Les Wexner to testify in Epstein probe in February

Billionaire art collector Les Wexner, the founder and former chairman of L Brands, has formally been subpoenaed to testify before the U.S. House Oversight Committee’s probe into Jeffrey Epstein and his associates.

The subpoenas mark one of Congress’s most direct efforts to question Epstein’s closest financial and legal associates under oath.

Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the committee, announced Friday that the subpoena of Wexner and two other close associates of Epstein, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, had been formally issued.

“Oversight Democrats fought hard to get these subpoenas and forced the vote on Republicans,” Garcia said. “Now, the Committee will hear directly from the individuals most closely involved in Epstein’s inner circle. We will not stop until we get answers.”

Wexner is scheduled to appear before the committee at 10 a.m. on February 18, according to the subpoena.

The billionaire businessman was described by Garcia as a “long-time benefactor” of Epstein, and at one point, was the financier’s only documented client.

Federal investigators identified Wexner, a major art collector and donor, in investigative materials months before Epstein’s July 2019 arrest, according to FBI records released by the Justice Department in December and reviewed by Urgent Matter.

Among the most significant ties between Wexner and Epstein is a Manhattan mansion where Epstein was accused of sexually abusing and trafficking underage girls.

The mansion’s true ownership has been disputed since before Epstein’s death while facing sex trafficking charges in 2019. One of the documents released last month included a June 2019 email thread in which federal prosecutors and the FBI discussed uncertainty over who owned the mansion, Wexner or Epstein, particularly in the period when Epstein lived there.

A deed released in the FBI files from September 1989 shows the property was transferred to Nine East 71st Street Corporation. The mansion was later featured in a 1995 issue of Architectural Digest as having been bought and remodeled by Wexner and described as his residence. But by 1996, Epstein publicly said the house was his.

“Public reporting has documented their longstanding ties, including the fact Wexner paid for Epstein’s home in New York City,” House Oversight Democrats said in Friday’s news release.

FBI emails from July 7, 2019, two days after Epstein’s arrest, show agents discussing outreach to multiple people as part of an investigation they internally described as involving “co-conspirators.”

“I do not know about Ohio contacting Wexner,” an FBI official wrote in that email, the document shows.

The email does not specify the purpose of the potential contact, does not explicitly name Wexner as a suspect and does not indicate whether he was ultimately contacted. Wexner was never charged in connection with Epstein’s case.

The mansion also centered in a 2016 federal lawsuit filed by a woman who alleged Donald Trump and Epstein gang-raped her in 1994 when she was 13 years old, but the case was withdrawn before trial and Trump denied the allegations.

But House Oversight Democrats also pointed to Wexner being named by prominent Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre in a deposition as one of the men she was trafficked to. Giuffre died by suicide last April in Australia.

And in sworn testimony given by convicted Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell as part of a lawsuit filed by Giuffre against her, Maxwell was asked questions including if artist Maria Farmer, another Epstein victim, was ever at Wexner’s property in Ohio and if she and Epstein ever visited Farmer in Ohio.

“I don't know I would characterize the word visit with Mr. Epstein. We went for business in Ohio because he worked with Mr. Wexner, and I accompanied him on a few visits,” Maxwell responded.

Wexner previously acknowledged a past financial and personal relationship with Epstein that purportedly ended years before Epstein’s 2019 arrest. Wexner has said Epstein misappropriated money from him and he cut ties with Epstein in 2007.

Other records released by the U.S. House Oversight Committee in November show that Wexner’s name appeared at least 89 times across that file set. The records did not allege any criminal misconduct by Wexner.

In one transcript included in the November document release, lawyers questioned Giuffre about individuals who might have relevant information. Wexner was the first person raised in that exchange, according to the transcript.

“I think he has relevant information, but I don’t think he’ll tell you the truth,” Giuffre said in response, according to the transcript cited in the released records.

Wexner’s lawyer told the Columbus Dispatch after the formal subpoenas were issued Friday that the businessman “will cooperate fully with any governmental inquiry into Epstein, just as he did regarding the U.S. Attorney's investigation into Epstein in which Mr. Wexner was told that he was neither a co-conspirator nor target in any respect.”

As for the two other associates who have been subpoenaed, Indyke and Kahn were Jeffrey Epstein’s long-time lawyer and accountant and are co-executors of Epstein’s estate.

“Survivors have shared with the Committee that Indyke and Kahn may have known about Epstein’s activities and helped facilitate his crimes through their management of his legal and financial affairs,” House Oversight Democrats said.

Indyke and Kahn have accepted the subpoenas and intend to cooperate with the committee, their lawyer, Daniel H. Weiner, told CBS News.

"It is worth emphasizing that not a single woman has ever accused either Mr. Indyke or Mr. Kahn of committing sexual abuse or witnessing sexual abuse, nor claimed at any time that she reported to them any allegation of Mr. Epstein's abuse," Weiner said in the statement.

"Indyke and Kahn did not socialize with Mr. Epstein, and they have always rejected as categorically false any suggestion that they knowingly facilitated or assisted Mr. Epstein in his sexual abuse or trafficking of women, or that they were aware of Mr. Epstein's actions while they provided legal and accounting services to Mr. Epstein."

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