Meet Mark Epstein, Jeffrey’s wealthy brother who wants you to believe he was murdered
Ever since the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his prison cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking, speculation and conspiracies have run riot in the darker corners of the internet. The financier’s death was ruled as a suicide, and a Department of Justice report four years later found no credible evidence of foul play. Yet that hasn’t stopped many from claiming that Epstein, who cultivated an array of rich and famous friends, was murdered before he could blow the whistle on powerful associates.And among the loudest voices asserting that Epstein was killed to protect the interests of those wealthy friends is his younger brother, Mark. The 71-year-old property developer has spent the past few years doubling down on the theory that his older sibling’s death was murder, not suicide. He has reiterated his scepticism of the official verdict in a series of interviews with major news platforms from CNN to Newsnight, typically with his camera turned off, bringing what was once the stuff of the online rumour mill into the mainstream. “There are only three ways to die in prison,” he declared to the US channel NewsNation earlier this month. “Suicide, natural causes or murder. And Jeff was murdered. I want to know who killed him and on whose behalf.” He then cryptically claimed that “more autopsy facts will be coming out in February that prove” Jeffrey was killed. “Why the cover-up?” he asked. “Why the charade? Who are they trying to protect?” Strong words indeed. What’s particularly striking is how the younger Epstein brother, who maintained a very low public profile throughout his sibling’s life, has decided to stick his head above the proverbial parapet to become a part of this grim circus of intrigue and insinuation. Despite being only a year or so apart, “most people didn’t know Jeff had a brother,” he told The Telegraph last year. In stepping out from the shadows, he has inadvertently invited scrutiny into his own life; in the same interview, he admitted that he’d been protected by “armed guards for a while” after receiving threats in the wake of his brother’s death. His finances have also become a source of fascination: although his rumoured wealth hardly compares to his brother’s millions, Mark, has reportedly been “semi-retired” since the age of 39 and is thought to have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to charity. “Wealth of Jeffrey Epstein’s brother is also a mystery,” claimed the headline of one Wall Street Journal article from 2019. open image in galleryMark Epstein has maintained that his brother’s death was not a suicide (@notuitionever/CC BY 3.0)Also notable? His willingness to make bold claims about Jeffrey’s relationship with Donald Trump. “He didn’t tell me what he knew, but Jeffrey definitely had dirt on Trump,” Mark suggested last year (the president has always vehemently maintained that he did not know about Epstein’s crimes, and says that they ended their friendship sometime in the 2000s). Born a year and a half after Jeffrey in 1954, Mark (nicknamed “Puggy”) grew up in the quiet gated community of Sea Gate in New York’s Coney Island. He went on to study art at the prestigious Cooper Union College, then founded a silkscreen printing company, Izmo. Later, though, he swapped these more creative pursuits for property development. And it’s here that Mark’s business affairs become more complicated. In the early Nineties, he launched another company, Ossa Properties, which at one time possessed more than 500 renter-occupied apartments across four co-op projects in New York City. But since Jeffrey’s death, it is one particular building, a nondescript block of flats at 301 East 66th Street, that has been the focus of most scrutiny.Out of the 200 units in this building, the vast majority were owned by Ossa; Mark reportedly bought the property from Leslie Wexner, the former CEO of Victoria’s Secret, who employed Jeffrey to manage his finances for two decades (Wexner also previously owned the sprawling townhouse at 9 East 71st Street, where Jeffrey later lived and allegedly abused underage girls). Wexner has always maintained that he was “never aware” of Epstein’s activities and that he “severed all ties” with him around 2007. “I would not have continued to work with any individual capable of such egregious, sickening behaviour as has been reported about him,” he wrote in a memo to employees in 2019.Jeffrey is thought to have rented a number of apartments at number 301 from his brother; the building’s address was listed in his notorious “black book” as “apt. for models”. The 71-year-old property developer has spent the past few years doubling down on the theory that his older sibling’s death was murder, not suicideIt is here that the eldest Epstein boy is alleged to have housed associates and models linked to MC2, the modelling agency funded by Jeffrey and founded by his friend Jean-Luc Brunel (who was later accused in court documents of procuring girls for the financier, as well as sexual harassment and rape; he denied the charges before he died in prison in 2021). Mark, meanwhile, has repeatedly stressed that he did not know his brother’s actions or his alleged crimes. “I don’t live in that building, I don’t monitor who uses those apartments,” he told Crain’s in 2019. “I’m not sure who pays it, but Jeff’s been renting there for years.” Mark has also shut down any attempts to link Ossa with J Epstein & Co, his brother’s business. Documents filed by a Harlem-based charter school suggested that Jonathan Barrett, a proposed board member for the school, worked for both Ossa and J. Epstein & Co over four years in the Nineties. Despite Barrett’s employment seeming to connect the two companies, Mark said this was a “mistake”, and told Crain’s that “there’s no business relationship between those entities”.When he has been asked about his financial affairs and how they might have overlapped with his brother’s, Mark has offered only brusque responses. “I don’t have time to talk about it, and I don’t see any purpose in talking about it with anybody,” he told the Wall Street Journal in the summer of 2019, shortly after Jeffrey’s death. “Since the president of the USA won’t divulge his business info, and there are many more compelling reasons for him to do so, and since I have not been accused of wrongdoing by any government agency, I see no reason why I or any other American should either,” he hit back at The Daily Beast around the same time. open image in galleryMark Epstein was interviewed on ‘Newsnight’ last year (BBC)Should Jeffrey have died without a will, Mark, as his only close living relative, would have inherited the entirety of his estimated $577m estate. However, just two days before his death, he made a new will, one that placed his assets into a private trust. And in doing so, he shielded the identities of his beneficiaries from public view (Mark, for his part, has said he was not among them). The developer has painted a somewhat contradictory picture of his relationship with his disgraced brother. According to one interview with The Guardian, they’d only occasionally been in touch after their mother died in 2004; he’s also said that when he identified Jeffrey’s body after his death, it marked the first time he’d seen him in seven years. Yet when his sibling had pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking of minors a few months before, Mark had offered his home in Florida to guarantee Jeffrey’s bail bond (the request was denied). He has also repeatedly claimed (including in a 2009 deposition) that he once flew on his older sibling’s private plane with Donald Trump in the late Nineties; emails unveiled during the release of the Epstein Files, meanwhile, appear to show the pair joking about Trump as recently as 2018. open image in galleryA report into Epstein’s death highlighted ‘negligence’ and ‘misconduct’ at the correctional facility (New York State Sex Offender Registry/Getty)It’s far from the only time that Mark has poured scorn on the president, distancing himself from his former friend. He’s described Trump and Epstein as “extremely close”, and cast doubt upon the POTUS’s assertions that they’d ceased all contact in the early Noughties – and he has even claimed that they’d spoken in the aftermath of the 2016 election. “Jeffrey told me that… it was after the election that Trump called him and it was sort of like, ‘Can you believe this?’ Because nobody believed Trump was going to win,” Mark told CNN in November. (Trump, meanwhile, has said he has “nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein” and “threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert”.)But, it is his firm conviction that his brother was murdered that has generated the most headlines. Shortly after identifying his brother’s body, he hired the forensic pathologist and former New York City chief medical examiner Dr Michael Baden, who disputed the official conclusion of suicide. According to Baden, Jeffrey had a number of injuries that are “extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation”.In 2023, a report from a US justice department watchdog admitted that “negligence, misconduct and outright job performance failures” at Manhattan’s Metropolitan correctional centre provided [Epstein] with the opportunity to take his own life”. It also cited issues with security cameras, and guards failing to check in on the prisoner as required. Yet it did not find “evidence contradicting the FBI’s determination there was no criminality in connection with how Epstein died”. open image in galleryMark Epstein has offered only brusque responses when asked about his financial affairs (Paul Bruinooge/Patrick McMullan/Getty)This, however, does not seem to have satisfied Mark, who has again and again called for “a full investigation” into his older brother’s death; in the same year the watchdog report was released, he even submitted a tip to the FBI, writing: “Jeffrey Epstein was murdered in his jail cell. I have reason to believe he was killed because he was about to name names.” The exact nature and source of the new “autopsy facts” that Mark promises will be released in February remain unknown for now. But if this case has taught us anything, we can surely expect that any such details will probably raise more questions than answers – and only lead conspiracy theorists further down the rabbit hole. If you are experiencing feelings of distress and isolation, or are struggling to cope, The Samaritans offers support; you can speak to someone for free over the phone, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The Helpline is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you.
