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Les Wexner\u2019s long-time friendship with Jeffrey Epstein will be the subject of a closed-door congressional deposition in Ohio on Wednesday, where the billionaire retail magnate is expected to face questions about new revelations contained in the\u00a0latest release of Justice Department documents\u00a0related to the late sexual predator.<\/p>\n
Wexner, 88, the retired founder of L Brands, has said he plans to cooperate with\u00a0a subpoena\u00a0from Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.<\/p>\n
As one of Epstein\u2019s most prominent former friends, Wexner has already spent years answering for their decades-long association. In court documents, prominent\u00a0Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre\u00a0claimed that Wexner was one of the men Epstein trafficked her to.<\/p>\n
Wexner has consistently denied any knowledge of or involvement in the millionaire financier\u2019s crimes and says he never met Giuffre. He told L Brands investors in 2019 that\u00a0he was embarrassed\u00a0that he ever got close to someone \u201cso sick, so cunning, so depraved.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has never been accused of wrongdoing and the overall picture provided by the DOJ documents is that\u00a0Epstein did not run a sex trafficking ring.<\/p>\n
Wexner\u2019s name appears more than 1,000 times in the Epstein files, which his spokesperson said is not unexpected given their longstanding relationship. The documents shed new light on his relationship to Epstein \u2014 which ended bitterly after Wexner and his wife Abigail learned he\u2019d been stealing from them \u2014 while raising many new questions.<\/p>\n
Epstein first met Wexner through a business associate around 1986.<\/p>\n
It was an opportune time for Wexner\u2019s finances. The successful Ohio businessman had grown a single Limited store in Columbus into a powerhouse suite of \u201980s mall-culture staples: The Limited, Limited Express, Lane Bryant and Victoria\u2019s Secret. Abercrombie & Fitch, Lerner, White Barn Candle Co. and others would follow.<\/p>\n
Within a couple years, Wexner had turned over management of his vast fortune to Epstein. He gave his now-trusted associate his power of attorney in 1991, allowing Epstein to make investments and do business deals and to purchase property and help develop what would become the vast Wexner estate in then-rural New Albany, Ohio, documents show. Wednesday\u2019s deposition will take place either there or nearby, according to participating lawmakers.<\/p>\n
Epstein had \u201cexcellent judgment and unusually high standards,\u201d Wexner told Vanity Fair in a 2003 interview, and he was \u201calways a most loyal friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
In one of the newly released documents, Epstein sent rough notes to himself about Wexner saying: \u201cnever ever, did anything without informing les\u201d and \u201cI would never give him up.\u201d Another document, an apparent draft letter to Wexner, said the two \u201chad \u2018gang stuff\u2019 for over 15 years\u201d and were mutually indebted to each other \u2014 as Wexner helped make Epstein rich and Epstein helped make Wexner richer.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Wexner said he never received the letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt appears Epstein was furious that Mr. Wexner refused to meet with him years after Mr. Wexner terminated Epstein and cut off all ties with him following Mr. Wexner\u2019s discovery of Epstein\u2019s theft and criminal conduct,\u201d the spokesperson, Tom Davies, said. \u201cThe draft appears to fit a pattern of untrue, outlandish, and delusional statements made by Epstein in desperate attempts to perpetuate his lies and justify his misconduct.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wexner did not publicly reveal until after Epstein\u2019s\u00a0arrest on federal sex trafficking charges\u00a0in July 2019 that he had severed their relationship. In\u00a0a Wexner Foundation letter\u00a0that August, he said that happened in 2007. However, the Justice Department\u2019s newly released records show the two were in touch after that.<\/p>\n
Wexner emailed Epstein on June 26, 2008, after a plea deal was announced that would require him to serve 18 months in a Florida jail on a state charge of soliciting prostitution from a minor in order to avoid federal prosecution. He wound up serving 13 months.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbigail told me the result\u2026 all I can say is I feel sorry. You violated your own number 1 rule\u2026always be careful,\u201d Wexner wrote. Epstein replied: \u201cno excuse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davies said the 2007 date Wexner cited in 2019 applied to firing Epstein as financial adviser, revoking his power of attorney and removing his name from Wexner\u2019s bank accounts.<\/p>\n
Wexner also said in the 2019 letter that Epstein had\u00a0misappropriated \u201cvast sums\u201d\u00a0of his and his family\u2019s fortune while overseeing his finances. An investigative memo from the latest document release says that Wexner\u2019s attorneys told investigators in 2008 that Epstein had repaid him $100 million, thought to be just a portion of what he stole.<\/p>\n
Newly released documents emboldened sexual assault survivors in ways that have increased pressure on Wexner.<\/p>\n
Epstein survivor Maria Farmer has said she\u00a0was vindicated\u00a0by a redacted FBI report contained in the documents, which confirms that she filed one of the earliest complaints against Epstein.<\/p>\n
Though the complaint reported his possession of nude photos of underage girls, the records have drawn new attention to the harrowing account of an alleged sexual encounter forced on her by Epstein and\u00a0Ghislaine Maxwell\u00a0in the summer of 1996 at Epstein\u2019s home in New Albany. The home was located about a half mile from the Wexners\u2019 home. The Wexners have said they had never heard anything about Farmer\u2019s account of the crime until it appeared in news accounts years later.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, survivors of another sexual predator \u2014 the late\u00a0Dr. Richard Strauss, a team doctor at the Ohio State University who was found to have\u00a0sexually abused at least 177 male students\u00a0over years \u2014 are citing Wexner\u2019s association with Epstein to try to get his name removed from a campus football complex built with his contributions. Their request is pending before a university committee. Davies declined comment.<\/p>\n
The alumni group scored a legal victory last week, though, when a district court judge said they can compel Wexner to testify in\u00a0their lawsuit against the university. He sat on Ohio State\u2019s board of trustees during the period when Strauss, who died before his deeds came to light, committed his crimes.<\/p>\n
Separately, a spokesperson for Ohio State said the head of its Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. Mark Landon, is cooperating with the school\u2019s investigation into his mention in the Epstein files. Newly released documents indicated that Epstein had Landon on retainer in 2006 for $25,000 a quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not provide any clinical care for Jeffrey Epstein or any of his victims,\u201d Landon said in a statement. \u201cI was a paid consultant for the New York Strategy Group regarding potential biotech investments from 2001 to 2005.\u201d A statement from Davies said the advice Epstein was soliciting was on the Wexners\u2019 behalf.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Victorias #Secret #billionaire #face #congressional #grilling #long #Epstein #friendship #closed #doors<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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