• 1976: Epstein is fired from Dalton School at the end of the school year and was then in June recruited by Alan “Ace” Greenberg, a close friend of Roy Cohn and parent of Dalton students, to work at Bear Sterns as a “low level junior assistant floor trader, working in the special products division, and then advised the banks’ wealthiest clients, such as Seagram president Edgar Bronfman, on tax mitigation strategies (Wikipedia).

• 1980: Epstein is made a limited partner at Bear Stearns. (Webb)

• 1981: Epstein leaves Bear Stearns to start his own business. According to Wikipedia, Epstein was asked to leave Bear Stearns for, according to his own sworn testimony, being guilty of a “Reg D violation.” Even though he left abruptly, he remained close to Jimmy Cayne (later the banks’ CEO) and Greenberg and was a client of Bear Stearns until its collapse in 2008. [Note Bloomberg article behind paywall: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-08/the-mystery-around-jeffrey-epstein-s-fortune-and-how-he-made-it] According to Vicky Ward, Epstein may have left the bank owing to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into insider trading in a case that involved a tender offer placed by the Seagrams Corporation for St. Joe Minerals Corp.

• Early 1980s: Epstein’s shady financial activities, particularly involving currency markets and offshore tax havens — activities he began to perfect while working for prominent Iran-Contra figures in the early 1980s, several of whom were tied to the CIA-linked … BCCI and had known relationships with … Mossad. The nature of Epstein’s work for these individuals and other evidence strongly suggests that Epstein himself had a relationship with BCCI after leaving Bear Stearns and prior to the bank’s collapse in 1991. BCCI was also involved in trafficking in underage girls. Adnan Khashoggi was a client of Epstein then and a Mossad asset during Iran Contra. According to Webb, Bear Stearns served as a broker to BCCI, a fact that remained hidden until a lengthy court battle in the U.K. concluded in 2011 and forced the government’s “Sandstorm Report” about BCCI’s activities to unredact the names of Bear Stearns and other institutions, individuals and countries that had done business with the CIA-linked bank. (Webb)

• Mid-1980s: Some of Epstein’s contacts report that he said he was a “bounty hunter” recovering stolen money for the ultra-wealthy. Webb refers to Epstein as Khashoggi’s “fixer.” (Webb)

• 1987: Les Wexner, CEO of L Brands (parent company of Limited, Victoria’s Secret) retains Epstein as his financial manager; Epstein becomes his only known client.

• 1987: Epstein begins working with Towers Financial Corporation executive Steven J. Hoffenberg. The two attempted—but mostly failed—in their attempts at corporate takeovers. (Webb) Also that year, a fake passport with Epstein’s photo and a fake name was issued by the Austrian government when Ron Lauder, a known close associate of Epstein, was Ambassador to Austria [it was found after his death in his apartment].(Webb)

• Epstein worked as a paid consultant for Tower Financial Corporation, the large Ponzi-style financial fraud run by Steven Hoffenberg. Epstein’s name appears on company documents and was on the organizational chart. Some former colleagues and Hoffenberg himself later claimed Epstein was deeply involved — called “co-conspirator” or “the architect of the scam” — but these allegations were never proven in court. Epstein was never charged in the Ponzi case and there’s no legal finding holding him responsible for the fraud. (CBS News). The Towers Ponzi scheme, which collapsed in 1993, was one of the largest in US history with 2,800 victims. Hoffenberg told CBS News that Epstein was in charge of the illegal transfer and sale of bonds and investments out of accounts of a Towers shell company. After Epstein’s death, CBS News reported that Hoffenberg had said “Epstein] was my closest friend for years. We ran a team of people on Wall Street, investment people that raised these billion dollars illegally. He was my guy, my wingman.”

• Investigators and executives involved in the Towers collapse have noted Epstein’s role at the firm, his name on disbursements, and his participation in transactions — but concrete evidence tying him to knowing fraud or misappropriated investor funds has not been established publicly.

• 1988: Epstein founds J. Epstein & Company, a consulting firm that provided money management services to individuals with a net worth of more than $1 billion. His major client for some 20 years was the billionaire retail magnate Leslie H. Wexner. Epstein came to manage much of Wexner’s holdings and benefited enormously as a result.(Webb)

• 1989: Les Wexner bought the [Manhattan] residence for $13.2MM [sold in 2021 for $51MM]. He spent millions more decorating and furnishing the home, including the addition of the electronic equipment in the “James Bond” bathroom, only to apparently never live in it. The Times, which interviewed Epstein for the piece, quoted him as saying that “Les never spent more than two months there.” Epstein told the Times, which identified Epstein as Wexner’s “protege and one of his financial advisers,” that the house, by that time, already belonged to him. (Webb)

• That same year, Epstein was commissioning artwork at Wexner’s Columbus mansion. During the project he was accused by Maria Farmer of sexually assaulting her and she filed an affidavit in Manhattan about the episode, saying she fled the room and called the police, but that Mr. Wexner’s security staff refused to let her leave for 12 hours. (Webb, from court documents)

• 1991: The year Whitney Webb pinpoints as the start of Maxwell and Epstein’s sex trafficking blackmail business. Epstein and Les Wexner pledged $2MM for the Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel student union and in the NYT article about the gift Epstein is listed as the president of the Wexner Investment Company. (Subsequently, after Wexner’s 2008 arrest, Harvard sought to distance itself from Epstein’s contributions and recharacterized the 1991 donation as having only been “facilitated” by Epstein, although a missing plaque says otherwise. This also is the year Charles Bronfman and Les Wexner form a pro-Isreal lobbying group, the Mega Group (aka the Study Group), Members include Edgar Bronfman, Max Fisher, Michael Steinhardt, Leonard Abramson, Harvey Meyerhoff, Laurence Tisch (known for his work for the OSS, where Donald Barr also served and which forged ties with Lansky’s criminal empire during World War II), Charles Schusterman, Steven Spielberg, Lester Crown , Marvin Lender, Ronald Lauder. Jeffrey Epstein is said to have used the group to build up his network of high-ranking contacts in business, media, and politics. Wexner was Epstein’s primary financial supporter yet later claimed to have known nothing of his criminal activities. (Webb)

• July 1991: Wexner grants Epstein power of attorney over his personal finances (Wikipedia)

• Early 1990s: Epstein becomes a trustee of the Wexner Foundation

1990s Southern Air Transport, CIA and Cocaine Operations