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JAMES PATTERSON Association. By all outward appearances, he could afford it: sev- enty lawyers worked in his firm, which had offices in Florida, New York, and Venezuela. But Rothstein's millions actually came from a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme he’d been running since 2005. In April of 2009, Bradley Edwards joined Rothstein's firm. The lawyer brought his papers along, and Rothstein showed those pertaining to Epstein to potential investors. In exchange for a lump sum up front, Rothstein said, investors would receive a far larger chunk of money later, which Epstein would pay in future settlements. Edwards and Rothstein both say that Edwards had no knowl- edge whatsoever of the Ponzi scheme. (Prosecutors, and the Florida Bar, agree.) Edwards left as soon as he caught wind of the scheme, in November of 2009. But the few months he spent in Rothstein’s company gave Dershowitz the opening he needed to pry open Virginia Roberts's accusations. It was at Edwards's insistence, Dershowitz would say, as well as Paul Cassell’s, that Virginia Roberts added Dershowitz's name to the list of men she claimed had abused her. According to Dershowitz, he'd been pulled into a billion-dollar extortion plot Edwards had hatched. And for Edwards and Cas- sell, there had been a secondary benefit: Dershowitz had helped to work out Epstein’s confidential non-prosecution agreement with the government. By implicating him directly in Epstein's 7 abuse of underage women, Dershowitz claimed, Edwards and © Cassell were trying to “open up” that agreement. It might have been a Hail Mary pass on the part of Dershowitz. But the argument had its own internal logic. 268 AG me Alan 4 The idea that Bradley Edy blackmail Leslie Wexner— no less— sounds highly ir that Edwards had worked running his own billion-dc Edwards may not have files on Jeffrey Epstein ai Edwards's proximity to Roth been as damaging as Dersh but it was damaging noneth he needed to make his argu argument was that it wasn’ plot to blackmail Wexner. ! after was the idea that a | non-prosecution agreement wi: erts. That would give Edwa agreement open. And in that pressuring Virginia Roberts | Perhaps it wasn’t, in this felt reluctant to mention De matter of the three hundred she would stand to gain. Ar that goes to set up a charity Dershowitz had thrown out §enius move on Edwards's pa whole psychological picture : for lying about Dershowitz, s ; battered women she’d end up HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022165