Written by way of James B. Stewart
When Jeffrey Epstein died in jail in 2019, he took many secrets and techniques with him. One was once how a sexual predator and school dropout controlled to forge bonds with an astonishing selection of the sector’s richest and maximum robust males, like Britain’s Prince Andrew and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
Some other was once why Epstein owned an extraordinary Italian cello. It was once the one nonfinancial asset indexed on his basis’s annual tax paperwork, described merely as “cello” and carried at the books at a worth of $165,676.
Epstein had by no means performed the cello or proven any hobby in musical tools as an funding.
The primary thriller is big, and it’s nonetheless being untangled by way of attorneys, sufferers and newshounds. The second one is outwardly small, contained to the rarefied international of good string tools. However the two mysteries are hooked up. And the cello’s peculiar adventure into and out of Epstein’s ownership gives a window into the infamous legal’s lifestyles and legacy.
Epstein’s Big apple mansion was once stuffed with curiosities. There was once a portrait of Invoice Clinton in a blue get dressed, a filled giraffe, prosthetic breasts within the grasp toilet.
However greater than gadgets, Epstein amassed other people. Through the years he cultivated leaders within the fields of commercial, finance, politics, science, arithmetic, academia, song, even yoga. He frequently cemented the relationships with introductions to others in his orbit, donations to reasons they supported or different presents and favors.
This is the place the cello got here in.
False Claims and Accordion Classes
As a kid rising up in Brooklyn, Epstein and his more youthful brother, Mark, confirmed an inherent ability for song. Each started courses at the saxophone, then switched to tougher double-reed tools. Jeffrey performed the bassoon, Mark the oboe, each in excessive call for in orchestras and different ensembles. It was once as a bassoonist that Jeffrey earned a scholarship in 1967 to Interlochen, the distinguished summer season song camp nestled within the woods of northern Michigan. When his mom visited him that summer season, he requested her to convey bagels.
As an grownup, Jeffrey Epstein falsely claimed to have had a budding occupation as a live performance pianist. And he claimed to have begun piano courses at age 5, which Mark Epstein mentioned in an interview was once now not true. (He took courses at the accordion as a tender boy.) Epstein later took piano courses, however he by no means accomplished greater than a high-school degree of talent.
It was once the cello that turned into a habitual motif in Epstein’s self-told lifestyles tale, beginning after he and a chum backpacked in Europe within the early Seventies. A number of the tales Epstein later recounted was once enjoying the piano for Jacqueline du Pré, the British cello virtuoso. In Epstein’s telling, he met du Pré in 1971 whilst visiting London. Du Pré loved the patronage of Queen Elizabeth II, and it was once in the course of the cellist that Epstein mentioned he’d won get right of entry to to participants of the British royal circle of relatives, forging an extremely shut friendship with Prince Andrew.
The story was once now not solely improbable. Du Pré, who died in 1987, was once nonetheless acting on the time Epstein visited London, the place he purchased a full-length fur coat that he wore for years in a while. However du Pré infrequently wanted Epstein as an accompanist, since, a number of the international’s numerous different skilled musicians, she was once married to celebrated pianist Daniel Barenboim.
At Interlochen, to which Epstein turned into an important donor and common customer, he met and befriended a 14-year-old cellist, Melissa Solomon, in 1997. In keeping with her account in a 2019 podcast, he insisted she practice to Juilliard and agreed to pay her tuition there. She mentioned he by no means tried to have intercourse along with her (he did get her to therapeutic massage his ft), however after she declined to wait a celebration with Prince Andrew, Epstein reduce ties and stopped paying her tuition.
Some other Interlochen scholar, recognized most effective as Jane, testified within the contemporary trial of Epstein’s closest affiliate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Jane mentioned that Epstein and Maxwell started grooming her when she was once a 13-year-old scholar on the camp and that Epstein due to this fact raped her, all whilst promising to advance her occupation.
Thanksgiving on the Ranch
Within the mid-Nineteen Nineties, Epstein confirmed up behind the curtain on the Kravis Heart in West Palm Seashore, Florida, after a efficiency by way of cellist William DeRosa, a tender prodigy who’d made his live performance debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at age 11. By the point Epstein noticed him, DeRosa was once considered probably the most international’s best possible cellists, functioning at Carnegie Corridor, on tv and with main symphony orchestras.
Epstein’s and DeRosa’s paths didn’t move once more till round 2004, when DeRosa started relationship a blond type named Kersti Ferguson.
Initially from Savannah, Georgia, Ferguson mentioned in an interview that she met Epstein via a mutual buddy when she was once 18. Ferguson and Epstein frolicked at his Palm Seashore property, the place she met Maxwell. Epstein invited Ferguson to his Virgin Islands property whilst she was once in faculty, and after she broke up with a boyfriend, Epstein flew her and her mom to his New Mexico ranch for Thanksgiving. He also known as her 4 occasions an afternoon. He confirmed her pictures of himself with what he mentioned have been his robust buddies, amongst them former President Invoice Clinton, Microsoft co-founder Invoice Gates, Israeli Top Minister Ehud Barak and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.
After she started relationship DeRosa, Epstein insisted on checking him out. “Be great,” DeRosa recalled Epstein caution him. He gave the impression serious about DeRosa’s musical abilities. He as soon as advised they play in combination, however DeRosa brushed him off. He mentioned he had by no means heard Epstein play the piano.
In 2006, Epstein was once arrested in Florida after investigators discovered proof that he’d been sexually concerned with women. Ferguson mentioned Epstein by no means advised having intercourse along with her or requested her to recruit different younger ladies. To the contrary, when Ferguson tried to hug him, he’d “shrivel up,” she mentioned, as though fearful of catching a illness. And she or he idea he and Maxwell have been in love, even if Epstein confided in Ferguson that he had no goal of marrying.
Wealthy and Robust
For a time after his arrest, Ferguson didn’t pay attention from him. Epstein pleaded in charge to soliciting an underage prostitute and was once sentenced to 13 months in prison, regardless that he was once allowed to serve a lot of that point at house.
Then, in 2010, as Epstein was once looking to reconstitute his orbit of the wealthy and strong, he known as her. “I wish to purchase a cello,” Epstein mentioned all of a sudden, asking if she would enlist DeRosa within the seek. When Epstein subsequent spoke to DeRosa, he defined that he was once purchasing a cello for a tender Israeli cellist. “Pass to find one,” he ordered, then hung up.
Quickly after, DeRosa was once visiting his mom in Los Angeles when he realized of a cello being offered there by way of a musician who recorded soundtracks for Hollywood studios. (Prior to that, the cello have been performed by way of a member of the Indianapolis symphony orchestra.)
Whilst now not a Stradivarius or a Montagnana, this cello had a prominent pedigree, and was once manufactured by way of Ettore Soffritti, who labored within the string tool middle of Ferrara, Italy, from the past due 1800s till his demise in 1928. Benning Violins, the Los Angeles broker, described the cello’s sound as “wealthy and strong” and mentioned the tool was once “appropriate for the best of cellists.”
DeRosa attempted the cello. He was once smitten. He mentioned he regarded as it “probably the most largest fashionable cellos in lifestyles.” (By means of “fashionable” he supposed any produced after the Italian Renaissance.) With an asking worth of $185,000, he additionally regarded as it a cut price.
Epstein gave the impression happy when DeRosa informed him he’d discovered one thing. He mentioned the cello’s supposed recipient — a tender Israeli guy named Yoed Nir — needed to check the tool first. DeRosa knew just about each and every up-and-coming cellist, however he had by no means heard of Nir.
DeRosa had the cello on an ordeal foundation, and Nir examined the tool on a seek advice from to DeRosa’s mom’s space in Los Angeles. Nir, who was once about 30 years outdated and had darkish, shoulder-length hair, which he tossed theatrically whilst enjoying, performed a few of Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites. He had obviously had musical coaching (he was once a graduate of the Jerusalem Academy of Tune and Dance), however DeRosa regarded as his enjoying unexceptional by way of his exacting requirements. He may recall to mind many younger cellists extra deserving of such an tool. “I assumed it extremely strange that Jeffrey had selected this man,” DeRosa recalled.
Nir authorized of the tool, and Epstein had his accountant, Richard Kahn, step in to barter the acquisition from Benning Violins. Kahn acquired an appraisal, then bargained down the associated fee to $165,000. (DeRosa, who felt like his recognition was once at the line since he’d initiated the transaction, discovered this insulting.)
‘You Can’t Deal with Any individual Like That’
Weeks later, when DeRosa was once again in New York, Epstein’s assistant known as and mentioned DeRosa must be at his space the following morning at precisely 7:30 a.m. There, Epstein gestured towards a big unopened cardboard field. DeRosa mentioned he opened the package deal and verified that it was once similar cello he’d situated in Los Angeles.
“Did you’re making any cash at the transaction?” Epstein requested.
“No,” DeRosa replied, livid on the insinuation that he’d taken a reduce.
Epstein walked out with out additional remark. “He confirmed no real interest in the cello,” DeRosa recalled.
Ferguson was once disappointed when she heard concerning the assembly. She known as Epstein and chastised him. “You’ll be able to’t deal with any individual like that,” she mentioned. He was once unapologetic.
The cash to shop for the cello got here from Epstein’s basis, and the acquisition was once mirrored on its 2011 tax go back. Kahn drew up an settlement during which the cello could be lent to Nir for free of charge, in line with an individual conversant in the association.
Now not lengthy after, singer Judy Collins carried out on the Café Carlyle. A good evaluation in The New York Occasions discussed in passing that Collins had “added a brand new part, a cellist, Yoed Nir.”
Epstein and Ferguson due to this fact papered over their war of words, and she or he instructed DeRosa to forgive him. When a treasured Stradivarius cello got here available on the market, Epstein presented to shop for it for DeRosa’s use. DeRosa had a novel connection to the tool, since a basis had prior to now owned it and lent it to him early in his occupation.
So assured was once the vendor {that a} deal would come in combination that DeRosa took ownership of the tool. However Epstein balked on the asking worth of $14 million, refusing to pay greater than $10 million, in line with DeRosa. The deal unraveled, and DeRosa returned the cello. It later offered for greater than the asking worth, DeRosa mentioned.
DeRosa Has Regrets
DeRosa and Ferguson have been stunned in 2019 when Epstein was once arrested and charged with intercourse trafficking. Ferguson couldn’t reconcile the allegations with the person she idea she knew. Given his wealth and connections to robust other people, she figured he’d by some means get off the hook. She wrote him a letter in jail providing to seek advice from and produce meals. She by no means were given a answer. On Aug. 10, Epstein died by way of suicide.
A number of months later, DeRosa emailed Nir to determine what had came about to the Soffritti cello. Nir mentioned most effective that he’d returned it. On the Epstein basis’s request, Nir had delivered the cello to a New York regulation company in October 2019. Its case was once damaged, and the cello itself had suffered some harm, in line with DeRosa. (Nir mentioned the case wasn’t damaged when he returned it and that the tool was once “in excellent enjoying situation.”) The basis requested Benning Violins to once more marketplace and promote it, and Benning agreed to provide a brand new case.
Wittingly or now not, Epstein had made a valid funding. This time the associated fee was once $220,000 — or 33% greater than what Epstein had paid 8 years previous. With the backing of a monetary spouse whom DeRosa wouldn’t establish, he took ownership of the cello in early 2020, simply earlier than the coronavirus pandemic introduced an finish to reside performances.
Like many of us in Epstein’s orbit, DeRosa now regrets ever getting knotted up with him and needs he had stored the cello for himself. “I want I’d by no means let Jeffrey purchase the cello,” DeRosa mentioned. “I’m now not a broker. I’m a live performance cellist. I used to be at all times indignant at myself that I let it move.”
A Clue on the Cafe
The thriller persists: Why had Epstein purchased the cello within the first position? What was once his connection to Nir?
A very powerful clue emerged on the 2011 Judy Collins live performance on the Café Carlyle. Collins’ longtime musical arranger and pianist, Russell Walden, recalled that something concerning the night caught in his reminiscence. On the cafe, he met Nir’s spouse, Anat. Nir discussed that she was once the daughter of Barak, the previous Israeli high minister.
There are infrequently any public references to Barak’s kids. Reached lately in Tel Aviv, he showed that Yoed and Anat Nir are his son-in-law and daughter.
Barak — who was once high minister from 1999 to 2001 and later served in different high-ranking govt jobs — mentioned that any other former high minister, Shimon Peres, offered him to Epstein in 2003. Barak has mentioned that he and Epstein met dozens of occasions however he “by no means took phase in any celebration or tournament with ladies or anything else like that.”
Through the years Epstein wooed Barak by way of, amongst different issues, making an investment $1 million in a restricted partnership established by way of Barak in 2015.
He mentioned he offered Epstein to Nir in 2010 or 2011, regardless that he didn’t know that Epstein due to this fact lent Nir the cello. Due to this fact, Barak mentioned, it “may now not be true” that Epstein used the cello mortgage to curry want. A much more likely rationalization, he mentioned, “is that Mr. Epstein did it in accordance with the recognition of Yoed as an especially proficient cellist.” (Requested if he’d ever informed his partner’s father concerning the mortgage, Nir declined to respond to.)
However, the mortgage of a $165,000 cello was once the type of want that Epstein may most effective have made identified when he sought after one thing in go back. Finally, now not simply anyone had the sources and connections to supply an bizarre cello for the relative of a formidable political chief — simply the kind of individual that Epstein had a knack for holding shut.