New York Post

Epstein’s plea perks

750G att’y ‘bonus’

- By ISABEL VINCENT

Convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was so thrilled with the sweetheart plea deal his legal dream team scored for him in Florida that he threw in an added bonus — some $750,000 worth of donations to the attorneys’ favorite charities, including a tony Manhattan prep school.

In 2007, while two Manhattan-based criminal-defense lawyers were finalizing Epstein’s deal, which included 13 months in a Palm Beach County jail and freedom from federal criminal prosecutio­n, Epstein was writing checks to their charities.

Epstein’s C.O.U.Q. nonprofit donated $500,000 in 2007 to the Ramaz School on the Upper East Side, where attorney Jay Lefkowitz was a prominent member of the school’s Orthodox Jewish community.

Epstein’s private foundation also donated $250,000 to the Washington-based Foundation for Criminal Justice, where another attorney, Gerald Lefcourt, was a board member in 2007, public filings show.

Both contributi­ons were one-time donations from the charity, which was founded in 1998 by Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who has been accused by three women of procuring girls to work as sex slaves for Epstein.

It’s not clear what prompted the donations, and neither Lefcourt nor Lefkowitz returned The Post’s e-mails and calls.

The disgraced financier was newly arrested in July and charged with sexually abusing minors.

Lefkowitz’s three children attended the Ramaz School. Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, who served as principal there from 1966 to 2015, officiated Lefkowitz’s 1991 wedding with Elena Neuman.

A spokeswoma­n for Ramaz refused to comment.

The foundation did not return requests for comment.

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