Jeffrey Epstein Podcast

Despite how much Epstein's been covered at this point, there is still no definitive, comprehensive account of everything he did. There are a million different threads you can tug on. The guy was like an evil version of Forrest Gump; he was involved in everything and connected to everyone.

In the late 80s and early 90s, Epstein played a central role in the Tower Financial Corporation fraud, which was the largest Ponzi scheme in US history until Madoff. His partner Steven Hoffenberg did 18 years in prison for it. Epstein magically glided away with no punishment.

Epstein also played a significant role in the 2008 Financial Crisis. Yes, really. He was a major investor in a Bear Stearns CDO hedge fund that was at the center of Bear Stearns' collapse. See this 2007 NYT article on it. As insane as it sounds, Epstein may have personally triggered the collapse of the CDO market by pulling his money from the fund. From Wikipedia:

In August 2006, Epstein, a month after the federal investigation of him began, invested $57 million in the Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage hedge fund.This fund was highly leveraged in mortgage-backed collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).

On April 18, 2007, an investor in the fund, who had $57 million invested, discussed redeeming his investment. At this time, the fund had a leverage ratio of 17:1, which meant for every dollar invested there were seventeen dollars of borrowed funds; therefore, the redemption of this investment would have been equivalent to removing $1 billion from the thinly traded CDO market. The selling of CDO assets to meet the redemptions that month began a repricing process and general freeze in the CDO market. The repricing of the CDO assets caused the collapse of the fund three months later in July, and the eventual collapse of Bear Stearns in March 2008. It is likely Epstein lost most of this investment, but it is not known how much was his.

If a full account of Epstein's life is ever written (which may never happen, since too many important people would be harmed), it will probably turn out to be one of the most important stories of the past 50 years.