Accounting
Epstein’s accountant: ‘I never saw anything improper’
In the decade-and-a-half that he worked for Jeffrey Epstein, accountant Richard Kahn never saw anything untoward — either in the child trafficker and sex offender’s financials, or in person.
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“In the years that I provided accounting and bookkeeping services for Jeffrey Epstein, I was not aware of the terrible and unforgivable things that he did to women and girls,” Kahn told members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in a nearly six-hour deposition on March 11 that was released last week. “My relationship with Epstein was strictly on a professional level. We did not interact socially, and I never attended any of his parties or his social functions.”
Kahn, who spent most of his tenure with Epstein tracking spending on the sex offender’s properties and other assets, and later looking after his investments and assets, said that he never saw any sexual abuse or trafficking himself, never saw Epstein in the company of a minor, and never received any complaints about Epstein’s behavior from victims or anyone else.
He was aware of Epstein’s 2006 plea deal on charges of soliciting sex with a minor, but believed Epstein’s claim that it was a one-time mistake that wouldn’t be repeated.
“Had I learned of any of his [ongoing] horrific behavior, I would have quit work immediately,” he told the committee.
A 10-minute interview
Kahn, who graduated from Syracuse University, started his accounting career at Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers), before moving to Richard Eisner & Co. (a predecessor of Top 100 Firm EisnerAmper), and after that a small firm called KNHN.
He began working for Epstein in late 2005, after answering an ad and being contacted by a recruiter. His job interview with the then-little-known financier, he said, lasted all of 10 minutes.
Kahn described a relationship with Epstein that was conducted almost entirely via e-mail and phone calls, with a 30-90-minute meeting in person at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse only once every three weeks.
“Our conversations were 90% regarding questions I brought in looking to get answered regarding his accounting and financial situation,” he explained. “My role was reviewing checks from properties, bills that came in, dealing with property managers, dealing with his investments, dealing with insurance for himself and his employees.”
Kahn wasn’t the only accountant on Epstein’s team; another accountant, Bella Klein, “kept the QuickBooks files, paid bills, handled checks and credit cards and petty cash,” Kahn said.
There were also outside accountants who prepared Epstein’s tax returns, though Kahn worked on Epstein’s gift tax return.
“With homes in the Virgin Islands, New York, Palm Beach, Paris and New Mexico, and with several planes and a helicopter, Epstein had substantial yearly expenditures and a large staff,” he explained. “We tracked the expenditures as meticulously as possible, including gifts by Epstein to women and men. The gifts represent a very small fraction of Epstein’s spending. I did not see them as red flags for abuse or trafficking.”
Kahn testified that he has seen no evidence that Epstein was paid to traffick women or girls to any individuals, and when asked if any of Epstein’s income came from trafficking, he said, “No, not that I’m aware of. I walked through all his income here today, and I know where all of it was sourced from. … I have no reason to believe that any of his income was earned in an improper fashion.”
However, Kahn repeatedly reminded questioners on the committee that, due to the fragmented nature of his employer’s operations, he could not necessarily speak to all aspects of Epstein’s finances, or accurately describe the size of his estate at any given time before his death. As an example, Kahn noted that he began preparing liquid asset summaries for Epstein in 2014, but those specifically did not include all of the sex trafficker’s houses and real estate.
With the filing of an estate tax return after Epstein’s death, however, a clearer picture emerged: “When we filed his Form 706,” Kahn said, “he had somewhere between $550 and $600 million in assets.”
While acknowledging the complexity of Epstein’s finances, Kahn had a word of caution for those who believe that is a sign of ill-intent.
Stephanie Keith/Photographer: Stephanie Keith/Ge
“There’s a general misconception about Epstein’s operating financial entities and setting up LLCs and bank accounts,” he said. “I believe that setting up LLCs and bank accounts are the ABCs of financial planning for wealthy individuals like Epstein and others.”
“I had no role in setting up any of Epstein’s companies, but did not view them as improper or suspicious,” he told the committee.
Though it was not part of his regular duties, Kahn also did some work for Epstein’s imprisoned accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell — though not for long.
“I helped her organize her finances, sometimes during my work and sometimes after work,” he said. “I helped her organize her assets, her investments, her brokerage accounts, her cash, her insurances, her payroll, and I did that for a period of time. I was not paid by her, and I did not feel my work was appreciated, so I told Epstein that I no longer wanted to do work for Maxwell, and he said, ‘Great, don’t do work for Maxwell,’ and that was the end of my dealing with Maxwell.”
A new role
While Kahn wasn’t Epstein’s only accountant, he was named a co-executor of the estate after the sex offender’s mysterious death in prison in August 2019.
“That’s not a role that anyone would want,” Kahn told the committee. “Being co-executor has caused tremendous strife for me and my family. The anguish, anxiety and stress is unfathomable. My reputation has suffered what I believe to be irreparable damage that I don’t know if I ever will recover from.”
He took the role for a number of reasons, but the most important was that, “I thought that my knowledge of Epstein’s holdings would make me better prepared to alleviate some of the suffering of his victims.”
One of the first actions he and his co-executor — Epstein’s former lawyer, Darren Indyke — took was to establish the Epstein Victims Compensation Fund, with the goal of helping victims “in a discreet, kind and non-confrontational manner.”
Before being wound down, the fund resolved claims from 136 women, who were paid a total of $121 million — though many more claimants were deemed ineligible, according to Kahn, and he suspects the number of Epstein’s victims may total as many as 250 women.
Neither Kahn nor Indyke are paid for their roles as co-executors, but both are named as beneficiaries in Epstein’s will, for $25 million and $50 million, respectively — amounts Kahn said he believes were meant to compensate them for their work on the estate.
Whether those bequests will be made is an open question, given the estate’s condition.
“As of the last publicly filed quarterly accounting, the estate had approximately $120 million of assets,” Kahn reported. “Most recently, the estate settled a class-action lawsuit for $35 million, which leaves approximately $85 million. The estate still has, unfortunately, four to five remaining lawsuits, in addition to the fact that it is burning approximately $10-15 million a year in legal fees and other expenses.”
Both Kahn and Indyke also told the committee that they had received multimillion-dollar loans from Epstein while he was still alive.
Kahn’s loans totaled something like $3 million, and he stopped paying interest on them after Epstein’s death, with the expectation that the estate will forgive the loans.
“Epstein treated these loans for me and probably 10 other employees as retention bonuses,” Kahn said. “He was giving loans to us similar to the way that a brokerage firm would sign on and bring an individual in, they would give a loan to a new employee.”
Interestingly, both Kahn and Indyke said that no federal investigators had ever spoken to them.
“I’ve never been questioned by any government authority,” Kahn said.
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