Epstein's Columbus Ties
This case, imo, is fascinating window to gulf between the way things are presented and what they really are.
I grew up in suburban Columbus, Ohio in the 1990s. I think my upbringing was exceedingly normal. Columbus was always considered a little bit boring. “Cow town” was the nickname.
Because it was so middle-of-the-road, demographically and culturally, Columbus at the time was a big presidential swing area in a swing state. Big corporate restaurants used to test new foods there to see if they would succeed nationally because the Columbus area was so representative.
During this era Columbus was also quietly booming. The city had a reputation for being professionally managed, a new sort of city. Families like mine migrated there from rust belt cities like Toledo and Cleveland in droves. They set up families and lives in full of other families with similar backgrounds in suburbs that had a few years before been corn and soybean fields.
Our parents worked at corporate middle management jobs at places like Nationwide Insurance (if they were lucky) and sent their kids to large public high schools, which were segmented by income. I grew up in not the wealthiest suburb in Columbus, but probably one of the top third wealthiest I guess. I went to school with some kids who were working class and kids who lived in McMansions.
During this era, Columbus was a fast food Mecca. Bob Evans and Wendy’s were headquartered there. It was also a retail Mecca. As a high school student who worked at the mall, I was a big target of all this, and a participant as a consumer.
(This was the mall I worked at in high school, along with all my friends. They were kleptomaniacs.)
The culture of Columbus at the time, at least the mostly white suburban world I was embedded in, Abercrombie and Fitch was an inescapable brand. All the most popular kids at my high school, the “richest,” wore Abercrombie and Fitch. “I Like Girls that Wear Abercrombie and Fitch” was a literal pop song that charted during this era. I worked as a lifeguard at the local swimming pool, where they would play top 40 radio all summer and I must have heard it 10,000 times. The song was a little tongue in cheek I think, but still.
Even at the time I rolled my eyes a little at all this. But I wasn’t totally above it I guess. I did I shop at Abercrombie and Fitch a little, mostly a the sale rack. It was just a popular clothing brand at the time. I don’t know if I made a giant distinction between it and like a Levi’s, although it certainly had a much bigger influence on us in that era.
Anyway, Abercrombie and Fitch was owned by Ohio’s richest man: Les Wexner who lived in the Columbus area. He was a powerful and mysterious figure in Columbus and has become a key figure in the Epstein scandal. His New Albany compound — that’s really the only way to describe it — was featured in the Netflix documentary “Filthy Rich” about Epstein’s crimes. One of the victims, who was in her mid teens, was taken there, to New Albany, Ohio, and sexually assaulted by Epstein.
Anyway, in the 1990s and early 2000s, Wexner owned Limited Brands, which owned Victoria’s Secret, Bath and Body Works, the Limited, Express — huge, huge retail names. If you went to a mall anywhere in the world, you were likely to see at least five of these Columbus-based stores. Everyone thought of Columbus as this cultural backwater in this era, they weren’t entirely wrong, but in fact it was dictating a lot of the style trends of the era far beyond Ohio. Kids like me, the middle class lifestyle we were living, they were trading on in a weird way.
When I was in high school, Abercrombie and Fitch pioneered in the catalog-as-soft porn trend that American Apparel would later run with. The similarities between these two companies, looking back, are striking. In 2003, the catalog — which was aimed at 10 to 13 year olds — included partially nude photos of young models and group sexual activity, according to Snopes, which rated this claim as “true.”
It was controversial, even at the time, but not overwhelmingly so I would say. I remember seeing them, being mildly interested in scandalized but that was kind of it.
A&F did a lot of edgy things, which ended up, I assume, benefiting them financially. They would also hire underage kids, high schoolers, they thought were hot to stand at the front doors, the girls in tiny tops, the boys shirtless sometimes. I knew some of these kids. Again, this was sorta controversial. I remember there was a lawsuit where black employees alleged they were forced into lower paying back of the house jobs — discrimination.
This was stuff we heard and knew about, but it was just the tip of the iceberg apparently. Mike Jeffries, the CEO of A&F, hired by Wexner in the early 1990s, was years later arrested for running a “prostitution and international sex trafficking business” in which vulnerable young men were trafficked to him and his partner for sex, often lured to his apartment under false pretexts. The operation is strikingly similar what is described in the Epstein case. Some of the stuff he is accused of doing is so sick.
These two cases aren’t even the only two sex trafficking scandals in which Wexner has been implicated. He is also being sued civilly by victims of former Ohio State Physician Richard Strauss, who saw student athletes (most notoriously the wrestling team) and was accused of abusing 177 male students during his tenure. Wexner was on the board of trustees for the university during this era, and plaintiffs allege he knew about the abuse but did nothing.
While this was going on Wexner was a huge power broker in Columbus and Ohio. He developed this huge new suburb outside Columbus: New Albany it was called. New Albany was this wealthy place. His rule was all the properties had to have these white fences, large estate style lots and houses. It was this very fake bucolic thing. In this area, he also built this huge mall Easton, which was, I believe, the first mall flipped inside out. The “Lifestyle center” that was a fake walkable small town, now the norm. Wexner was way ahead of the curve in retail. He was able to convince politicians in Ohio to build this huge expensive new highway (I-670 East) right to New Albany and his mall on taxpayers’ dime.
When I was in college I spent two weeks working the night shift folding clothes for Abercrombie and Fitch before quitting. This job had decent pay: $12 or $15 at the time. This would be 2004 maybe. But I pretty quickly learned I wasn’t cut out for spending 45 minutes meticulously folding a stack of spaghetti strap tank tops at 2 am.
Later, I worked at a nonprofit for which Les Wexner’s wife sat on the board and was the major funder. This nonprofit, I thought, was a tiny bit weird. The rumor in Columbus at that time was that Les Wexner was gay and closeted. And that his wife was like an employee to him, managing his business affairs. Anyway, people in Columbus at the time, at least felt something was off with Epstein, but boy did they underestimate it.
Since his ties to Epstein have become more public, Wexner has come under increasing heat but has faced really no legal consequences. I have been watching the latest release of the Epstein files, wondering if this is the moment he will face consequences. It’s hard to believe nothing incriminating has come up all this time.
For reasons, that in my opinion, have never been adequately explained, Wexner, this business genius, self-made billionaire, put Epstein in charge of his money. His explanation is that he was simply too stupid and gullible to know better (absurd imo). They maintained a close friendship for years.
In Columbus, as the Epstein stuff has gained increasing attention, he has been quietly stripped of public roles within his company, his name has been removed from buildings. He is scheduled to testify before Congress this week (Feb. 18th), which feels like a new territory in public scrutiny, a tiny bit of a comeuppance. But he has not been arrested.
Some of the stuff that has come out in this latest files dump is pretty incriminating imo. Wexner appears in a number of photos that are redacted (presumably because they include a minor or victim?) YIKES to this one.
