TERSON

FILTHY RICH

she noticed, Epstein ate all the t for both of them. She found it osedly brilliant man had left for he Marquis de Sade. And then n one of Epstein's assistants-a ho told her, "Jeffrey wanted me tty."

glish features and flowing blond t then, with a bad case of morn- " sometimes in public, and these rt only added to her ever-present posedly brilliant, he'd struck her,

e doesn't let the charm slip into e steely and calculating, giving machinery running behind them. , after refusing to give an inter- ite. You get the first move.' It was nan who seems to feel he can win of the other side. His advantage is ow him or his history completely onsists of. He has carefully engi- e of the few truly baffling myster- ed world. People know snippets,

s friends gave were glowing: "I Il of seeing patterns," Les Wexner ¡in politics and financial markets, and fashion trends. My skills are

not in investment strategy, and, as everyone who knows Jeffrey knows, his are not in fashion and design. We frequently discuss world trends as each of us sees them."

"I'm on my 20th book," said Alan Dershowitz, who'd met Epstein in 1997. "The only person outside of my immediate fam- ily that I send drafts to is Jeffrey."

But Ward also talked to other sources, who had their own questions and qualms about Jeffrey Epstein. Some were involved in lawsuits against him. Others had served on prestigious boards with him. One who had witnessed Epstein's aborted stint on the board of Rockefeller University called him arrogant.

One powerful investment manager wondered about Epstein's conspicuous absence from New York's trading floors. "The trad- ing desks don't seem to know him," he says. "It's unusual for animals that big to not leave any footprints in the snow."

Ward uncovered legal documents, including Epstein's inter- view with the SEC, given in the wake of his departure from Bear Stearns. She visited a federal prison in Massachusetts and spoke at length with Steven Hoffenberg, who told her that Epstein had made a major mistake in taking Bill Clinton to Africa. "I always told him to stay below the radar," Hoffenberg said. He made other accusations, about Epstein's financial practices, which Epstein denied and Ward knew that Hoffenberg, the Ponzi-scheme mastermind, was not to be trusted. But she did find it strange that throughout the reporting process Epstein was much less openly concerned with what she'd found out about his finances than with what she'd uncovered about his dealings with women.

Time and again, he would call and ask her: "What do you have on the girls?"

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{"people":["jeffrey epstein","les wexner","alan dershowitz","steven hoffenberg","bill clinton"]}