family if I don't like the article. On the other hand, Epstein is clearly very generous with friends. Joe Pagano, an Aspen-based venture capitalist, who has known Epstein since before his Bear Stearns days, can't say enough nice things: \"I have a boy who's dyslexic, and Jeffrey's gotten close to him over the years. . . . Jeffrey got him into music. He bought him his first piano. And then as he got to school he had difficulty . . . in studying . . . so Jeffrey got him interested in taking flying lessons.\" Rosa Monckton recalls Epstein telling her that her daughter, Domenica, who suffers from Down syndrome, needed the sun, and that Rosa should feel free to bring her to his house in Palm Beach anytime. Some friends remember that in the late 80s Epstein would offer to upgrade the airline tickets of good friends by affixing first-class stickers: the only problem was that the stickers turned out to be unofficial. Sometimes the technique worked, but other times it didn't, and the unwitting recipients found themselves exiled to coach. (Epstein has claimed that he paid for the upgrades, and had no knowledge of the stickers.) Many of those who benefited from Epstein's largesse claim that his generosity comes with no strings attached. \"I never felt he wanted anything from me in return,\" says one old friend, who received a first-class upgrade. Epstein is known about town as a man who loves women-lots of them, mostly young. Model types have been heard saying they are full of gratitude to Epstein for flying them around, and he is a familiar face to many of the Victoria's Secret girls. One young woman recalls being summoned by Ghislaine Maxwell to a concert at Epstein's town house, where the women seemed to outnumber the men by far. \"These were not women you'd see at Upper East Side dinners,\" the woman recalls. \"Many seemed foreign and dressed a little bizarrely.\" This same guest also attended a cocktail party thrown by Maxwell that Prince Andrew attended, which was filled, she says, with young Russian models. \"Some of the guests were horrified,\" the woman says. \"He's reckless,\" says a former business associate, \"and he's gotten more so. Money does that to you. He's breaking the oath he made to himself-that he would never do anything that would expose him in the media. Right now, in the wake of the publicity following his trip with Clinton, he must be in a very difficult place.\" According to S.E.C. and other legal documents unearthed by Vanity Fair, Epstein may have good reason to keep his past cloaked in secrecy: his real mentor, it might seem, was not Leslie Wexner but Steven Jude Hoffenberg, 57, who, for a few months before the S.E.C. sued to freeze his assets in 1993, was trying to buy the New York Post. He is currently incarcerated in the Federal Medical Center in Devens, Massachusetts, serving a 20-year sentence for bilking investors out of more than $450 million in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history. When Epstein met Hoffenberg in London in the 1980s, the latter was the charismatic, audacious head of the Towers Financial Corporation, a collection agency that was supposed to buy debts that people owed to hospitals, banks, and phone companies. But Hoffenberg began using company funds to pay off earlier investors and service a lavish lifestyle that included a mansion on Long Island, homes on Manhattan's Sutton Place and in Florida, and a fleet of cars and planes. Hoffenberg and Epstein had much in common. Both were smart and obsessed with making money. Both were from Brooklyn. According to Hoffenberg, the two men were introduced by Douglas Leese, a defense contractor. Epstein has said they were introduced by John Mitchell, the late attorney general. Epstein had been running International Assets Group Inc. (I.A.G.), a consulting company, out of his apartment in the Solo building on East 66th Street in New York. Though he has claimed that he managed money for billionaires only, in a 1989 deposition he testified that he spent 80 percent of his time helping people recover stolen money from fraudulent brokers and lawyers. He was also not above entering into risky, tax-sheltered oil and gas deals with much smaller investors. A lawsuit that Michael Stroll, the former head of Williams Electronics Inc., filed against Epstein shows that in 1982 I.A.G. received an investment from Stroll of $450,000, which Epstein put into oil. In 1984, Stroll asked for his money back; four years later he had received only $10,000. Stroll lost the suit, after Epstein claimed in court, among other things, that the check for $10,000 was for a horse he'd bought from Stroll. \"My net worth never exceeded four and a half million dollars,\" Stroll has said. Hoffenberg, says a close friend, \"really liked Jeffrey. . . . Jeffrey has a way of getting under your skin, and he was under Hoffenberg's.\" Also appealing to Hoffenberg were Epstein's social connections; they included oil mogul Cece Wang (father of the designer Vera) and Mohan Murjani, whose clothing company grew into Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans. Epstein lived large even then. One friend recalls that when he took Canadian heiress Wendy Belzberg on a date he hired a Rolls-Royce especially for the occasion. (Epstein has claimed he owned it.) In 1987, Hoffenberg, according to sources, set Epstein up in the offices he still occupies in the Villard House, on Madison Avenue, across a courtyard from the restaurant Le Cirque. Hoffenberg hired his new protégé as a consultant at $25,000 a month, and the relationship flourished. \"They traveled everywhere together-on Hoffenberg's plane, all around the world, they were always together,\" says a source. Hoffenberg has claimed that Epstein confided in him, saying, for example, that he had left Bear Stearns in 1981 after he was discovered executing \"illegal operations.\" Several of Bear Stearns' contemporaries recall that Epstein left the company very suddenly. Within the company there were rumors also that he was involved in a technical infringement, and it was thought that the executive committee asked that he resign after his two supporters, Ace Greenberg and Jimmy Cayne, were outnumbered. Greenberg says he can't recall this; Cayne denies it happened, and Epstein has denied it as well. \"Jeffrey Epstein left Bear Stearns of his own volition,\" says Cayne. \"It was never suggested that he leave by any member of management, and management never looked into any improprieties by him. Jeffrey said specifically, 'I don't want to work for anybody else. I want to work for myself.'\" Yet, this is not the story that Epstein told to the S.E.C. in 1981 and to lawyers in a 1989 deposition involving a civil business case in Philadelphia. In 1981 the S.E.C.'s Jonathan Harris and Robert Blackburn took Epstein's testimony and that of other Bear Stearns employees in part of what became a protracted case about insider trading around a tender offer placed on March 11, 1981, by the Seagram Company Ltd. for St. Joe Minerals Corp. Ultimately several Italian and Swiss investors were found guilty, including Italian financier Giuseppe Tome, who had used his relationship with Seagram owner Edgar Bronfman Sr. to obtain information about the tender offer. After the tender offer was announced, the S.E.C. began investigating trades involving St. Joe at continued on page 123 Public Records Request No.: 17-295 DOJ-OGR-00032074",
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      "type": "printed",
      "content": "being so brutal as to be \"irresponsible.\" One reporter, in fact, received three threats from Epstein while preparing a piece. They were delivered in a jocular tone, but the message was clear: There will be trouble for your family if I don't like the article. On the other hand, Epstein is clearly very generous with friends. Joe Pagano, an Aspen-based venture capitalist, who has known Epstein since before his Bear Stearns days, can't say enough nice things: \"I have a boy who's dyslexic, and Jeffrey's gotten close to him over the years. . . . Jeffrey got him into music. He bought him his first piano. And then as he got to school he had difficulty . . . in studying . . . so Jeffrey got him interested in taking flying lessons.\" Rosa Monckton recalls Epstein telling her that her daughter, Domenica, who suffers from Down syndrome, needed the sun, and that Rosa should feel free to bring her to his house in Palm Beach anytime. Some friends remember that in the late 80s Epstein would offer to upgrade the airline tickets of good friends by affixing first-class stickers: the only problem was that the stickers turned out to be unofficial. Sometimes the technique worked, but other times it didn't, and the unwitting recipients found themselves exiled to coach. (Epstein has claimed that he paid for the upgrades, and had no knowledge of the stickers.) Many of those who benefited from Epstein's largesse claim that his generosity comes with no strings attached. \"I never felt he wanted anything from me in return,\" says one old friend, who received a first-class upgrade.",
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      "content": "Epstein is known about town as a man who loves women-lots of them, mostly young. Model types have been heard saying they are full of gratitude to Epstein for flying them around, and he is a familiar face to many of the Victoria's Secret girls. One young woman recalls being summoned by Ghislaine Maxwell to a concert at Epstein's town house, where the women seemed to outnumber the men by far. \"These were not women you'd see at Upper East Side dinners,\" the woman recalls. \"Many seemed foreign and dressed a little bizarrely.\" This same guest also attended a cocktail party thrown by Maxwell that Prince Andrew attended, which was filled, she says, with young Russian models. \"Some of the guests were horrified,\" the woman says. \"He's reckless,\" says a former business associate, \"and he's gotten more so. Money does that to you. He's breaking the oath he made to himself-that he would never do anything that would expose him in the media. Right now, in the wake of the publicity following his trip with Clinton, he must be in a very difficult place.\"",
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      "content": "According to S.E.C. and other legal documents unearthed by Vanity Fair, Epstein may have good reason to keep his past cloaked in secrecy: his real mentor, it might seem, was not Leslie Wexner but Steven Jude Hoffenberg, 57, who, for a few months before the S.E.C. sued to freeze his assets in 1993, was trying to buy the New York Post. He is currently incarcerated in the Federal Medical Center in Devens, Massachusetts, serving a 20-year sentence for bilking investors out of more than $450 million in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history. When Epstein met Hoffenberg in London in the 1980s, the latter was the charismatic, audacious head of the Towers Financial Corporation, a collection agency that was supposed to buy debts that people owed to hospitals, banks, and phone companies. But Hoffenberg began using company funds to pay off earlier investors and service a lavish lifestyle that included a mansion on Long Island, homes on Manhattan's Sutton Place and in Florida, and a fleet of cars and planes.",
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      "content": "Hoffenberg, says a close friend, \"really liked Jeffrey. . . . Jeffrey has a way of getting under your skin, and he was under Hoffenberg's.\" Also appealing to Hoffenberg were Epstein's social connections; they included oil mogul Cece Wang (father of the designer Vera) and Mohan Murjani, whose clothing company grew into Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans. Epstein lived large even then. One friend recalls that when he took Canadian heiress Wendy Belzberg on a date he hired a Rolls-Royce especially for the occasion. (Epstein has claimed he owned it.) In 1987, Hoffenberg, according to sources, set Epstein up in the offices he still occupies in the Villard House, on Madison Avenue, across a courtyard from the restaurant Le Cirque. Hoffenberg hired his new protégé as a consultant at $25,000 a month, and the relationship flourished. \"They traveled everywhere together-on Hoffenberg's plane, all around the world, they were always together,\" says a source. Hoffenberg has claimed that Epstein confided in him, saying, for example, that he had left Bear Stearns in 1981 after he was discovered executing \"illegal operations.\"",
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      "content": "Several of Bear Stearns' contemporaries recall that Epstein left the company very suddenly. Within the company there were rumors also that he was involved in a technical infringement, and it was thought that the executive committee asked that he resign after his two supporters, Ace Greenberg and Jimmy Cayne, were outnumbered. Greenberg says he can't recall this; Cayne denies it happened, and Epstein has denied it as well. \"Jeffrey Epstein left Bear Stearns of his own volition,\" says Cayne. \"It was never suggested that he leave by any member of management, and management never looked into any improprieties by him. Jeffrey said specifically, 'I don't want to work for anybody else. I want to work for myself.'\" Yet, this is not the story that Epstein told to the S.E.C. in 1981 and to lawyers in a 1989 deposition involving a civil business case in Philadelphia.",
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    {
      "type": "printed",
      "content": "In 1981 the S.E.C.'s Jonathan Harris and Robert Blackburn took Epstein's testimony and that of other Bear Stearns employees in part of what became a protracted case about insider trading around a tender offer placed on March 11, 1981, by the Seagram Company Ltd. for St. Joe Minerals Corp. Ultimately several Italian and Swiss investors were found guilty, including Italian financier Giuseppe Tome, who had used his relationship with Seagram owner Edgar Bronfman Sr. to obtain information about the tender offer. After the tender offer was announced, the S.E.C. began investigating trades involving St. Joe at continued on page 123",
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    {
      "type": "stamp",
      "content": "M 07/26/17 03",
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      "type": "printed",
      "content": "Page 35 of 151",
      "position": "footer"
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    {
      "type": "printed",
      "content": "Public Records Request No.: 17-295",
      "position": "footer"
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    {
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      "content": "DOJ-OGR-00032074",
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  ],
  "entities": {
    "people": [
      "Jeffrey Epstein",
      "Joe Pagano",
      "Rosa Monckton",
      "Domenica",
      "Ghislaine Maxwell",
      "Prince Andrew",
      "Clinton",
      "Steven Jude Hoffenberg",
      "Leslie Wexner",
      "Douglas Leese",
      "John Mitchell",
      "Michael Stroll",
      "Jonathan Harris",
      "Robert Blackburn",
      "Ace Greenberg",
      "Jimmy Cayne",
      "Giuseppe Tome",
      "Edgar Bronfman Sr.",
      "Cece Wang",
      "Vera",
      "Mohan Murjani",
      "Wendy Belzberg"
    ],
    "organizations": [
      "Bear Stearns",
      "International Assets Group Inc.",
      "Towers Financial Corporation",
      "S.E.C.",
      "Vanity Fair",
      "New York Post",
      "Federal Medical Center",
      "Williams Electronics Inc.",
      "Seagram Company Ltd.",
      "St. Joe Minerals Corp."
    ],
    "locations": [
      "Aspen",
      "Palm Beach",
      "London",
      "Devens",
      "Massachusetts",
      "Brooklyn",
      "New York",
      "Long Island",
      "Manhattan",
      "Sutton Place",
      "Florida",
      "Madison Avenue",
      "Upper East Side",
      "Philadelphia"
    ],
    "dates": [
      "1981",
      "1982",
      "1984",
      "1987",
      "1989",
      "1993",
      "07/26/17"
    ],
    "reference_numbers": [
      "17-295",
      "DOJ-OGR-00032074"
    ]
  },
  "additional_notes": "The document appears to be a page from a magazine or journal article discussing Jeffrey Epstein's life and connections. The text is printed in a formal font, with some quotes and anecdotes included. There are no visible redactions or damage to the text. The page number and document number are visible at the bottom of the page."
}