HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022889.jpg

unprecedented, arrangement by which he agreed to pay the legal fees for 40 girls specified by the FBI in civil suits against him and not to oppose their claims, resulting in an overall settlement costs that may be as high as $20 million. It is in part this impossible-to-explain weird-justice outcome that has made some people think he was covering for someone else--one person in particular. “So?” I ask directly, one day late in our interviews. “Explain this. It does make it look like you were covering for you-know-who.” “Covering?” He chuckles. “First, by the way, you- know-who was never there. Never came to the island. Not once. Not ever. But you’re right, the settlement was preposterous. Nobody has ever heard anything like it. But while it was breathtaking and perverse and, well, Kafka-esque, it was also straightforward: you sign this or else we will federally indict you in ways that will threaten your property, the people who work for you, and put you in jail for ten years. I took the deal.” A bit more baroqueness: one of the lawyers representing some of the plaintiffs, Scott Rothstein, would also go to jail for recruiting investors to pay for these suits on the fraudulent basis that settlements had already been reached and that many of the listed women had agreed to take reduced immediate cash payments. Epstein got out of jail in 2009. The experience does not seem to have much dented his general bonhomie. One evening over dinner he and the former director of HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022889