The release of Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday book has brought the deceased financier’s intimate ties to political, financial, corporate, and academic centers of power into sharp focus — along with the casualness with which prominent figures just two decades ago celebrated his sexual appetites.
Headlines about the 2003 book, titled “The First Fifty Years,” were dominated this week by details of a lewd birthday salutation purportedly penned by then real estate bigwig Donald Trump and a photograph taken of Epstein, a woman whose face is redacted, and two men holding an oversized check with an apparent mock-up of Trump’s signature.
The photo’s accompanying caption, reportedly written by a Mar-a-Lago member, Joel Pashcow, appears to joke about Epstein selling Trump a “fully depreciated” woman for $22,500.
The current commander-in-chief wasn’t the only power player to feature in the 238-page volume assembled by Epstein’s convicted right-hand, Ghislaine Maxwell, which was obtained from his estate by congressional Democrats and published online with redactions Monday.
More than 50 associates of Epstein, as featured in the book, are divided into sections categorized by family, childhood friends from Brooklyn, friends, and contacts in the worlds of business and science, with some redactions. The identities of signees in sections under “girlfriends,” “girl-friends,” “children,” and “special assistants” are redacted in full.
Trump, who was close with his Palm Beach neighbor Epstein for years before they fell out in the early 2000s, has denied submitting a letter or drawing the picture of a naked woman that framed it. He is suing the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on it and is owned by his longtime ally Rupert Murdoch, for $10 billion. Trump’s apparent letter likened him and Epstein to “enigmas,” said they had “certain things in common,” and cryptically ended with, “May every day be another wonderful secret.”
Also weighing in with an apparent letter was former President Bill Clinton just two years out of office, included under “friends” along with Trump. The letter heaps praise on the well-connected wealth manager for his “childlike curiosity” and “drive to make a difference.” Clinton’s office has not publicly commented on the book.
Jean-Luc Brunel included a math equation in his birthday note and a wish that Epstein’s future happy days are happier than his best ones before 50. The French modeling scout, who faced accusations of supplying girls to Epstein, was found dead in a Paris jail cell under similar circumstances to Epstein in 2022, awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Billionaires Leslie Wexner and Leon Black, Epstein’s biggest clients from 1999 to 2018, according to a recent Forbes analysis, touched on Epstein’s sexual wants.
“Blond, Red or Brunette, spread out geographically,” wrote Black, once one of the most powerful men on Wall Street, “With this net of fish, Jeff’s now ‘The Old Man and the Sea.’” Black has shelled out tens of millions in Epstein-related settlements and has said he regrets his association with him.
Former Victoria’s Secret CEO Wexner, who has long denied he knew anything about the abuse, wrote Epstein a short note preceding a sketch of a woman’s breasts, which read, “I wanted to get you what you want… so here it is…”
Alan Dershowitz, the contentious defense attorney who had counted Epstein and Trump among his clients, appeared to make a joke about getting a Vanity Fair story about him killed.
“I managed to obtain an early version of the Vanity Unfair article. I talked them into changing the focus from you to Bill Clinton, as you will see from the enclosed excerpt,” read Dershowitz’s letter, followed by a phony Vanity Fair cover edited to include Epstein’s name in all the headlines. Dershowitz previously told the Daily News he didn’t remember participating in the book.
In one of the redacted sections under “assistants,” an unnamed woman writes that “before Jeffrey,” she was 22 years old working in a hotel restaurant, and “after,” someone regularly flying around the world and meeting people like “Prince Andrew, President Clinton, Sultan of Brunei, Donald Trump, Antonio Verglas, Naomi Campbell, Stephanie Seymour, Peter Brant, Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, brilliant scientists, lawyers and business men.”
The birthday tribute features collages of dozens upon dozens of images of scantily clad young girls and women, whose faces have been redacted, and constant references to Epstein’s obsession with them.
According to the Department of Justice and the FBI, he abused more than 1,000 women and girls before his controversial death in federal custody in New York, awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019. At least three victims are dead.
One disturbing hand-drawn picture goes so far as to appear to illustrate Epstein grooming victims for abuse.
On the left, he’s depicted handing balloons to little girls over the caption “1983.” On the right, in “2003,” women in lingerie are depicted massaging an apparently naked Epstein over the caption, “What a great country!”
The vast majority of rape and sexual assault allegations against Epstein and Maxwell detail abuse occurring under the guise of massages.
Strange and grotesque references to sexual activity and molestation feature throughout the book.
One of Epstein’s childhood Brooklyn friends, who signs off as “Johnny Boy,” opens his letter with an explicit description of Epstein’s conception, questioning “who was there” to direct his parents, Paula and Seymour Epstein, during the sexual encounter.
In a series of pages left unsigned, a friend of Epstein’s reminisces about “two very young girls, probably just 17,” kissing in the back of his “father’s caddy” and apparently molesting a Rabbi’s daughter.
“Jeff would call the house Rabbi’s wife + say this is [redacted’s] father,” one of the pages reads, “I would bring her up to your mother’s house + make her take her top off so we could touch her boobs.”
The leather-bound keepsake album was made by Herbert Weitz, an eccentric New York City book binder who The News interviewed at length in September 2018 about an unrelated feud with his neighbors. He told a reporter at the time he was “the greatest book binder who ever lived.” Weitz died in 2020.
Around four years after Maxwell organized the gift, which includes a partially redacted naked photo of her with Epstein and her gushing commentary throughout, Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for sex in Palm Beach — despite authorities identifying dozens of potential victims — in a maligned and unusual plea deal with federal prosecutors in Florida.
Following his conviction, Epstein was permitted to leave the county jail during his 13-month stint for work. It would be more than a decade before federal authorities meaningfully pursued him after the extensive scope of sexual abuse allegations was exposed by the Miami Herald.
Maxwell, a one-time fixture in New York and London’s high societies, was convicted in 2021 of facilitating Epstein’s abuse of girls as young as 14 and has asked the Supreme Court to review her conviction.
Trump’s former lawyer and now Deputy U.S. Attorney General, Todd Blanche, met with Maxwell twice in custody over the summer, a series of meetings in which she praised Trump and distanced him from Epstein. Regarding the book, she said Epstein helped coordinate it, and that she didn’t recall Trump submitting a letter.
Following the unusual meetings with the Justice Department’s second-in-command, Maxwell was relocated to a cushy dorm-style prison in Texas.
