‘Uncontrollable’ Jeffrey Epstein: 5 Takeaways From Judge’s Bail Decision – The New York Times

Mr. Epstein’s assets also included $56 million in cash and more than $300 million in securities and other financial instruments. Prosecutors also said his sex registration documentation (stemming from his 2008 guilty plea in Florida) listed no fewer than 15 motor vehicles, including seven Chevrolet Suburbans, a cargo van, a Range Rover, a Mercedes-Benz sedan, a Cadillac Escalade and a Hummer.

Then there was a safe that the authorities said they searched in Mr. Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan, in which they found more than $70,000 in cash, 48 loose diamonds ranging in size from approximately one to 2.38 carats, and a large diamond ring.

The judge concluded that Mr. Epstein was “a serious risk of flight” and “no conditions can be set that will reasonably assure his appearance at trial.”

The contents of Mr. Epstein’s safe gave the judge pause

Inside that safe, the authorities also found an Austrian passport bearing Mr. Epstein’s photograph but another person’s name, the judge noted. The judge’s opinion made it clear that prosecutors and Mr. Epstein’s lawyers disagreed sharply over the passport’s significance.

Prosecutors said the passport showed Mr. Epstein knew how to obtain false travel documents or assume other identities.

Defense lawyers told the judge that Mr. Epstein, whom they described as “an affluent member of the Jewish faith,” acquired the passport in the 1980s “when hijackings were prevalent,” in connection with Middle East travel. The passport expired 32 years ago, the defense wrote, and “was for personal protection in the event of travel to dangerous areas, only to be presented to potential kidnappers, hijackers or terrorists should violent episodes occur.”

In the back and forth, prosecutors noted that the passport included numerous stamps showing it was used to enter France, Spain, Britain and Saudi Arabia in the 1980s. The defense said Mr. Epstein was given the passport by a friend, the trips were not his and he had never used it.