WASHINGTON — Former Victoria’s Secret owner Les Wexner testified Wednesday before a House panel that he was supremely “conned” by the now-deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein, who managed the billionaire’s fortune for decades, but did not “witness, condone or enable” any of his sex crimes.
The 88-year-old LBrands CEO sat for a deposition with the House Oversight Committee in Ohio, where he recalled how the “world Olympic con artist” had “stolen vast sums” from his retail fortune just before pleading guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008, according to a source familiar with the testimony and a written statement.
“I completely and irrevocably cut ties with Epstein nearly 20 years ago when I learned that he was an abuser, a crook and a liar,” Wexner said his prepared remarks. “I was never a participant nor co-conspirator in any of Epstein’s illegal activities.”
While in talks with feds in 2007 and 2008 before his guilty plea, Epstein quietly paid back $100 million for the purported theft of hundreds of millions of dollars from the Wexner family after having as their “money manager.”
A failed Wall Street trader, Epstein had bought real estate properties for the Wexners that he later purchased himself at reduced price, according to a federal prosecution memo, compiled from meetings with the businessman’s lawyers, in 2019.
Wexner also revealed that he had met Donald Trump well before his successful run for the US presidency at Victoria’s Secret fashion shows, but never observed the real estate mogul with Epstein — either in public or at the financier’s Palm Beach home — and did not view them as “friends,” the source noted.
He stated that he was never aware of Trump having sex with an individual that either Epstein or his convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell introduced to the future president.
The testimony directly rebuked accusations from two House lawmakers who claimed Wexner was one of six men “likely incriminated” by his Epstein ties, citing the retail maven’s appearance in millions of investigative materials released by the Department of Justice in late January.
Though referenced nearly 200 times in the files per the DoJ, Wexner has noted that his lawyers told him in 2019 that he was viewed as a source of information for the federal investigation and not a target.
The lawmakers — Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — cited five others potentially implicated by their associations with Epstein, but four have since been revealed as random members of an FBI line-up that had no connection to the late pedophile.
The fifth, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem resigned as CEO of logistics giant DP World it was revealed in the DOJ’s document dump that Epstein wrote to the Emirati billionaire he “loved the torture video” in a 2009 email.
Federal prosecutors initially listed Wexner as a potential co-conspirator following Epstein’s arrest in July 2019, but the FBI found “limited evidence regarding his involvement,” according to an email from an New York Field Office agent included in the DOJ’s Epstein files.
Other emails and documents in the Epstein files show that Wexner remained on the ex-financial advisor’s mind just a few years before his arrest on federal sex trafficking charges.
“You and I had ‘gang stuff’ for over 15 years. A great deal of it, that she was unaware of. I had no intention of divulging any confidence of ours, no matter what accusations she made. And she made quite a few,” Epstein wrote in an undated draft letter to Wexner.
Another 2015 email that is virtually incoherent includes scattered references to “wexner,” “gang stuff,” “ohio” and “34 girls.”
Wednesday’s testimony comes after several elected officials in Ohio chose to return donations from Wexner — with the billionaire having contributed more than $200,000 to state campaigns since 2020, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
In his deposition, Wexner recounted how the insurance executive Robert Meister first introduced him to Epstein during a visit to Florida in the 1980s, but their relationship remained strictly professional in the coming years.
The businessman said Epstein never presented him with a woman for “sexual entertainment,” nor did Maxwell — who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for conspiring with the financier to exploit and sexually abuse minors — ever introduce him to anyone or become involved with him professionally.
Wexner also denied that Epstein, who committed suicide in a federal prison in August 2019 after being charged with sex trafficking, had ties to intelligence agencies or connected wealthy and influential people with women or girls for sex.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, pressed the retail mogul whether Epstein himself had sought a sexual relationship with Wexner, which he also said he did not.
“The other life he led, that we now know was full of unthinkable crimes, he most carefully and fully hid from me. He knew that I never would have tolerated his horrible behavior. Not any of it,” the businessman added in his prepared remarks.
“At no time did I ever witness the side of Epstein’s life for which he is now infamous.”
An attorney for Wexner did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
