Jeffrey Epstein charged

[Beebo Brink]

So is anyone placing bets on Ghislaine Maxwell getting a Trump pardon?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

QAnon get every bloody where. They're as bad as rats in central London.

Ghislaine Maxwell court hearing disrupted by apparent QAnon followers

An unlawful live stream was viewed by numerous followers of the conspiracy theory before being shut down

www.theguardian.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

“He’s a Lot of Fun to Be With”: Inside Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump’s Epic Bromance

Beginning in the late ’80s, the infamous sex trafficker and the future president (and their mutual friend Ghislaine Maxwell) palled around for almost two decades. In an excerpt from his new book, the author exposes their shared tastes for private planes, shady money, and foreign-born models—many...

www.vanityfair.com

The extract is from

American Kompromat by Craig Unger: 9780593182536 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** Kompromat n.—Russian for "compromising information" This is a story about the dirty secrets of the most powerful people in the world—including...

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

published next week.

 

[Free]

Leon Black step downs as Apollo CEO after review of Epstein ties

Leon Black said on Monday he would step down as chief executive at Apollo Global Management Inc, following an independent review of his ties to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

www.reuters.com

The independent review, conducted by law firm Dechert LLP, found Black was not involved in any way with Epstein’s criminal activities. Black paid Epstein $158 million for advice on tax and estate planning and related services between 2012 and 2017, according to the review.

Black, 69, said that although the review confirmed he did not engage in any wrongdoing, he “deeply” regretted his involvement with Epstein.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Ugh, I don't like that. Dude has to give up his life because a guy he paid for tax advice turned out to be a sexual predator? That's dumb.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

A Boomer retiring before Gen X hits retirement age? Cool!

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Ugh, I don't like that. Dude has to give up his life because a guy he paid for tax advice turned out to be a sexual predator? That's dumb.

Poor guy is left with only billions of dollars. How will he get by?

 

[Free]

A Boomer retiring before Gen X hits retirement age? Cool!

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Not sure what "advice" Epstein could provide worth 158 million bucks. What services was it really for?

 

[Free]

Not sure what "advice" Epstein could provide worth 158 million bucks. What services was it really for?

And THAT is the 158 million dollar question.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

According to the article, it was 5% of the after-tax savings based on the advice.

One of the reasons Epstien got away with it for so long was because he really could make people money.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

What was the tax advice; hide your money offshore? I'd be curious if he ever was found to be part of the Panama Papers investigation.

 

[Free]

I'd be curious if he ever was found to be part of the Panama Papers investigation.

Jeffrey Epstein’s offshore fortune traced to Paradise Papers - ICIJ

Fresh revelations from ICIJ investigations, raise the likelihood that sex offender Jeffrey Epstein cloaked his fortune in a series of offshore shell companies registered in notoriously secretive tax havens.

www.icij.org

 

[danielravennest]

Ugh, I don't like that. Dude has to give up his life because a guy he paid for tax advice turned out to be a sexual predator? That's dumb.

That's a huge amount to pay for financial advice. There is the possibility he was being blackmailed by Epstein & Co.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

For that matter, he might have been 'cleared' on the condition he step down.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

That's a huge amount to pay for financial advice. There is the possibility he was being blackmailed by Epstein & Co.

According to the article, it was 5% of the after-tax savings based on the advice.

One of the reasons Epstien got away with it for so long was because he really could make people money.

We're not talking like asking a friend for an opinion; ostensibly, tax and estate planning was Epstein's legitimate enterprise so people would've been paying him pro rates for that kind of work.

But this is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about, where it seems like now it's fair game to "speculate" that anyone who ever had lunch with Jeffrey Epstein must've known about or been involved in or was being blackmailed by his prostitution racket.

 

[Ashiri]

But this is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about, where it seems like now it's fair game to "speculate" that anyone who ever had lunch with Jeffrey Epstein must've known about or been involved in or was being blackmailed by his prostitution racket.

That would depend on whether his 2008 case was public knowledge.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

From the report:

Epstein won Black’s trust by resolving an estate tax issue for him in 2012 potentially worth at least $500 million, the report said. He ended up advising Black on various aspects of his personal financial affairs, from his family office and airplane to his yacht and artwork.

Black believed that Epstein provided advice over the years that conferred between $1 billion and $2 billion in value to him, according to the Dechert report. Black said in his note to investors that he had paid Epstein a fee equivalent to 5% of the value he generated on an after-tax basis, and not tied to hourly rates.

Black and Epstein’s relationship deteriorated after Epstein failed to repay $20 million of the loans and Black refused to pay tens of millions of dollars in fees that Epstein demanded, according to the Dechert report.

They severed ties in October 2018, according to the report. Black knew Epstein had been convicted in Florida a decade earlier for soliciting prostitution from a minor, the Dechert report said, but there was no evidence suggesting Black had knowledge of the other alleged crimes before they were publicly reported in late 2018, culminating in Epstein’s July 2019 arrest.

Yet again, whether or not Black's a pedophile or attended Epstein's parties is neither here nor there. This report that supposedly exonerates him admits that

Black knew Epstein had been convicted in Florida a decade earlier for soliciting prostitution from a minor, the Dechert report said,

but clearly he didn't see this as any sort of reason not to form a close, lasting, and mutually profitable business relationship in which he trusted Epstein to manage huge sums for him.

HIs sexual exploitation of minors doesn't seem to have mattered, which is what I find so shocking -- all these rich and powerful people knew what was going on, but still attended his parties and invited him to their charity dos, and did business with him to their vast mutual benefit, and no one cared about the girls.

Epstein's proclivities were, after all, hardly unknown before 2008 -- as the Washington Post tells us,

“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York Magazine [in 2002] for a story headlined “Jeffrey Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery.” “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

They all knew, but no one thought it mattered.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Prison abuse turning Ghislaine Maxwell into a ‘shell of her former self’

Ghislaine Maxwell is “withering to a shell of her former self” in a New York jail and has been “physically abused” by one of her guards, her lawyer claimed last night.In a letter to the judge

www.thetimes.co.uk

Evernote link because paywall

The conditions in which she's being held -- on remand, not yet having been convicted of anything -- sound oppressive and vindictive in the extreme.

It's what you're used to, I suppose. I'm horrified and ashamed at the state of British prisons, and the conditions in which vulnerable inmates are held, but the sort of treatment described in the article would be completely illegal here.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Prison abuse turning Ghislaine Maxwell into a ‘shell of her former self’

Ghislaine Maxwell is “withering to a shell of her former self” in a New York jail and has been “physically abused” by one of her guards, her lawyer claimed last night.In a letter to the judge

www.thetimes.co.uk

Evernote link because paywall

The conditions in which she's being held -- on remand, not yet having been convicted of anything -- sound oppressive and vindictive in the extreme.

It's what you're used to, I suppose. I'm horrified and ashamed at the state of British prisons, and the conditions in which vulnerable inmates are held, but the sort of treatment described in the article would be completely illegal here.

Just realize that, even being used to it, doesn't mean thinking its right or proper... its appalling.