'I Was Duped by a World-Class Con Man': Les Wexner's Five-Hour Deposition

For nearly two decades, Les Wexner insisted that Jeffrey Epstein was simply his money manager. That version of events collapsed over the course of five hours on February 18, 2026, when the 88-year-old billionaire sat for a congressional deposition at his New Albany, Ohio mansion and faced questions he had spent years avoiding.

Five Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee questioned Wexner under subpoena. No Republican members attended. Only GOP staffers were present. The full video was released by the committee the following day, and within hours, a single clip from the proceeding had gone viral across every major news outlet in the country.

"The World Olympic All-Time Con Artist"

Wexner arrived with a prepared written statement. In it, he declared: "I was naive, foolish, and gullible to put any trust in Jeffrey Epstein." He went further in his oral testimony, calling Epstein "the world Olympic all-time con artist."

His strategy was plain from the opening minutes. Every answer funneled back to a single claim: he had been duped. Epstein was a financial professional. Wexner was the trusting client. Their relationship was strictly business.

"I have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide," Wexner told the committee. "I completely and irrevocably cut ties with Epstein nearly twenty years ago when I learned that he was an abuser, a crook, and a liar."

He insisted he never witnessed anything suspicious. "Not even a clue of a clue," he said. He claimed he never went to lunch or dinner with Epstein socially. He denied any personal friendship. He said Epstein was "dead to me" after the 2008 guilty plea.

But the committee had the documents. And the documents said something different.

The Architecture of Control: Power of Attorney

The foundation of the Epstein-Wexner relationship was a single legal instrument. In 1991, Wexner signed a sweeping power of attorney granting Epstein authority to sign tax returns, borrow money, buy and sell property, hire and fire staff, and manage nearly every aspect of the Wexner family's financial affairs (d-047).

The scope of that authority was extraordinary. As a Deutsche Bank "Source of Wealth" analysis later noted, Epstein "worked at Bear Stearns early in his career and then formed his own firm, J. Epstein & Co." By 1987, Wexner had become his most prominent client. By 1991, Epstein held what amounted to shadow control over the Wexner fortune (sd-10-EFTA01297066).

Between 1991 and 2006, Epstein oversaw the sale of more than $1.3 billion in L Brands company stock held by Wexner family trusts through the New York Stock Exchange. That was a vast pool of cash, largely controlled by a man who had no public clients other than Wexner and whose own financial history remained deliberately opaque.

Wexner did not revoke the power of attorney until September 2007, nine months before Epstein entered his guilty plea in Palm Beach. That means Epstein held legal authority over the Wexner fortune for sixteen years.

The New Albany Company

The relationship extended beyond portfolio management. In 1998, Wexner and Epstein co-incorporated The New Albany Company, an Ohio real estate development corporation. Epstein served as president. The company developed a large-scale suburban community outside Columbus featuring Georgian-style brick manor homes and a brick-layered main street with shops (d-145163).

Epstein purchased a $3.5 million home near Wexner's estate in New Albany. The two men lived in close proximity. And yet Wexner maintained under oath that they were not friends and rarely socialized.

A former Wexner employee, quoted in a 2003 Vanity Fair profile, painted a different picture of the dynamic. Epstein, the employee said, was involved in "everything, not just a little here, a little there. Everything!" The source added: "Wexner likes having a hatchet man. Whenever there is dirty work to be done he'd stick Jeffrey on it. He has a reputation for being ruthless but he gets the job done" (d-15074).

Another former employee told the same reporter: "He was that mysterious person that everyone was scared to death of."

"Vast Sums" and the $100 Million Return

In his deposition, Wexner testified that a 2007 financial review, initiated by his wife Abigail, revealed that Epstein had "stolen vast sums from our family." They revoked Epstein's power of attorney, removed his access to bank accounts, and forced his resignation from all affiliated entities.

In January 2008, Epstein returned $100 million to the Wexners. Wexner characterized this as only a fraction of what had been taken.

When pressed by committee members for a precise figure, Wexner replied: "I don't know. I don't think I'll ever know."

He never filed criminal charges against Epstein.

Ranking Member Robert Garcia initially stated during the proceedings that Wexner had given Epstein "about a billion dollars." Garcia later acknowledged he had misspoken. But internal banking records from Deutsche Bank's KYC (Know Your Customer) files show that Epstein maintained multiple complex account relationships under the "Southern Financial Relationship" umbrella, managed by relationship managers Paul Morris and later Stewart Oldfield (sd-10-EFTA01294896, sd-10-EFTA01298930). The scale of the financial entanglement between the two men was immense.

A separate document released by the DOJ in February 2026 added another dimension. An undated draft message from Epstein to Wexner references the two being involved in "gang stuff for over 15 years" and speaks of mutual debts they owed each other. Wexner's representatives said the message was never sent and was written when Epstein was "furious" that Wexner refused to meet him after their relationship ended (d-145165).

The Manhattan Townhouse

The property at 9 East 71st Street was a central focus of the deposition. One of the largest private residences in Manhattan, the building had been the Birch Wathen private school before Wexner purchased it in 1989 for $13.2 million through a corporation he shared with Epstein.

Vicky Ward's 2003 Vanity Fair article described the interior: "The entrance hall is decorated not with paintings but with row upon row of individually framed eyeballs; these, the owner tells people with relish, were imported from England, where they were made for injured soldiers" (d-28674).

In 1998, Wexner transferred his interest to Epstein. The sale was structured around a $10 million promissory note and a personal guarantee signed by Epstein. Epstein initially paid $10,012,028 and completed the remaining $10 million in installments through March 2000.

Wexner disputed the characterization that he "gave" the townhouse to Epstein, insisting Epstein purchased it at the appraised value. But the property would later become the site of some of Epstein's documented crimes.

It was in this same townhouse that Epstein's household operating expenditures for 2004 totaled $1.2 million at the 71st Street location alone, part of $5.8 million across all his properties that year, including Palm Beach, Little St. James, Zorro Ranch, and Paris (sd-10-EFTA01304421).

"Your Friend, Leslie"

The most uncomfortable exchange of the deposition arrived when lawmakers confronted Wexner with a contribution he had made to Epstein's 50th birthday book, dated January 20, 2003.

The entry included a handwritten note signed "your friend, Leslie" along with a crude drawing. Wexner offered this explanation: "He was a bachelor, so I drew a pair of boobs as a joke."

When asked to reconcile the inscription "your friend" with his insistence that they were never friends, Wexner faltered: "I don't know. I can't explain why I wrote 'friend.' We weren't friends."

This was not the only written record that contradicted Wexner's testimony. In 2003, Wexner told Vanity Fair that Epstein had "excellent judgment and unusually high standards" and called him "always a most loyal friend" (d-28674).

And on June 26, 2008, months after Epstein's guilty plea, Wexner sent Epstein an email that read: "You violated your own number 1 rule ... always be careful."

The Hot Mic

More than four hours into the session, with Wexner giving long, winding answers, his attorney Michael Levy leaned over and whispered what he believed was a private comment. The microphone caught every word.

"I will f***ing kill you if you answer another question with more than five words, OK."

Wexner and Levy both laughed briefly. The committee continued. But the clip was already spreading. Fox News, The Daily Beast, The Hill, and Newsweek all ran the moment as their lead story. Within 24 hours, it had become the most widely shared clip from any Epstein-related proceeding in history.

Victoria's Secret and the Talent Scout Ruse

The connection between Epstein and Wexner's retail empire went beyond financial management. In the late 1980s, Epstein posed as a talent scout for Victoria's Secret, one of the flagship brands of Wexner's L Brands conglomerate. According to multiple witness accounts and court filings, Epstein used this supposed affiliation to approach young women.

Wexner founded L Brands, the retail giant behind Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, and The Limited. His fortune and the access it provided formed the platform from which Epstein built his network of connections to politicians, academics, and celebrities worldwide.

The Palm Beach police surveillance that helped build the original case against Epstein noted his Gulfstream 4 (tail number N900LS) and documented connections that traced back through Wexner's Limited Inc. corporate structure (d-30745).

A Survivor's Response

Maria Farmer was an artist-in-residence at Wexner's New Albany estate in the summer of 1996. In a sworn declaration filed in federal court, Farmer described what happened there.

"During that same summer of 1996 when I was working on my art project at Wexner's mansion, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein came to Wexner's mansion," Farmer stated. "They asked me to come into a bedroom with them and then proceeded to sexually assault me against my will" (d-24911).

She fled the room and called the sheriff's office but received no response. Wexner's security staff refused to let her leave the property. "When I attempted to escape Wexner's estate, I was threatened by his employees and associates, sharpshooters, guns and guard dogs, and held against my will," Farmer later stated. She was held for approximately twelve hours until her father drove up from Kentucky to retrieve her.

Farmer also reported that Epstein and Maxwell took a sexual interest in her 15-year-old sister. They flew her to their ranch in New Mexico, where they directed her to undress and placed her on a massage table.

After Wexner's deposition was made public, Farmer issued a statement through her attorney:

"Wexner's reported downplaying of his relationship with Epstein is abhorrent, particularly given Maxwell's own description of him as Epstein's closest friend."

"I am also troubled by Wexner's stated lack of knowledge about my abuse and suffering on his property."

She added that she was "glad Wexner's deposition, this lever of power, is being used to try to achieve some accountability and justice for the many survivors whose trauma has for so long been ignored, dismissed, or discounted."

Democrats Push Back, Republicans Stay Silent

After the deposition, committee Democrats held a press conference. They were blunt.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), Ranking Member: "There is no single person that was more involved in providing Jeffrey Epstein with the financial support to commit his crimes than Les Wexner. There would be no Epstein island, there'd be no Epstein plane, without the support of Les Wexner."

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA): "There is no question in my mind, given the evidence so far, that Les Wexner knew about this and failed to stop it."

Democrats collectively characterized Wexner's claim of having no social relationship with Epstein as "bogus" and said the deposition "raised more questions than answers."

No Republican members of the committee have issued public statements about the deposition.

What the Record Shows

Epstein Exposed tracks 350 documents mentioning Les Wexner across the Epstein case files. These include financial records, correspondence, corporate filings, Deutsche Bank KYC reports, court declarations, and DOJ investigation materials from the EFTA document releases.

The paper trail runs from the 1991 power of attorney through the New Albany Company, the Manhattan townhouse transfer, Deutsche Bank's due diligence files, Epstein's household expenditure records, and the draft messages released by the DOJ in early 2026.

Wexner has never been charged with a crime in connection with Epstein. He maintains he was deceived. The documents in this database tell the story of a relationship that was deeper, longer, and more financially entangled than either man publicly admitted while both were free to speak.

---

Sources: PBS NewsHour, House Oversight Committee Video, NBC News, CNBC, Fox News (Hot Mic), Ohio Capital Journal, Newsweek (Survivor), Al Jazeera, WOSU Public Media