Jeffrey Epstein

Jeffrey Edward Epstein was an American financier, child sex offender, serial rapist, and human trafficker. He began his professional career as a teacher at the Dalton School. After his dismissal from the school in 1976, he entered the banking and finance sector, working at Bear Stearns in various roles, before starting his own firm. Epstein cultivated an elite social circle and procured at least 1,000 underage girls, teens, and young women who were subjected to repeated rape and sexual violence by him and his associates.

Born in Brooklyn, New York to Seymour and Pauline Epstein. His father worked for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Epstein grew up in a working-class Jewish family in Coney Island and attended Lafayette High School, graduating in 1969. Despite never earning a college degree (he briefly attended Cooper Union and NYU's Courant Institute), he was hired to teach calculus and physics at the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan in 1973 at age 20, reportedly through a connection with Donald Barr, the school's headmaster. He was dismissed from Dalton in 1976.

Epstein's Manhattan townhouse at 9 East 71st Street was one of the largest private residences in New York City, valued at approximately $56 million. He acquired his private island, Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands, in 1998 for $7.95 million; locals called it "Pedophile Island." His Boeing 727-200, registration N908JE, was nicknamed the "Lolita Express" by the media. Epstein once claimed to have co-founded the Clinton Global Initiative. He was a member of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. His New Mexico ranch, Zorro Ranch, spanned over 10,000 acres near Stanley, New Mexico.

Jeffrey was the elder of two sons born to Seymour G. Epstein (1933–1991), a groundskeeper for the NYC Parks Department, and Pauline (née Bryant) Epstein (1918–2004). His younger brother Mark Epstein became a real estate developer in New York. Jeffrey never married. He had a long-term relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell from the early 1990s, which later evolved into what Maxwell described as a professional relationship. He reportedly dated Eva Andersson (later Eva Andersson-Dubin) in the 1980s.