‘FRIENDSHIP’
Epstein’s business partner at a New York private equity firm in the 1980s and ’90s, until Hoffenberg was convicted of running a massive Ponzi scheme. “But he was crazy about Maxwell, a very charming lady.”
Epstein made several appearances at Mar-a-Lago. He attended a party there with NFL cheerleaders in 1992, where he was videotaped by an NBC news crew gathering footage for a segment on Trump. The network recently released the footage, in which Trump greets Epstein warmly and whispers in the financier’s ear, leading Epstein to double over in laughter.
Photographs and videos show Epstein and Trump posing together at the mansion in 1992, 1997 and 2000. The two were also pictured together, with model Ingrid Seynhaeve, in 1997 at a Victoria’s Secret party in New York City.
Around that time, Trump flew at least once, in the late 1990s or 2000, on Epstein’s private plane from Florida to New York, according to Epstein’s brother, Mark, who described the flight in a 2009 deposition.
In an interview last week with The Post, Mark Epstein said Trump flew on the plane “numerous times,” but said he was only present for one flight.
“They were good friends,” Mark Epstein said. “I know [Trump] is trying to distance himself, but they were.”
When Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book of phone numbers appeared in a court file a few years ago, it contained 14 numbers for Trump; his wife, Melania; and others in Trump’s inner circle.
Trump also dined at Epstein’s Upper East Side Manhattan mansion in 2003, according to New York magazine. “The dialogues are so engaging,” Epstein told the magazine, “that serving even the most extraordinary food sometimes seems inappropriate.”
But according to Stone, Trump turned down numerous invitations to Epstein’s private island and his Palm Beach home. In a 2016 book, Stone quoted Trump as saying that “The one time I visited [Epstein’s] Palm Beach home, the swimming pool was full of beautiful young girls. ‘How nice,’ I thought, ‘he let the neighborhood kids use his pool.’ ”
It was another prime property on Palm Beach island that pitted the two men against each other — a 6-acre oceanfront estate with a 180-degree view of the Atlantic.
In November 2004, Trump, who was starring in NBC’s “The Apprentice” at the time, declared himself intent on winning “the finest piece of land in Florida and probably the U.S.,” an estate that had been seized as part of the bankruptcy of nursing
“They were good friends. I know [Trump] is trying to distance himself, but they were.”
Mark Epstein,
home magnate Abe Gosman.
Trump said he planned to create “the second greatest house in America, Mar-aLago being the first” and then resell it.
Epstein was also enraptured by the property, which Gosman had purchased in 1988 for about $12 million from Leslie Wexner, the Ohio-based retail executive who was a friend and patron of Epstein’s. Epstein, meanwhile, seemed interested in living at the place.
At first, Epstein pressed to gain the upper hand in the competition for the estate, according to Luzinski, the bankruptcy trustee. Epstein agreed on a price and terms that were viewed as favorable for Gosman’s creditors if a higher bid didn’t emerge, he said.
As the competition heated up, Trump and Epstein began talking each other down to the trustee, Luzinski said.
On Nov. 15, 2004, the bidders, their representatives, and a small cavalry of lawyers representing the creditors and the Gosman family gathered in a courtroom at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in West Palm Beach. Trump was connected by phone.
The auction began with an attempt by one of Epstein’s attorneys to knock Trump out of the bidding. Attorney Andrew Kamensky argued that Trump was not qualified because he demanded the property have title insurance or he would not close on the sale. “What I’m telling you is that Mr. Epstein will — he will close,” Kamensky said, according a transcript obtained by The Post.
Trump wasn’t in Palm Beach — his attorney, Raymond Royce, was in the courtroom. But Trump was on the phone, and now he chimed in to defend himself.
Judge Steven Friedman rejected Epstein’s objection. The bidding began with Epstein’s offer of $37.25 million, but he dropped out after his bid of $38.6 million was topped.
Trump “had made up his mind to get it no matter the price,” said Charles Tatelbaum, a lawyer for one of Gosman’s creditors, JPMorgan Chase Bank.
A third bidder jumped in late, prompting Trump to pipe up again. “This is Mr. Trump,” he said over the speakerphone. “It seemed to be very clear that they dropped out also.”
The judge allowed the other bidder, Mark Pulte, to proceed, but Trump outbid him, too, with an offer of $41.35 million.
“I will therefore determine by the bang of the gavel that Mr. Trump is the higher bidder,” Friedman said.
It is unclear whether Trump and Epstein were in contact after the house sale.
Four years after he bought the Gosman mansion, Trump sold it to Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million, more than doubling his investment.
It is unclear when Trump learned of allegations that Epstein was preying on teenage girls. In a 2002 interview, he gave no indication of concern, telling New York magazine that Epstein “enjoys his social life.”
“It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” Trump said.
On Nov. 28, 2004 — less than two weeks after the mansion auction — Palm Beach police fielded a tip that young women were seen coming and going from Epstein’s home, then-Police Chief Michael Reiter said in a deposition. Reiter declined to comment.
Four months later, in March 2005, police received a complaint from a woman who alleged that her 15-year-old stepdaughter had been paid $300 by Epstein to massage the financier while partially undressed, according to the police report. The Palm Beach police investigation identified more than a dozen possible victims, the report shows.
In 2006, a grand jury indicted Epstein on a single count of soliciting a prostitute. Epstein pleaded not guilty. That July, news organizations first reported that Palm Beach police had investigated Epstein for unlawful sex with minors and wanted the FBI to take up the case.
After a lengthy FBI investigation, federal prosecutors, including future Trump labor secretary Alex Acosta, agreed not to prosecute Epstein under federal law, allowing him instead to plead guilty in state court in 2008 to two felony counts, including soliciting a minor. Epstein ended up spending a year in county jail, with work release, under the non-prosecution agreement. As details of the deal were publicized again this year, Acosta resigned amid criticism for its leniency.
Epstein is now facing federal
New York of sexually abusing girls. He has pleaded not guilty.
In late 2007, the New York Post reported that Epstein had been barred from visiting Mar-a-Lago, which Epstein at the time denied.
In July of this year, Garten said that Trump “banned him from stepping foot on the property.”
Nunberg said that when he quizzed Trump about his relationship with Epstein, Trump told him, “He’s a real creep, I banned him.”
Trump also appears to have been helpful to Epstein’s accusers.
Brad Edwards, an attorney for some of the alleged victims, said in an interview last year that when he was seeking information from Epstein’s acquaintances in 2009, Trump was “the only person who picked up the phone and said: ‘Let’s just talk. I’ll give you as much time as you want. I’ll tell you what you need to know.’ ”
Edwards declined to say what Trump told him but said he was “very helpful in the information that he gave.”
When Nunberg looked into Trump’s ties with Epstein, he said that Trump’s longtime secretary, Rhona Graff, and others in the Trump Organization all agreed that Trump had made a clear break with Epstein.
“That’s all I needed to know,” Nunberg concluded. “He’d never let somebody else get leverage over him.” charges dozens in of