Hacker News Reader

Comment by jtlienwis | Hacker News Reader

Taking money from a man that was convicted of earning money from sexually exploiting children makes taking money from a bank robber look virtuous.

View on HN

>earning money from sexually exploiting children

I'm not sure his income was as you described it.

Well it appears his main source of "income" was embezzling funds from a small number of "clients" over whom he had power of attorney and mysterious leverage that most likely was due to having conned them into engaging in serious felonies where minors were the victims. No one in the investment world did business with him or knew where he was supposedly investing his money and tracing back his assets most of them are transfers from clients over whom he held some kind of leverage. So, it does seem like he was abusing minors as part of a scheme to shake down people he got to abuse minors. Thus, he was earning money from sexually exploiting children, probably. Of course all the cases are being dropped and all his money and assets have been transferred overseas and vanished for the most part so we'll never really know.

And where exactly is this benefit of the doubt coming from?

Not just you, but a lot of people ITT are saying similar things suggesting his wealth is legitimate, despite now knowing that he is a child sex trafficker. Once someone stoops that low, all bets are off. From that point forward, claiming "he got his money from a hedge fund" is the far more extraordinary claim.

I guess I should quote more:

>a man that was convicted of earning money from sexually exploiting children

That is a pretty specific thing. I don't think it is a"benefit of the doubt" to say that no such conviction exists.

I predict we'll never know, because it won't be investigated.

Eh? He was convicted of giving money to children in exchange for sex.

There have been accusations that he got his start by embezzling from Wexner, but as far as anyone can tell so far, the bulk of Epstein's wealth is "legitimate".

As far as I know, no-one has any real explanation for where Epstein's wealth comes from. Apparently real hedge fund guys were baffled as to where his money comes from and the suggestion that the whole thing was an elaborate blackmail operation isn't beyond credibility.

It pushes the extreme limits of credibility. It would be a decades-long-running blackmail scheme, involving hundreds of millions of dollars. With dozens of people involved. Overseen by accountants.

It's just a bit too "made for TV movie". This story is under a microscope. If there was a conspiracy that elaborate, it would have come out by now.

I could be proven wrong, but I'm betting on "rich creep who thinks he can buy everything" rather than secret-society mastermind pulling puppet-strings.

Well, a lot of things about this push the limits of credibility - if you were an author who told me about Epstein in a novel ('private sex island', 'hangs around with royalty and famous scientists') I'd say you're overdoing it. Have a look at:

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/hedge-funders-have-so...

Anyone with enough money and libido can buy property and staff it with prostitutes. Anyone offering enough grant money can hang out with famous scientists. I don't see why that is hard to believe.

That article can be summarized as: "We don't know where he got his money from, therefore let's speculate". It's good entertainment, but reality is usually pretty mundane. It's easier to believe Hoffenberg's claim that Epstein made off with the proceeds of the Tower Financial ponzi scheme. But that too seems heavily investigated already.

Your theory requires a explanation of how he became rich without any explicable business dealings or inheritance.

> the bulk of Epstein's wealth is "legitimate"

OK, how did he earn it? He didn't invest anywhere despite his claims to be running a hedge fund. Most of his assets were transfers from Wexler, or donations from leveraged associates laundered through charities. I've not seen any path through which he had any legitimate income or earnings at all.

I figured he took money from other people to let them abuse the girls.

I really hope you re-evaluate this comment. You italicized “giving”, I assume to imply something. This man was clearly a monster, and I don’t need a court to tell me that.

The implication I assume is that his money including this donation was not earned via child prostitution and was not as such inherently dirty or tainted.

It'd be an even worse look if MIT was directly using money earned from child abuse.

…what you just mentioned is still very illegal.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com