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Comment by ksherlock | Hacker News Reader

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ksherlock·

I still don't understand where the money came from

1. Get fired from your job as a school teacher for having sex with students

2. ????

3. Profit!

Sometime there's a reference to "estate planning" or "tax planning", etc, but that doesn't seem like "buy an island" kind of money. (And I'm sure the wealth was exaggerated but still there was plenty of money)

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Yeah, despite all of the publicity, the Epstein story is really still underreported.

The only publicly known and documented source of Epstein's wealth is gifts of stock and real estate from Les Wexner. Any claims to the effect he was some sort of legitimate "financier" (which is still the widespread perception) are completely unsupported by evidence, which would be abundantly available in the form of trading and other financial records.

He was limited partner at Bear-Stearns, and involved in a number of financial ventures so I think there’s more to it than just Wexner but given that this included at least one massive Ponzi scheme (Towers Financial Corporation) I think it’s very reasonable to question how many of those ventures involved scams or money laundering.

The SEC went hard after Steve Hoffenberg, Epstein's partner in crime at Towers, but somehow Epstein managed not to land in any legal trouble over it whatsoever. A truly charmed life.

Yeah, I’m not saying anything about his life looks innocent but rather than he had more opportunities to accumulate wealth than just Wexner. Some of those would have been perfect money laundering vehicles (e.g. I “invest” in your fund and don’t complain when the management fees are high) so it seems like there should still be an investigation into still living partners.

It’s entirely possible this is the more mundane “rich people taking care of their drinking buddy” corruption, too - there’s certainly tons of precedent for that.

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