As he planned for his death, Jeffrey Epstein listed powerful friends and associates from Wall Street as the people who would take care of his affairs.
Versions of Epstein’s will released Tuesday by the Justice Department featured former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, former Barclays CEO Jes Staley, and former Bear Stearns CEO Jimmy Cayne as potential executors of his estate.
The final version of Epstein’s will — which was signed in August of 2019, while he was in jail awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges in Manhattan, and shortly before he killed himself — listed his longtime personal lawyer, Darren Indyke, and accountant Richard Kahn as his estate executors.
The older versions of Epstein’s will were released following the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the Justice Department to make its Epstein-related files public. In addition to Epstein’s 2019 indictment, his associate Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2021 for trafficking girls to him, and in 2008, he pleaded guilty to a crime involving sexual misconduct with a minor.
The files include references to many of Epstein’s powerful associates, including President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton. Inclusion in the documents isn’t an indication of wrongdoing.
Cayne, who died in 2021, was listed as a co-executor for Epstein’s estate in versions of Epstein’s will signed in 2003 and 2004. Epstein worked at Bear Stearns in the 1980s, before becoming a financial advisor to billionaires Les Wexner and Leon Black.
Cayne’s daughter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In 2012, Epstein listed Staley — who was then an executive at JPMorgan Chase — as a backup executor to his will. In 2013, Staley was promoted to co-executor status, alongside Indyke.
Staley kept the position as co-executor of Epstein’s will in the 2014 version as well. By then, Epstein had listed Summers as a backup executor.
An attorney for Staley didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Staley said in a 2019 letter to a UK regulator that he did not have a close relationship with Epstein.
Staley stepped down as the CEO of Barclays in 2021 following an investigation into his ties with Epstein from the British bank regulator, which banned him from working in the financial industry. A UK court earlier this year upheld Staley’s ban, finding that he lied about having a “purely professional” relationship with Epstein.
Summers stepped down from his teaching post at Harvard and from his board seat at OpenAI following the release of numerous emails between him and Epstein by the House Oversight Committee last month.
Steven Goldberg, a spokesperson for Summers, said in a statement that the economist was not involved in Epstein’s financial life.
“Mr. Summers had absolutely no knowledge that he was included in an early version of Epstein’s will and had no involvement in his financial matters or the administration of his estate,” Goldberg said in a statement to Business Insider.
Epstein also included another prominent figure in the penultimate version of his will. A draft of the will, released by the House Oversight Committee earlier this year, listed top Goldman Sachs lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler as the backup estate executor.
Ruemmler, through JPMorgan, declined to comment when the will was released by the House Oversight Committee earlier this month.
