Jeffrey Epstein's $560 million net worth: How did he amass such massive fortune?
Accused of abusing dozens of teenage girls, the legal documents turned the focus on Jeffrey Epstein, with public scrutiny of the court papers reigniting interest in the late sex offender's wealth and how he amassed it. The grandson of Jewish immigrants, Epstein was raised in Brooklyn, where he excelled in math and graduated from high school early.
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Jeffrey Epstein briefly attended Cooper Union and New York University, according to published reports over the years by multiple news outlets, some citing court documents. The controversy over Epstein's death also became a hot topic of debate after President Donald Trump returned to office in January. But the US Department of Justice and FBI concluded that sex offender Jeffrey Epstein did not have a so-called client list that could implicate high-profile associates, and that he did take his own life - contradicting long-held conspiracy theories about the infamous case.
As Trump continues to spar with parts of his political base over his handling of the Epstein files, attention is turning to the relationship between the two men.
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What is Jeffrey Epstein's net worth?
According to CBS News, when Jeffrey Epstein was found dead at the age of 66 at the Manhattan jail cell in August 2019, a filing in his criminal case pegged his net worth at roughly $560 million. Epstein's assets also included a number of lavish properties.
Certain reports suggest it is estimated that Epstein made a $634m (£505m) fortune. It was this massive money with the help of which he was able to join social circles which included former US presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump as well as celebrities.
The disgraced sex offender owned a palatial townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan worth more than $50 million. He also had a mansion in Palm Beach, Florida worth about $12 million, a ranch in New Mexico valued at over $17 million. Epstein also owned an apartment in Paris worth an estimated $8.6 million.
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His two private Caribbean islands — Great St. James and Little St. James — were together valued at $86 million following his death, but purchased for $60 million in 2023 by billionaire Stephen Deckoff, founder of alternative investment firm Black Diamond Capital Management. Epstein also owned a private jet.
What did Jeffrey Epstein do for a living?
Jeffrey Epstein was publicly known for his rise in the finance world. From a school drop-out to one of the richest men in America, with former US presidents and Hollywood stars among his acquaintances, he started teaching math at The Dalton School, one of New York's most prestigious prep schools in his early 20s.
After being dismissed due to his "poor performance", Jeffrey Epstein chose to go into banking, starting his career as a junior assistant to a floor trader. In 1981, he set up his own company aimed at helping people recover stolen money from fraudulent lawyers and brokers.
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Six years later, he was hired by Steven Hoffenberg as a consultant at Towers Financial Corporation, a collection agency that bought debts owed to hospitals, banks and phone companies. In 1988, he founded his financial management firm J. Epstein & Company, where only clients with at least $1 billion of assets were considered. It's then that Epstein became involved with money laundering and other criminal activities, according to a report in The Independent.
In 1993, it was claimed he became involved in an fraudulent investing scam that brought in investors on false promises of return - but he avoided being charged for his involvement in the scheme. It still remains a mystery as to how he achieved success so quickly at his company, But over the next two decades he struck multi-million-pound deals with some of the world's wealthiest people and biggest financial institutions.
Where else did Epstein get his money from?
Apart from these, America's largest lender, JPMorgan Chase loaned Epstein money and regularly let him withdraw large sums of cash from 1998 through August 2013, according to a class-action lawsuit settled by the nation's largest bank. In an emailed statement to CBS MoneyWatch in June of 2023, JPMorgan called Epstein's behavior "monstrous," and said it regretted any association with the disgraced financier.
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Epstein also had financial dealings with Deutsche Bank, which in May 2023 agreed to pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the German bank "knowingly benefited" from his sex trafficking and profited from doing business with him.
Deutsche Bank declined to comment on the settlement. In 2020, it acknowledged its "error of onboarding Epstein in 2013 and the weaknesses in our processes."
But his world began to crumble in 2005, when the parents of a 14-year-old girl accused Epstein of molesting their daughter. In 2008, he reached a controversial plea deal with prosecutors and served just 13 months in jail.
Over the years, more women came forward with disturbing allegations about his behavior. Eventually, the threads of an alleged sex trafficking network began to unravel. In 2019, Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges — but a month later, he was found dead in his jail cell.
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