Screengrab via YouTube Mark Epstein pictured in 2011.
Mark Epstein is Jeffrey Epstein’s younger brother. The pair grew up in Sea Gate, Brooklyn, as the only children of Seymour and Pauline Epstein.
At around 6:30 a.m. on August 10, Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center. Epstein is believed to have killed himself by hanging. At the time of his death, Epstein was not on suicide watch. A few weeks earlier, it was widely reported that Epstein had attempted suicide in his cell.
Epstein was 66 years old. Epstein, a financier, was arrested in July 2019 and accused of sex trafficking minors in Florida and New York. Epstein’s connections to the political and business worlds had led to his case becoming front page news across the world.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Mark Epstein’s Nickname Is ‘Puggie’
Mark Epstein pictured with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in May 2013.
Jeffrey’s company Maple Inc. was named after the street, Maple Avenue, where the Epstein brothers were raised, according to a July 2019 feature on the family by the Daily Beast. That feature describes Mark as being two years younger than his pedophile brother. Mark’s nickname as a child was Puggie, the article says.
The Daily Beast report goes on to say that Mark offered his Florida home as collateral to help his brother make bail in July 2019. The website says that childhood neighbors “have only good things to say about the Epstein they still call Puggie.” Neighbors told the Daily Beast that Mark once ran a “business silk-screening T-shirts” before going into real estate. His silk-screen business has been described as “one of the most versatile silk screening printing companies in New York.” The Daily Beast piece notes, “Maybe it would be unfair to read anything into him having also incorporated a business called Saint Model and Talent.”
2. Mark Epstein Has Worked With Adam Schiff & Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the Past
GettyDemocrat Adam Schiff has worked with Mark Epstein in the past.
A different online profile says that Mark was a director at The Humpty Dumpty Institute. In August 2018, the Daily Caller reported that Democratic politicians Maxine Waters, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Adam Schiff sat on the board of the institute. The Humpty Dumpty Institute works with the United Nations in attempts to rebuild developing countries. The group was founded in 1988 by Constance Milstein.
The organization says on its website that Mark is the institute’s vice chairman. In June 2015, Mark hosted a “working dinner” for the Humpty Dumpty Institute’s “48th Congressional Delegation to the United Nations.” Among those in attendance were former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, as well as, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Corrine Brown, Paul Tonko and Mark Takano, all Democratic members of congress.
More recently, in April 2019, Mark led a congressional delegation including Republicans, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA), Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX), Rep. Garrett Graves (R-LA), as well as Democrats, Rep. Alan Lowenthal and Independent Rep. Gregorio Sablan, to an event being held in Belgium. Mark was also present with a delegation from the institute that went to the United Arab Emirates in March 2019.
3. In 2015, Mark Epstein Said That He Had Flown on Jeffrey Epstein’s Plane Along With Donald Trump
Screengrab via NBC NewsJeffrey Epstein pictured with President Donald Trump in 1992.
Mark testified in a 2015 deposition that he had flown on his brother’s private jet along with President Donald Trump. Mark said his brother and the president were “friends.” When asked why Trump was on that flight, Mark said, “You’ll have to ask Donald. I think he wanted a ride back to New York.”
In response to the Daily Beast’s request for information, Mark cited President Trump saying, “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.”
4. Mark Epstein Was Accused of Financial Mismanagement During His Time as Chairman of the Board of Cooper Union
Mark also served as the chairman of the board of Cooper Union for a time. Art in America Magazine reported in November 2011 that Mark had been the vice chairman at Cooper Union between 2007 and 2009 and chairman from 2009 until 2013. In 2002, Mark was named as Alumnus of the Year.
The magazine said that during his time in charge, Mark was accused of financial mismanagement. A Reuters column on Mark Epstein referred to the chairman as being “self-aggrandizing.” The piece described him as being “intimately involved in most of Cooper Union’s worst decisions.”
5. Mark Has Admitted That His Brother Rented Apartments in a Building Owned by the Younger Epstein
Cooper Union Board chairman Mark Epstein surrounded by students calling for transparency #CULockIn #savecooper http://t.co/pJTLbS7o
According to Mark’s LinkedIn page, since 1992 he has owned Ossa Properties and Dara Partners. The Daily Beast reports that Ossa Properties is run primarily by one person, Anthony Barrett. According to his LinkedIn page, Barrett has worked for Ossa since 1991. In his bio, Barrett writes that he is a “Kite boarding specialist.”
Prior to that, Mark was the president of the Izmo Family of Companies. Mark graduated from both Stony Brook University and The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1976. A Cooper Union profile says that Mark is also the co-founder of a company named King Graphic Technologies, Inc., a producer of super large format digital outputting.
Epstein told Crain’s New York in July 2019 that there had been no recent business dealings between Ossa Properties and his brother’s companies.
An online profile, via the Daily Caller, says that Epstein opted to “semi-retire” at the age of 39 in order to devote his time to non-profit and charitable activities. Epstein had begun investing in New York real estate in 1990.
The Caller report says that Mark purchased a group of apartments that have been connected to his brother’s associates, including Maritza Vasquez, a bookkeeper for a modeling agency that Jeffrey had invested $1 million in. While Jeffrey’s attorney, Darren Indyke, used the building, located along East 66th Street in Manhattan, as his primary business address. Mark told Crain’s in July 2019 that his brother had used units in the building.
The building at East 66th Street is the home of Joyce Anderson Photography, a modeling photography video. Joyce Anderson is the mother of Mark Epstein’s two children. The website for Joyce Anderson’s video describes the business as specializing in “children/pre-teen sessions.” Anderson and Mark Epstein split up in 2008, according to the Daily Beast.
In March 2003, Jeffrey told Vanity Fair that his middle-class parents viewed education as “the way out” for them.
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