Double Duped
L Brands founder Les Wexner says he was duped. But Jeffrey Epstein wasn't the only one accused of molesting fashion models at his companies.
This Week In Blunders Feb. 15-21
“Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.” — Demosthenes
Who can possibly believe that L Brands founder Les Wexner was just another victim of the notorious sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein?
“I was conned by the World Olympic, all-time con artist,” the 88-year-old billionaire, told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday.
Wexner’s lawyer did him no favors during the nearly five-hour grilling when his whispers were caught on a hot mic: “I'll f***ing kill you if you answer another question with more than five words, OK?”
Wexner laughed off the blunder.
But it was not a good look for the apparel mogul whose company has populated America’s shopping malls with Bath & Body Works, Victoria’s Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch and other bourgeois boutiques of conspicuous consumerism.
Wexner’s name appears in the Epstein files more than 1,000 times, and he’s been considered a potential secondary co-conspirator – whatever that means. No one can figure out how Epstein got so much money out of this old man, or why he didn’t complaint about it until the spotlight finally hit Epstein’s global sex trafficking network.
“I never witnessed nor had any knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activity,” he said in a prepared statement. “I was never a participant nor coconspirator in any of Epstein’s illegal activities. To my enormous embarrassment and regret I, like many others, was duped by a world-class con man.”
No one on the House committee raised the specter of Michael Jeffries, an octogenarian creep who ran Abercrombie & Fitch from 1992 to 2014.
Jeffries awaits trial on charges of … guess what? Sex trafficking and international prostitution. For now, he’s pleaded not guilty and remains free on a $10 million bond.
Like Epstein, he’s accused of using his position within Wexner’s fashion empire to sexually abuse the models. It must truly get ugly trying to make it big in the modeling business.
Read More: CEOs Gone Wild (Business Blunders)
Here’s what victims allege in a pending class action lawsuit against Abercrombie, Jeffries and others:
“In 1992, Leslie Wexner hired Jeffries to act as the CEO of Abercrombie. Wexner put full faith into Jeffries to aid him in transforming the clothing brand into a brand aimed at teens with extreme sexual appeal featuring half naked models. It was then that the Abercrombie sex-trafficking venture originated and was refined over the years under the watch of CEO Jeffries, a known and prolific sexual abuser.”
Perhaps Wexner thinks we should feel sorry for him. The poor, old billionaire says he’s just another Epstein victim.
Could he have really been duped twice? Too busy counting his money, I guess.
The never-ending story
It was a bad week for powerful people listed in the Epstein files who were either weighing their chances of holding onto their jobs, stepping down or worse.
Billionaire Tom Pitzker resigned as chairman of Hyatt Hotels. Pritzker, who is Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s cousin, held this job for more than 20 years.
Cries resounded for Casey Wasserman to resign as chairman the Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Already, Wasserman announced he would sell his sports and entertainment talent agency because the talent is leaving.
This is all because of Epstein, however nefarious or benign their relationships with the child molester. And the toll keeps mounting.
Last week, it was Goldman Sach’s General Counsel Kathy Ruemmler announcing her resignation as well as Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem getting fired as CEO of DP World, one of the world’s largest port operators.
Related Reading:
Sultan Of Sleaze (Business Blunders)
An Epstein Valentine (Business Blunders)
Networking With A Pedophile (Business Blunders)
Meditations With A Sex Offender (Business Blunders)
Winter Is Coming For Summers (Business Blunders)
Was Maxwell Smart? (Business Blunders)
Anyone who has dealt with Epstein, particularly after his 2008 arrest, took a huge reputational risk. Guilt by association isn’t fair in a courtroom. But anyone in the Epstein files can lose their jobs even if there’s no indication of wrongdoing. (Except for maybe our president who so far seems impervious to the tens of thousands of times his name comes up in the files.)
“This is not over,” Bill George, an executive fellow at the Harvard Business School who previously served on the board of directors at Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil and Target, told CNN. “We’re going to see more prominent people get implicated.”
Ending the golden age of grift
A quick shoutout to Brendan Ballou, founder of the Public Integrity Project, and a former federal prosecutor, for his badly needed call to action in The New York Times this week.
Corporate crime is an epidemic and white collar criminals are increasingly getting away with it under a lax Trump administration, Ballou argues. The lead example in his example-filled essay is a restauranteur recently featured in Business Blunders: Fat Brands founder Andrew Wiederhorn.
Read More: Fat Brand’s Debt Buffett (Business Blunders)
A federal grand jury indicted Mr. Fat Burger in May 2024, alleging a scheme to conceal roughly $47 million in compensation from investors. The case never went to trial. And after a little donation to a Trump cause, it magically went away.
The Justice Department not only dropped the case but fired its lead prosecutor faster than a snarf at Johnny Rockets. And now Wiederhorn is trying to ditch $1.4 billion in debt in bankruptcy court.
Ballou argues it doesn’t have to be this way:
“Mr. Wiederhorn is one of many defendants helping to forge a new path in American justice, one that takes the rich quite literally beyond the reach of the law. Their corruption threatens our economy and our democracy, and is so widespread and so brazen that it is easy to feel powerless. But we are not. There are legal tools that we can use to stop this corruption without waiting for the Justice Department, or anyone else, to act.”
Our highly compromised Justice Department is not the only prosecutorial remedy in the world. Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, not state prosecutions. And citizens and states have powers they should not neglect.
They can enforce state and local laws, empower state regulators, and file civil lawsuits to pursue accountability where federal authorities will not.
“We must – and can – do so now,” Ballou writes, “because the Department of Justice, which once fought white collar crime, now effectively supports it.”
The 'Justice Department' unfurled a banner over the weekend that is a clear violation of the Hatch Act. It takes partisanship into propaganda. We appear to have a President with the most fragile ego ever, in constant need of praise and sycophancy. A department that appears more interested in currying favor with its Executive than actually finding 'justice.' Other than lawsuits such as against A&F's CEO, I see very little in terms of pursuit of criminal wrongdoing on the part of anyone in the Epstein files, co-conspirators (including Maxwell) included. It's true that the burden of proof is lower in a civil suit - even in a 'wrongful death' suit, the degree of culbability is variable and still subject to jury fine/award. Which means it may be easier to find monetary recompense than criminal liability in such cases. While a sitting President apparently cannot be indicted, according to a Nixon-era Office of Legal Council 'Opinion' (not a law, not a rule, just an opinion), if he can sue, as he is suing the IRS, he can certainly also be sued. As can anyone involved in any of his decisions - from demolishing the East Wing before even being granted 'approval' by the board he appointed to oversee such things, to not letting out request for bids on design or construction or even demolition of the same - to his orders to various members of his cabinet.