Jeffrey Epstein is a fraudster as well as a sex offender, according to retail mogul Leslie Wexner. The billionaire founder of L Brands, parent company of Victoria's Secret, was the financier's only named client for many years in an arrangement seen as highly unusual. In a letter to the Wexner Foundation Wednesday, Wexner said Epstein had "misappropriated vast sums of money" from him and his family while managing his financial affairs, the New York Times reports. He said the matter was first uncovered in 2007, after sexual abuse allegations involving Epstein first surfaced, and he took steps to remove him from his affairs. "This was, frankly, a tremendous shock, even though it clearly pales in comparison to the unthinkable allegations against him now," Wexner wrote.
Wexner told the foundation that Epstein was recommended to him by friends in the mid-1980s as a "knowledgeable financial professional" that he could trust, the Wall Street Journal reports. "I am embarrassed that, like so many others, I was deceived by Mr. Epstein," he wrote. "I know now that my trust in him was grossly misplaced and I deeply regret having ever crossed his path." He said he had been able to recover some of the funds misappropriated by Epstein. Last month, the 81-year-old told L Brands employees that he knew nothing of Epstein's misdeeds, which allegedly include abusing dozens of girls as young as 14, and he would never knowingly have been involved "with any individual capable of such egregious, sickening behavior as has been reported about him." (More Jeffrey Epstein stories.)