The great Epstein unravelling

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Jeffrey Epstein Invested With Peter Thiel And His Estate is Reaping Millions
NYT:
By Matthew Goldstein
June 4, 2025

Jeffrey Epstein, the registered sex offender, met with many powerful people in finance and business during his career, but the financier invested with only a few of them.

One of those people was Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire.

In 2015 and 2016, Mr. Epstein put $40 million into two funds managed by Valar Ventures, a New York firm that was co-founded by Mr. Thiel. Today that investment is worth nearly $170 million, according to a confidential financial analysis of the late Mr. Epstein’s estate reviewed by The New York Times and a statement provided by a Valar spokesman.

The investment in Valar, which specializes in providing start-up capital to financial services tech companies, is the largest asset still held by Mr. Epstein’s estate, some six years after he died by suicide in federal custody while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

Mr. Epstein’s investment with Mr. Thiel’s firm has not been previously reported or publicly disclosed.

There’s a good chance much of the windfall will not go to any of the roughly 200 victims whom the disgraced financier abused when they were teenagers or young women. Those victims have already received monetary settlements from the estate, which required them to sign broad releases that gave up the right to bring future claims against it or individuals associated with it.

The money is more likely to be distributed to one of Mr. Epstein’s former girlfriends and two of his long-term advisers, who have been named the beneficiaries of his estate.

That outcome doesn’t sit well with one of the lawyers who fought for years to help the women receive restitution. David Boies, who represented several of Mr. Epstein’s victims, said federal authorities seemed to lose interest after Mr. Epstein’s death and the successful conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell, his former companion, on sex-trafficking charges.

He said prosecutors in New York had made a mistake in not going for civil forfeiture after Mr. Epstein killed himself, which would have allowed the federal government to potentially seize the remaining assets.

“While we are grateful for the government’s prosecution of Epstein and Maxwell, the truth is that, both before and afterwards, the government was largely asleep at the switch,” Mr. Boies said.

Civil forfeiture allows the government to seize assets suspected of being involved in an illegal action. In theory, some of the seized assets could have been used to compensate victims.

After Mr. Epstein’s death, federal prosecutors considered bringing a civil forfeiture action against his estate. But the authorities rejected the idea because the process may have delayed settlement payments to victims, said a person who was briefed on the matter but not authorized to speak publicly.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment.

Image
Jeffrey Epstein.
Conspiracy theories continue to swirl about the circumstances of Jeffrey Epstein’s death in jail.
Credit...New York State Sex Offender Registry/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A college dropout, Mr. Epstein amassed much of his wealth by charging hefty fees for providing tax and estate services to a few billionaires like Leslie Wexner, the retail magnate, and Leon Black, the private equity investor. Mr. Black, for instance, paid Mr. Epstein more than $158 million in fees, and Mr. Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan once belonged to Mr. Wexner.

Mr. Thiel, whose meetings with Mr. Epstein were first reported by The Times two years ago, is just one more in a long list of famous and wealthy men who met with Mr. Epstein over the years.

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Aaron Curtis, a Valar spokesman, said in statement that when a firm representative met with Mr. Epstein in 2014, he was considered a “well-known adviser to world leaders, top universities and philanthropic organizations.”

He said the firm, which is led by Andrew McCormack and James Fitzgerald, “hopes that the eventual distribution of these investments can be put to positive use by helping victims move forward with their lives.”

Jeremiah Hall, a spokesman for Mr. Thiel, declined to comment.

Through a representative, the co-executors of Mr. Epstein’s estate declined to comment.

At the moment, the estate’s investment with Valar remains locked up, meaning it cannot be paid out in cash. Investments with venture capital firms are normally subject to long periods of lockup to give the companies that are being funded time to grow.

Based on the estimated value of the Valar investment, Mr. Epstein’s estate is worth more than $200 million in all, according the confidential report and estate records. When he died, Mr. Epstein had about $600 million in assets, which included investments, his lavish homes, artwork and jewelry. Over the past six years, the estate has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements to victims and the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Mr. Epstein maintained a residence. The estate has also had to pay federal taxes and hefty fees to lawyers working for the estate.

Years after his death, Mr. Epstein’s story, especially the circumstances of his passing, has remained fodder for conspiracy theorists.

Mr. Thiel himself has discussed the importance of the federal government’s airing facts surrounding certain conspiracy theories, including those involving Mr. Epstein. In an opinion piece he wrote in January for The Financial Times, Mr. Thiel said the conspiracy theory surrounding Mr. Epstein’s death was one of many that might be dealt with during the Trump administration.

The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kash Patel, recently reaffirmed the agency’s determination in 2019 that Mr. Epstein died by suicide.

Just one major federal civil lawsuit remains pending against the executors of the estate, a potential class action filed on behalf victims who haven’t yet settled with the estate. The lawsuit was brought by Mr. Boies’s firm, but it’s not known how many women would even quality for a settlement.

In the past, victims have received settlements ranging from $500,000 to $2 million.

Once that lawsuit is resolved, the estate will be close to begin distributing money according to terms of the will Mr. Epstein signed shortly before he died. The will calls for the assets remaining in his estate to be distributed according to a secret trust he set up called the 1953 Trust, which was named for the year he was born.

Estate law normally does not give executors much latitude to deviate from how a person wanted his or her assets distributed.

The only known beneficiaries of the trust are a former girlfriend, Karyna Shuliak, and the co-executors of the estate, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, both longtime advisers to Mr. Epstein. The 1953 Trust has never been made public. Ms. Shuliak’s lawyer declined to comment.

According to a confidential financial document describing some details of the 1953 Trust, it was also Mr. Epstein’s intent for some $19 million in loans he had made to be forgiven, including some loans to entities that Mr. Indyke and Mr. Kahn are “closely associated” with. The confidential document, which was reviewed by The Times, was prepared by a special master working for the judge overseeing the probate of Mr. Epstein’s will in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It was publicly filed on the court docket before it was later sealed.

At one point, one of the executors had predicted the estate would be worth less than $40 million after claims were paid.

But the estate’s assets began to swell last fall, after it received a large $111.6 million tax refund from the Internal Revenue Service. Some of that money has since gone to pay off a loan and legal fees.

In its most recent public court filing, the estate, as of March 31, listed its total assets at a little over $131 million, of which about $50 million is cash. But that document notes it still records investments, such as the Valar investment, at their value when Mr. Epstein died nearly six years ago."

For those not in the know; Peter Thiel is who literally placed JD Vance into the role of VP, he is a naturalized S African and pal of Elon Musk

[mister_coffee]

Trump and Epstein were in it together, at least if you read between the lines here:

https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles ... awsuit.pdf

It also spells out in words of one syllable what a monstrous and evil creep all those idiots voted for.

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He's backing off the Obama charges at least after someone told him that the SCOTUS ruling makes it tough to prosecute a president. He's pouting in Scotland where he's gotten a massively funny Go Home from the Scots. I particularly like the one where the Scotsmen are depositing sh** in the golf course holes.

[mister_coffee]

More distractions are incoming.

Trump is calling for prosecutions of Kamala Harris, Oprah Winfrey, Beyonce, and Al Sharpton.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... s?from=mdr

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Fox poll. Rep's don't think Trump is being transparent
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/onl ... nYRVexqv6i

[mister_coffee]

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From '22. There's already been a successful major investigation into the sex trafficking within Epstein's circle. We need the records from this case.
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/30/11462214 ... ds-lawsuit

[just-jim]

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[mister_coffee]

A theory: Murdoch and the WSJ has it all and is going to slowly release it over time. If only to keep the whole scandal at the top of the news for as long as possible. And the longer this goes on the more likely it is that Trump and his MAGA cult will do something really stupid, really desperate, and ultimately self-destructive. Although I'd only want to watch whatever they do from a safe distance.

Either Bongino or Patel are leaking a lot of this material. Which is delicious all by itself.

So I think it is a safe bet that we will eventually see all of it. Including parts we'd rather not see.

[just-jim]

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From a couple months ago…..the sleezy folks we are talking about….
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[just-jim]

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I always figured Guilty FELON tiny donnie was in it up to his fat azz on all fronts……customer, supplier, etc
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[mister_coffee]

Just asking questions here.

It is a Matter Of Record that at least one girl who was trafficked by Epstein & Maxwell worked at Mar-A-Lago before Maxwell "discovered" her. Where there others who worked at Mar-A-Lago who had similar experiences?

Epstein seemed to have acquired some young girls from multiple modeling agencies. Trump had his own modeling agency "Trump Model Management" from 1999 until 2017. Did Epstein acquire girls for nefarious purposes from Trump Model Management?

The assumption that Trump is in the "Epstein Files" as a customer. What if he is also a supplier and business partner?

References: Trump Model Management Wikipedia Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Model_Management

In July 2015, it was reported that Trump Model Management and Trump Management Group LLC combined had requested US visas for almost 250 international fashion models.[

In August 2016, former Trump models alleged that they had worked for the agency without the company having obtained proper work visas on their behalf.

Now that's some sketchy stuff.

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So Murdoch is not rolling over like CBS after Trump filed the lawsuits, instead the WSJ is doubling down and Murdoch must be pretty sure of the sources to put it all out there.

Next question; the reporting is that Bondi told Trump the FBI had found that yes, he was in the files, alongside other people of stature. So, rather than go after those 'other people' in his attacks Trump has chosen to attack Iran, pump up the tariff fiasco and wildly accuse the Clintons of nefarious deeds. 1,000 FBI agents spent months going thru the files. Let that one sink in. 1,000 agents off field duty, not chasing criminals or terrorists.

Now the judge has declined to release the grand jury testimony, but the Dems have voted to subpoena the DoJ for the records so the fight is probably just warming up.

Apparently Murdoch wants a piece of the action.

[mister_coffee]

WSJ confirms that Trump is "in the files".

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This whole Epstein thing is so ugly

"There is a lot of consistency in these reports. Shared from Bruce Fanger at Donald Trump Jail Tracker: Forget Epstein. Look at Trump Model Management: The Real Pipeline of Power, Flesh, and Silence
Forget what you’ve heard about Ghislaine Maxwell being the mastermind—she wasn’t the start of this story. If you want to understand how elite trafficking really worked—how girls were recruited, processed, and handed off to billionaires—you don’t start with Epstein. You start with the modeling agencies.
John Casablancas, Jean-Luc Brunel, Donald Trump, and Paolo Zampolli didn’t just work in fashion. They operated a system. A system that targeted vulnerable girls—especially from Eastern Europe, South America, and small-town America—and fed them into a machine dressed in glamour but running on coercion.
Casablancas created the cultural template with Elite Model Management, turning underage girls into marketable assets and normalizing relationships between adult men and teenage models. Brunel expanded it internationally with MC2, an agency Epstein himself bankrolled with at least $1 million, giving him open access to a pipeline of girls. Zampolli specialized in the immigration angle, gaming the U.S. visa system to bring in foreign models on O-1 "extraordinary talent" visas, or more often, B-1/B-2 tourist visas, and placing them in overcrowded, overpriced apartments while booking them for under-the-table modeling jobs.
Trump joined this system fully in 1999 with the creation of Trump Model Management, shortly after his relationship with Melania—herself a Zampolli recruit from Slovenia—became public. The agency followed the same model: bringing in young women illegally, charging them for housing and services, and working them while they accumulated debt. Former models testified they were told to lie to customs officers, to say they were tourists, and then immediately sent out to work. This wasn’t alleged. This was documented. The visas were real. The labor was real. The fraud was real.
Compared to the agencies, Maxwell and Epstein were the curated side of the operation. They didn’t run dorm-style housing. They didn’t feed girls into low-budget catalog shoots. They offered the illusion of escape. Girls who had already been broken in by the agency system—groomed to obey, to smile, to say yes—were selected by Maxwell for "something better": jets, shopping, rich men, and beachfront estates. The sex was transactional, yes. But it felt luxurious. Many of the girls said yes willingly. Not because they were naive, but because they had already learned how the game worked.
Maxwell didn’t coerce; she inspired. She flattered. She offered protection and status. Epstein didn’t chase; he curated. He kept logs, wired his homes, tracked movements. He didn’t need to rape. The system had already trained the girls to comply. His value wasn’t as a user—it was as a middleman. He connected the supply (from the agencies) to the demand (from the elite).
Epstein's network wasn’t about individual lust. It was about leverage. He offered powerful men something better than market returns: exotic islands, off-book girls, and plausible deniability. He recorded everything. Not always to blackmail—but to own them. To keep the powerful quiet. And it worked.
These weren't dark secrets. They were sunlit transactions, wrapped in language like:
“Your back hurting, Joe? I got a girl, comes every day. Real sweet. Max set it up. No pressure. You want to come by for dinner next week?”
This is how trafficking happened. Not with chains, but with calendars. Not in shadows, but at dinner parties.
And what’s worse—compared to the brutality of the modeling agencies, Epstein and Maxwell could almost be seen as saviors. At least their girls got paid. Got flown somewhere. Got treated like something more than inventory. That’s how sick the foundation really was. That’s what kept the pipeline full.
This wasn’t just Epstein. It wasn’t even just a ring. It was a whole tier of elite society operating on shared appetites, protected by shared silence.
You don’t see this story in major media because they’re in on it. The PR firms, the publishers, the party hosts—they’re the white-gloved cleanup crew. The modeling industry protected the designers. The lawyers protected the agencies. The press protected the donors. The politicians protected each other. And the girls? They vanished into the system.
Trump saying "release it all" is performance. He was in it. Clinton was in it. Maybe more. The point isn't whose side you're on. The point is that the rot is bipartisan and built into the architecture of power itself.
This wasn't a scandal.
This was policy.
And the reason it’s never been fully exposed is simple:
Because when the rot climbs all the way to the top, there's no one left to report it."

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COlbert hits back:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIZegLAvK8o

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Trump is sending in his fixer to silence Maxwell
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/trump-send ... irect=true

[mister_coffee]

I don't really buy that Murdoch & co are maneuvering to dispose of Trump and replace him.

It is true that through self-inflicted injuries Trump has given himself two powerful enemies: Murdoch and Musk. Those two men control nearly all of the information warfare and propaganda system that keeps Trump in power. It is notable that X is elevating posts about Epstein over other right-wing stuff, and that can't be an accident.

Although it is important to remember that cults are at their most dangerous when they start to unravel. I think we are heading for a spike-the-salad-bar-at-taco-time moment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajn ... ror_attack

[just-jim]

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[Rideback]

More stories and scoops are coming out by the hour, as well as newly discovered videos of Trump at various gigs.
There's also so many layers and intersections with this whole fiasco that no one seems to be able, so far, to connect with a sharpie. The (non) prosecution of Epstein in FL the first round is ripe with problems for Acosta and even DoJ. The Russians were interspersed throughout the years. The banks didn't do due diligence. The young girls were never given justice under the laws.

And then there's another layer of JD Vance making a stopover in AF2 in MT to take a meeting with Murdoch, his son and executives of their empire the day before the WSJ & NYT pieces broke. Layer in the Paramount purchase by Ellison via his son who want to turn it into a Fox competitor and there's some real heavy hitters that are deciding if they'll use the Epstein connection to push Trump out. It's all so convoluted. And then there's Musk, trying his damnedest to be relevant again.

[mister_coffee]

If you dig too far into this stuff, it will make you crazy. Honestly when I read about it none of it makes very much sense at all.

We still do not know and do not understand how Epstein came into money in the first place. Like I said, his job history on his Wikipedia page isn't consistent with someone who would have that kind of money. He had to have had one or more major scores (that are hitherto unexplained officially) in oder to have the kind of personal fortune and run in the circles he did by the early 1990s.

When you dig on some of the other names of people he worked with or were in contact with, it seems that he was well set up to arrange fraud, detergent banking, or tax evasion for people. Which would go a long way to explain where he got his money and what he really did to make it.

I also don't understand why someone who is worth well north of $500MM would set up a clandestine network to traffic underage females for his friends. I can sort of understand if he had proclivities of his own (and he apparently did) setting up something discreet to take care of his own urges. But he wasn't a total idiot and had to know to expanding it into an operation to supply his buddies (and others) as well massively increased his risks. And you don't get into the billionaire's club by running a prostitution ring. Even if your customers are other billionaires. This just seems insanely reckless, especially from a population of folks that are rarely reckless (well, Elon Musk and Donald Trump are visible exceptions to that).

The timing of Trump's and Epstein's "falling out" is awfully convenient. Since Epstein was certainly under investigation by then and possibly word got out that he was becoming someone to avoid.

At least one of the trafficked girls previously worked at Mar-A-Lago and was "found" by Epstein there. Were there others? Did anyone at Mar-A-Lago get paid for this?

I also have to wonder if whatever financial network Epstein had set up was also used, somehow, by Trump to finance one or more of his comebacks after bankruptcy in the 1990s.

The last two things might go a long way towards explaining what Trump is so freaked out about.

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From The Hill:

"Out of all the things President Trump has done, I would never have imagined it would be the late Jeffrey Epstein that finally dented his political armor and turned his conspiracy-minded base against him.

I confess I feel a little cheap writing about this. So I have to remind myself that this is really the opposite of a conspiracy theory. And just so I don’t keep you in suspense, there is a list of clients related to the billionaire sex offender’s underage trafficking charges, and its existence is a matter of public record.

For those of you lucky enough not to know all the details already, Trump has been talking up Epstein conspiracy theories for years. His base is now hooked on the idea that the case files contain a huge amount of mud-slingable dirt on the rich and famous. During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised to make the files public and, in February, he even held a public event at the White House to release the “first phase” of the information.

Attorney General Pam Bondi — the official Trump tasked with the release — when asked about the Epstein client list and when it would be released, responded, “It’s sitting on my desk right now.”

Now, suddenly, Trump and Bondi are telling everyone to move along, there is nothing to see here. In a memo closing the case, released on Sunday of the July 4 holiday weekend, Bondi said there was no so-called “client list,” that no more information would be released, and that the case was closed.

Trump’s subsequent reactions have been equally inexplicable. He has gone from promising his followers amazing things to shouting at them for asking questions. He even published a post on Truth Social “firing” his supporters for refusing to drop the inquiry.

“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bulls—,’ hook, line, and sinker,“ the president posted Wednesday. “Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!”

Trump is also now claiming that Barack Obama and James Comey “made up” the Epstein files. That’s complete nonsense. Epstein was arrested on July 6, 2019, and his New York mansion was raided on the same day. Obama had been out of office for more than two years, and Trump himself was president — the same president, in fact, who had fired Comey on May 9, 2017, for his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf.

If Trump believes Obama and Comey had anything to do with the Epstein files, he’s an idiot. If Trump believes his supporters will buy this excuse, then he thinks they are.

We know that Bondi’s carefully crafted memo claiming that there is no Epstein “client list” — the quotation marks are in the memo— is also nonsense. There might not have been a “client list” in the FBI’s Epstein files, but the FBI certainly has compiled a list of clients.

When the FBI raided Epstein’s New York mansion, they seized a vast amount of material. In a court memo filed on July 8, 2019, two days after his arrest, the Department of Justice outlined some of the evidence they had seized. This included stacks of compact disks labeled “Young [Name] + [Name].” In short, Epstein kept a carefully curated library of videos showing various people having sex with underage women. Even if Epstein was not actively blackmailing anyone, he sure seems he had plenty of insurance at the ready.

But that’s not the only reason Bondi’s claim is nonsense. There’s also the question of math. Bondi admits that “Epstein harmed over one thousand victims.” But we also know that, once a part of Epstein’s “system,” his victims were trafficked several times.

Virginia Giuffre, for example, described being sexually trafficked multiple times over two years in New York, Palm Beach, the U.S. Virgin Islands and London. Let’s say that each victim was involved, on average, in five incidents. That’s over 5,000 sexual encounters. It’s safe to assume this wasn’t all Epstein. And with over a thousand victims to interview and piles of DVDs labeled with perpetrators’ names, the FBI and Pam Bondi know exactly who was involved.

So the question remains: Why has Trump suddenly turned on his followers on this issue and gone from being a champion of transparency to engaging in one of the clumsiest coverups in American political history? Why is Trump willing to die on the Epstein hill?

Make no mistake, Trump has a lot to lose from protecting Epstein’s clients. His base is furious. If nothing else, he’s now going to get booed at his own rallies. It’s even likely to be a potent issue in the 2026 midterms. House Democrats are already pushing Republicans to subpoena witnesses. You can almost hear them now — “Give us control of Congress and we’ll conduct proper hearings and get to the bottom of the Epstein mess!”

I can only assume that Bondi discovered something in the Epstein evidence that is much more dangerous for Trump than the wrath of his base.

I’d be surprised if it’s evidence that Trump himself was one of Epstein’s clients. Having sex with a 14-year-old at a friend’s house is the kind of thing you would remember — if Trump knew he might be “on the list,” I doubt if he would have made so many promises to release the information. Nonetheless, something in those files has Trump running scared in a way he never has before.

Does someone on the Epstein list have some sort of hold over Trump? I won’t speculate — I’m just asking questions. "

Chris Truax is an appellate attorney who served as Southern California chair for John McCain’s primary campaign in 2008.

[mister_coffee]

The math just doesn't math here.

Not all of the trafficked girls came from the countries where US $2 billion (in the three wire suspicious wire transfers mentioned in the NYT article) was wired to. Even if it did $2 billion seems like a very large expense for "over 1000" trafficked girls. And that wouldn't be the only expense.

You have to wonder, there had to be immigration lawyers working on this to get these girls visas. A lot of lawyers and a lot of legal fees, which I know that even if everything goes smoothly can easily run over $10,000 per case. I would think an operation with that kind of footprint would stand out like a sore thumb.

There had to be a lot of other people working this too. A lot. I wonder why none of them were indicted as co-conspirators? Or if any of them were informants or cooperating witnesses?

The more you think about this, the less it all seems to make any sense at all.

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Asked the question, how many victims did Epstein have:
"Federal investigators have indicated that Jeffrey Epstein harmed over one thousand victims.
According to the Department of Justice, Epstein victimized more than 1,000 individuals, each suffering unique trauma. The sensitive details relating to these victims are intertwined throughout the investigative materials.
It is important to note that a victims' compensation fund established for Epstein's accusers (some as young as 14 years old) paid out more than $120 million to 150 people as of August 2021. However, details regarding the hundreds of additional victims remain unclear."

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Well, the NYT reports there were hundreds of women in an article today.

Nick Fuentes unloads: https://crooksandliars.com/2025/07/libe ... es-unloads