So, as you can see, this is an email from June of 2008, right around the time that Epstein pled guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution. And you said to him, quote, 'Abigail told me the result. All I can say is I feel sorry you violated your own number one rule. Always be careful.' And Epstein replied, 'No excuse.' So clearly either you knew or Epstein had said to you that his number one rule was to be careful. What in your recollection was he so careful about?
About being honest and not stealing from us. These criminal, terrible, horrible things that he did. And I don't know what prompted me when I saw this. I think it was just giving him the finger. It's just something in the news. Maybe it was the fact that Abigail told me and I was just cooking on it and I just wanted like, you sold yourself as a careful, honest fiduciary and you completely robbed us, did all these terrible things.
It sounds like you at least at the time understood that Mr. Epstein, it sounds like Mr. Epstein would say that his number one rule was to be careful. Is that correct?
Well, again, he alleged himself to be a fiduciary. And I'm always careful about my clients. You know, I don't do risky investments. I wasn't looking for cleverness. I was looking for accuracy, conservative. I just run things really smoothly. And Jeffrey would say, 'Don't worry. You know, I'm always very careful.' And that might have meant to be not abusive to my admin or to be prompt and accurate with tax returns. He's just careful because that's what you would expect if my personal attorney would have said, 'Don't worry, I'm always careful on your account.' That would ring comfortably for me.
And you touched on it, but in terms of how you can recall about how you felt at the time, the crimes, even the crime that he pled to was not insignificant. It involved a minor. Do you recall? I mean, that would seem not to necessarily be the product of simply not being careful. So, do you recall whether you felt anger, shock, or simply how could you have been so careless?
Wexner, L. (2026, February 22). Wexner Asked: 'Do You Recall When You First Became Aware Of' Epstein's 'Crimes Involving Minors?' [Interview transcript]. Forbes Breaking News. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/816032/
MLA
Les Wexner. "Wexner Asked: 'Do You Recall When You First Became Aware Of' Epstein's 'Crimes Involving Minors?'." Forbes Breaking News, 22 Feb. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/816032/.
BibTeX
@misc{wexner2026_816032,
author = {Les Wexner},
title = {Wexner Asked: 'Do You Recall When You First Became Aware Of' Epstein's 'Crimes Involving Minors?'},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Forbes Breaking News. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {feb},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/816032/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
