Mr. Epstein is routinely described as a billionaire and brilliant financier, and he rubbed elbows with the powerful, including former and future presidents. Even after his 2008 guilty plea in a prostitution case in Florida,
he promoted himself as a financial wizard who used arcane mathematical
models, and he often dropped the names of Nobel Prize-winning friends.
He told potential clients that they had to invest a minimum of $1
billion. At his peak in the early 2000s, a magazine profile said he
employed 150 people, some working out of the historic Villard Houses on
Madison Avenue.Much of that appears to be an illusion, and there is little evidence that Mr. Epstein is a billionaire.
Publisher: NYTimes | Author: Jason DeParle