THE NEW YORK TIMES: Jeffrey Epstein in Paris — How a sex offender hustled for access to France’s elite

In his last days as a free man, busy in his part-time home of Paris, Jeffrey Epstein did not appear like someone who dreaded a legal reckoning.

There were meetings with architects and interior decorators. A dinner with Norwegian diplomats. Appointments with a Russian French mathematician and a Kuwaiti former official.

It was a Paris sojourn like countless others for Epstein, whose every-other-month visits since the early 2000s had been a mix of restless networking, real estate shopping and, according to testimony gathered by French prosecutors, systematic sex trafficking.

It was a playbook used by Epstein in every place he lived: From Manhattan to Palm Beach, Florida, he sought out well-connected fixers to help him befriend influential people, and then cultivated those relationships in a way that stamped a veneer of respectability on a life of sordid criminal activity.

Young women, some trafficked to him by a French model scout, Jean-Luc Brunel, according to prosecutors, were regular visitors to Epstein’s grand, if garishly decorated, apartment.

Epstein’s arrest on federal sex trafficking charges came on July 6, 2019, after he made a final flight on his private plane from Paris to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.

The 3 million-plus pages of Epstein-related documents released in January by the Justice Department provide, for the first time, an insider’s view of Epstein in Paris — a socially ambitious expatriate, eager to mingle in French high society, if not always successfully.

His apartment on Avenue Foch, a tree-lined boulevard that is the Park Avenue of Paris, was at once an opulent salon and an oversized pied-à-terre.

“Paris is great,” Epstein said in a characteristically typo-flecked 2011 email to Terje Rod-Larsen, a Norwegian diplomat with whom he had a long friendship, “wasn’t there someone here you thought i should meet.?”

Mr Rod-Larsen replied with the name Olivier Colom, whom he described as a “close adviser to Sarko,” a common nickname for Nicolas Sarkozy, then the president of France.

“Shall I set up a meeting?” Mr Rod-Larsen asked.

Mr Colom was to become one of Epstein’s closest contacts. A well-connected diplomat, he later worked as a banker for Ariane de Rothschild, the chief executive of Edmond de Rothschild Group, who was also a friend of Epstein’s.

The two men traded dozens of emails, captured in the Justice Department files, on subjects ranging from international finance to women. But access to Mr Sarkozy was never far from Epstein’s mind.

In June 2013, after the president had left office, Epstein suggested seeking a meeting during his next visit to Paris. He also inquired if Mr Colom had made progress in recruiting a female assistant to work for him.

“Sarkozy leaves Paris on 9 July unfortunately to go on vacation on the riviera….” Mr Colom replied. “About your assistant, am asking around,” he said. “But you need to hire a not-too-good-looking one…”

With no date with Mr Sarkozy on the calendar, Epstein raised the idea of a meeting again a few months later: “is sarkozy around,” he emailed Mr Colom, “Id like to meet him, if you think fun.”

Mr Colom promised to ask Mr Sarkozy about it the following month.

“He can be fun,” he wrote. “And he can speak English now!”

A representative of Mr Sarkozy said he did not know Epstein personally and had never invited him anywhere.

Mr Colom could not be reached for comment; he has expressed regret in the French media for his relationship with Epstein.

With Epstein, access was a two-way street. His French friends were not shy about asking for favours.

In 2013, Mr Colom emailed to ask, “Could you organize a discreet meeting between Sarko and Hillary Clinton in NY?”

“meetingswith Hillary are noteasily discreet,” Epstein replied. “When ?”

Ms Clinton, testifying before the House committee investigating the Epstein case in February, said she was not aware of any approach from him.

“I find it kind of weird because I know Sarkozy,” she added. “If somebody was seeking a meeting with me and Sarkozy, he would not have needed to go through anybody else.”

With his money and acquisitive eye, Epstein seemed intent on collecting a portfolio of trophy properties in France.

He took a long look at Château de Guermantes, an 18th-century estate east of Paris, before backing out because it was too noisy, according to two people with knowledge of the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

He also made a bid for Hôtel Lambert, a mansion in Paris, which he talked of converting into a mathematics institute.

After the owner sniffed at his offer of 55 million euros ($63 million), Epstein asked for a signed contract at 60 million euros, these two people said, saying he did not want to bid against himself. It was later sold to an Arab prince.

But Epstein seemed at home in the apartment at 22 Avenue Foch, holding on to it from 2001 until his death in August 2019, which has been ruled a suicide.

(Mr Brunel was also found hanged in his prison cell, in 2022, while facing rape charges.)

A Bulgarian businessperson, Georgi Tuchev, bought the apartment from Epstein’s estate in 2022 for about 10 million euros, according to Bloomberg News.

Sprawling over nearly 7,400-square-feet on the second floor of an early-19th-century building, the apartment featured a study with padded orange walls and a cavernous gym, with images of women’s body parts, according to police records.

Like his other houses, it had a massage room.

In 2015, according to documents released by the Justice Department, Epstein paid 1.2 million euros ($1.38 million) to have the apartment redone by a Parisian decorator, Alberto Pinto.

The living room alone cost more than 665,000 euros. Pictures taken during a police raid, and published by the French media, showed tabletop photographs of Epstein with famous figures: kneeling before Pope John Paul II and dining with Woody Allen.

Epstein, however, struggled to fully ingratiate himself with France’s political elite. His most lasting contact was with Jack Lang, who served as culture minister during the 1980s under President François Mitterrand.

A charismatic figure who created popular cultural events, Lang, 86, nevertheless had long lost the political influence he wielded during the heyday of his career.

Still, Epstein savored the association, dining with Mr Lang at chic restaurants and joining him at art exhibits and film premieres, according to emails.

In May 2018, Mr Lang’s daughter Caroline, a film producer, emailed Epstein to propose that he join her father at a reception at a luxury hotel. There will be “a lot of intellectuals,” she promised.

“Ok,” he replied, with customary brevity.

Epstein liked to play the role of deep-pocketed friend. In March 2014, he emailed Mr Lang to say he would “pick up all expenses” for a trip to New York or the Caribbean.

Mr Lang and his wife, Monique, thanked Epstein for the “nice gesture” and agreed to accompany him on a subsequent trip to Marrakech, Morocco.

The largesse extended to Mr Lang’s daughter. Epstein jointly owned an offshore fund with Caroline that she said Epstein started to support up-and-coming artists, according to a French investigative website, Mediapart.

Epstein also left Caroline $5 million in his will, according to Mediapart.

French prosecutors are investigating Mr Lang and his daughter for “laundering of tax fraud proceeds.”

A lawyer for Jack and Caroline Lang, Laurent Merlet, said Mr Lang never accepted free vacations from Epstein.

He said they met twice a year in “entirely social and mundane circumstances.”

Caroline Lang, Merlet said, took no money from the offshore fund and was stunned to discover she had been left money by Epstein.

Five months before Epstein’s death, Mr Lang invited him to attend a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the pyramid entrance to the Louvre, designed by architect I.M. Pei — a project Mr Lang had championed.

“Now at the pyramid. With the entire govt.,” Epstein texted one of his newer friends, Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald Trump.

“The ministers of the elite,” he said. Epstein attached a photograph of himself, in sunglasses and a stylishly draped overcoat, standing alone with Mr Lang.

“Powermove,” Mr Bannon texted back.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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