Epstein files: Billionaire Leslie Wexner deposes before US House panel, rejects ‘co-conspirator’ tag — what he said

Billionaire retail tycoon Leslie Wexner on Wednesday told a US House panel that he had visited convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's private Caribbean island, but claimed to have had no knowledge about the disgraced financier's sex trafficking operation at the time.

According to Wexner's deposition to congressional investigators, which was viewed by Bloomberg, the billionaire claimed to have visited Epstein's island once with his wife and children for a "few hours".

However, Wexner, in his statement, asserted that he “never witnessed nor had any knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activity” and “never saw or heard about Epstein being in the company of a minor girl”.

The billionaire also stated before the panel that he had neither been "a participant nor co-conspirator" in any of Epstein's crimes.

Wexner's response comes after law enforcement officials working on Epstein's 2019 prosecution identified the 88-year-old billionaire as one of 10 "co-conspirators", according an email released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in December.

That said, the billionaire had not been charged in the case, with the House Oversight Committee opting to subpoena him instead.

At the time, Wexner's representative had said that the billionaire would “cooperate fully with any governmental inquiry into Epstein, just as he did regarding the US attorney’s investigation into Epstein in which Mr. Wexner was told that he was neither a co-conspirator nor target in any respect.”

What we know about Wexner's ties to Epstein

According to Bloomberg, Epstein was Wexner's long-time money manager, and given these ties, the 88-year-old tycoon had earlier been contacted by an assistant US attorney in Miami as part of a money laundering probe into Epstein in 2007.

By 2019, when federal prosecutors in New York charged Epstein for sex trafficking, Wexner had declared that he had cut ties with the disgraced financier — in a letter to his charitable foundation at the time, Wexner had said that he had largely cut ties with Epstein, having “discovered that he had misappropriated vast sums of money from me and my family.”

Who is Les Wexner?

Wexner, currently worth over $10 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1937 to parents of Russian-Jewish origin.

After completing his schooling, Wexner attended the Ohio State University for his college studies, and also briefly attended the Moritz College of Law.

He began his career working at his parents' retail store — Leslie's, named after him — before founding his brand, The Limited, in 1963.

By 1976, Wexner's company had not only gone public, but had opened over 100 stores in the US, a foundation on which the tycoon would build his empire, acquiring major brands along the way.

During his career, Wexner served as the long-time chief executive officer of Columbus, Ohio-based L Brands Inc., which over the years owned stores of brands such as Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works, and Abercrombie & Fitch.