The Epstein Enigma
We live in an age that not only countenances, but applauds, Same-Sex Marriage, a time in which 87 Genders are recognized by major universities and business corporations, and Ivy League schools offer courses on BDS&M, we are giving Ancient Rome in its gaudiest days a good run for its money, but still, a nice juicy sex scandal, even decades old, will whip the Trans-Atlantic media and public into a tizzy.
I think one can reasonably assume that right today, across the United States, there are thousands upon thousands of women working in the Oldest Profession in city after city and town after town, and some non-insignificant percentage of them are younger than 18, and their activities are generally entirely voluntary and of their own choice, and there is no reason to suppose that any of this has any likelihood at all of changing.
But when sharp lawyers and loudly-complaining “victims” come along, even decades later, and the party guilty of lascivious carriage is rich, a celebrity, or a title-holder, just watch the pundits and talking heads pile on and the indignant mob begin hunting down the violator of morality pitchforks and torches in hands.
Pardon my skepticism, but it seems to me that what we have here combines 1) the opportunistic desire to sell newspapers and supply rich juicy broadcast news fodder, and 2) the all-too-human impulse to pull down and destroy the rich, famous, and successful.
I cannot claim careful study and deep knowledge of the shenanigans of Jeffrey Epstein and his long list of luminary friends, but the noisiest and most famous case involves the late Virginia Giuffre née Roberts, who, reports have it, was paid $15,000 for half an hour with the then Prince Andrew, who apparently spent much of that time attempting to please the young lady by lavishing attention on her feet.
Miss Roberts had an unhappy home life, and escaped to the streets and payment for sex work years before meeting the scoundrel Epstein. She was 17 at the time of her brief liaison with Prince Andrew, and the legal Age of Consent in Britain is 16, yet these considerations did nothing to save Andrew from the angry Puritan mob, and his elder brother, current head of "The Firm,” hastily threw Andrew under the bus, removing his titles, orders, honorary commands, confiscating his house lease , and even (temporarily*) de-hyphenating his surnames.
The Epstein affair is really very, very odd, because Jeffrey Epstein’s career was so bizarre and unaccountable.
A nice Jewish boy of humble Outer Borough origin gains admission to Cooper Union**, but drops out, then studies Math at NYU, where again he fails to graduate.
Then, unaccountably, young Epstein, sans degree, is hired to teach at Dalton, a hoity-toity Upper East Side prep school serving the offspring of New York’s filthy rich. But after a few years Dalton suddenly fires him.
Thereupon, Bear Stearns, a leading Wall Street Investment Bank and Securities Firm, takes him in as a trading assistant. Epstein must have “copied all the letters in a hand so free” and “polished up the handle on the big, black door” so well that, in only four years, they made him a partner. But, whoops! once again, Epstein blots his copybook, and is fired for a “Reg D violation” (whatever that is).
Jeffrey Epstein proceeds, of course, once again to spring from failure and disaster straight upward. This time starting his own business, which apparently recovered stolen assets for the wealthy. After all, if you were some unlucky Rothschild or Harriman who’d been mulcted, wouldn’t you turn eagerly to a former investment banker fired for rule-breaking to recover your valuables?
Hard to believe, but it must have worked, because Epstein not only prospered but developed ties to foreign intelligence services and to the Saudi arms dealer Adnan Kashoggi.
It gets incredibly complicated. He went on and on from there, founding company after company for corporate raiding, managing the assets of billionaire clients, creating innovative debt instruments, &c., &c. He even went into debt instrument partnership with Bear Stearns, contributing not insignificantly to the demise of his old firm in 2008.
No failure or setback, not even arrests and convictions for solicitation of prostitution in 2006 and 2008 slowed him down. He piled up hundreds of millions, acquired the largest (50,000 sq. ft.) private home in NYC, a private island, and a 10,000 acre New Mexico ranch.
How Epstein after each failure rose higher and higher, the nature of his relationships with foreign governments and US Intelligence, what services he could possibly have provided to earn such an immense fortune, how he was twice able to negotiate favorable plea deals, and how he actually died all remain mysterious.
Jeffrey Epstein, in his rise and fall, made Jay Gatsby look like a piker, and in his leisure hours apparently pursued the life-style of an Ottoman sultan. On top of which, he seems to have charmed his way into palship with great numbers of royalty, leaders of state, big-time politicos, celebrities, and tech billionaires.
I’m tempted to suggest the Epstein saga has the makings of a Classic Tragedy, but to write it the tragedian would have to understand Epstein’s story, and it’s incomprehensible.
* The authorities in these matters ruled that the hyphen in Mountbatten-Windsor was not susceptible to royal cancellation.
** Than a free tuition college teaching Art, Architecture, and Engineering.