19+ Things Les Wexner Didn’t Say Under Oath About His Relationship With Jeffrey Epstein
Les Wexner spent five hours with Epstein. Here is what he said, in his own words.
Les Wexner built an American retail empire from a $5,000 family loan, expanding from one store in 1963 to nearly 10,000 in 20 brands, including Limited and Victoria’s Secret. He retired as a long-serving Fortune 500 CEO with a reputation for meticulous control.
On February 18, 2026, under the subpoena of the House Oversight Committee, he testified for nearly five hours about Jeffrey Epstein. It was the first time he was forced to answer, under oath, questions that had followed his name for more than a decade.
What emerged was a picture of a man who, according to his testimony, gave almost all of his personal money, his property, his foundation, and his plane to a fraudster he didn’t know, asked almost every question, and said he was robbed.
The following is what Wexner told the committee. This article is not a judgment about the accuracy or reliability of his account. It just reports what he said.
1. Wexner grew up penniless and became one of the richest men in America. He was raised, in his words, “in a very poor family.” Her aunt loaned her her savings, $5,000, to show the bank enough money to get another loan. He opened his first store in 1963. Within six years he had six stores and took the company public, giving almost everyone who worked there, including the cleaning staff. That origin story is important because it shapes how he describes deception: the man who built everything for himself couldn’t imagine the person tearing it down from within.
2. Wexner first met Epstein by accident in the early 1980s, in the backseat of a car. He was in Florida for the first time, driven by his friends Bob and Wendy Meister. Bob approached, pointed to a man on the street, and said, “It’s a really smart, smart guy named Jeffrey.” Wexner met him through the car window. They went by car. That, he testified, was indeed the case. He had never heard of Epstein before that moment and had no idea what he did for a living.
3. Vanity Fair reports that Bob Meister later warned Wexner not to approach Epstein. Wexner denied it, repeatedly and categorically. The 2021 article said that after the presentation, Meister began hearing “disturbing stories about Epstein’s sexual behavior.” Wexner’s answer to many variations of that question was one word: “Never.” He also noted that Meister was absent from his 60th birthday party, which was attended by Senator Lieberman, John Glenn, Shimon Peres, and Max Fisher.
4. Wexner hired Epstein to manage his personal finances after regular referrals from the same Meisters. He told the committee that his current finance person “isn’t doing a good enough job.” The Meisters raised Epstein. Wexner called him. Epstein came, looked things over, said nothing was wrong, and promised to clean it up. When Wexner asked what he owed, Epstein refused to pay. That refusal, Wexner said in retrospect, “was part of the deception.”
5. Wexner testified that he did not consider Epstein a friend. “I didn’t go to lunch or dinner or a movie or have a cup of coffee with Jeffrey,” he said. He compared the relationship to the one he has with his lawyer: work, friendship in a way, but not personal. When pressed on why so many people described them as close friends, he had a straightforward answer: “He was telling them that.”
6. Wexner sold Epstein a nine-story Manhattan mansion at 9 East 71st Street for about $20 million. He had originally bought the property, which was then a school, in the 1980s. The renovation took three years. Epstein approached him about buying it. Wexner testified that he believed he received a fair price. His lawyers later told the Justice Department that Epstein had actually acquired the land at a “significantly discounted” price. Wexner told the committee he had “never heard that before.”
7. Wexner’s company sold Epstein a 737 business jet for $6 million, which he described as fair market value. He testified that Epstein never used Wexner’s personal plane, never brought guests on flights using Wexner’s plane, and that Wexner himself never flew on any plane owned or operated by Epstein.
8. Wexner visited Epstein’s island, his home in Palm Beach, and his ranch in New Mexico, and he thought all three were upset. The Palm Beach house was “modest.” The Virgin Islands property, which would later become infamous, he described as “a pile of rocks” with no trees, no sand, and “a pueblo structure, maybe one room and a bathroom” when he visited in about 1998. Each time, Wexner said, the visit followed the same pattern: Epstein wanted him to see it, they went inside, looked back and left for an hour, went back home, went home.
9. Epstein used Victoria’s Secret as a cover story to talk to women, and Wexner confronted him about it at least once. When she heard Epstein tell the women she was a talent scout for Victoria’s Secret, she immediately called him. Epstein denied it and said, “Do you think I’m stupid?” Wexner said he warned her “she’d be dead” if it was true, and he believed her to deny it. In 1997, a model named Alicia Arden reported that a man claiming to be a Victoria’s Secret scout invited her to her hotel room to check out a catalog and then grabbed her and tried to undress her. When the committee asked about a second similar incident in 2004, involving a woman named Elizabeth Thai, Wexner said he had never heard of that story.
10. Epstein’s name came up frequently, and Wexner found it reliable every time. Wexner told the committee that Epstein would say he knew anyone: “I know President Clinton, I know the Pope, I know God.” In retrospect, Wexner said the constant name drop was also part of the con, a way to make Epstein seem connected enough to be trusted.
11. Survivor Virginia Giuffre has accused Wexner of sexual acts with her on multiple occasions. He denied it and said he must be “confused” and added, “How can I contact him? I don’t even know him.” He stated that neither Epstein nor Maxwell had ever told him Giuffre’s name, and that this name meant nothing to him when the committee suggested it.
12. Epstein survivor Maria Farmer reportedly spent the summer at a guest house near Wexner’s New Albany, Ohio apartment in 1996, where she said she was assaulted by Epstein and Maxwell. Wexner testified that he had never met Farmer and had no knowledge that he had ever been at or near his location. When the committee told him that at least one of his security personnel had confirmed to the Washington Post that Farmer was under surveillance there, Wexner said he “would doubt that. It’s not possible. It’s not possible.” He also denied that Mlimi had to call his wife to ask for permission to leave.
13. Epstein stole at least $100 million from Wexner, possibly several hundred million, and the total amount may not be known. Wexner’s lawyers told the DOJ that the thefts and Epstein’s royalties appeared to make up “almost all of Epstein’s fortune.” When the committee asked about the specific amount of $46 million, Wexner said the actual amount was “$100 million.” He stated that he does not know the exact amount and believes that he never will. He said Epstein “probably stole more from us than we know right now because it was hidden.”
14. Another form of theft reportedly involved Epstein funneling more than a billion dollars into restricted stock trusts, pocketing a portion of the profits. Wexner stated that he had no knowledge of this. When the committee explained the mechanism, his response was “I was surprised. He added that his wife was the one who opened the trusts for their children, and she knew nothing about the money involved.”
15. About $20 million in stock and money from two of Wexner’s charitable foundations has been donated to one of Epstein’s charities. Again, Wexner said he had no information. “Effing shocked. I’m shocked. I’ve never heard that.”
16. $25,000 in quarterly payments were charged from Wexner’s accounts to Dr. Michael Landon, OB-GYN and department chair at Ohio State University, for at least one year in 2005. The committee noted that Epstein was making these payments and they were traced to Wexner’s accounts. Wexner identified Landon as the doctor who delivered her children after a complicated pregnancy. He testified that he did not introduce Landon to Epstein, knew nothing of Epstein’s donations to Ohio State, and was “until now” unaware of the payments.
17. An FBI PowerPoint presentation entitled “Prominent Names” contained the claim that Epstein “made money from having a homosexual relationship with Wexner.” The committee questioned Wexner directly about the allegations. He called her “wacky” and said she had never had sexual relations with any man. When asked separately if she had ever slept with anyone introduced to her by Epstein or Maxwell, she said no.
18. Epstein sent Wexner an unsent email, found in DOJ files, that read in part: “I owe you a lot, as frankly you owe me.” Wexner said he never received the email and dismissed it as “a letter to the file, a memo to you, something confidential.” The same email referred to “gang stuff for over 15 years” that Abigail “didn’t know,” said Epstein had protected Wexner from family and business disputes, and included the line: “I always told you that I would never give up on you under any circumstances or put you in danger, no matter who, what, or when.” Wexner said he did not know what was being referred to.
19. Wexner signed a birthday note on Epstein’s 50th birthday that read “Your friend, Leslie,” accompanied by a hand-drawn illustration of female breasts. “Unfortunately I did,” he told the committee when asked to confirm the identity. He read the note on the record. When pressed as to why he signed it as “your friend” after repeatedly testifying that they were friends, he said: “I don’t know, I can’t explain why I would say ‘your friend’ because we were not friends.”
20. Wexner closed the deposition with a phrase that may be the most accurate summary of what Epstein really was: “Diabolical is not a big enough word.” He said Bernie Madoff was “a boy scout compared to Jeffrey.” He said he has asked himself many times if there are any clues but he has not found any. When he looked in the mirror he saw a faithful man who was “completely blind.” He then added: “Bank robbers do not rob one bank. The committee’s investigation is still ongoing.”
