American Corruption (Paperback)

Power, Money, Sex: The Corrupt Trifecta! This captivating book uncovers the insidious web of deceit that infiltrates every facet of our nation's past and present. Immerse yourself in the stories of 50 of the most audacious frauds, cons, and lies!

Discover the dark underbelly of American history as you delve into the gripping pages of Grifters, Frauds, and Crooks: True Stories of American Corruption. From the heights of Wall Street to the heart of Main Street, from the hallowed halls of the Capitol to the battlefields of the military, and from the glitz and glamour of entertainment to the sanctity of science, no realm is immune to the clutches of corruption. Through meticulous research, this riveting account exposes both notorious figures and obscure swindles, including …

Bernie Madoff's infamous Ponzi schemes

Big Pharma scandals

the Black Sox

the dark secrets of the Catholic Church

Operation ABSCAM

the seedy underworld of the Mafia

Harvey Weinstein

Corruption in the White House

the Enron deceit

the shocking depths of NYPD corruption

Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker

the Lehman Brothers collapse

the Watergate break-in and cover-up

the Clinton/Lewinsky affair

J. Edgar Hoover’s abuse of power

the Sackler family’s opioid empire

and many other dishonest and duplicitous people and organizations!!

With more than 120 photos and graphics, Grifters, Frauds, and Crooks is richly illustrated. Its helpful bibliography and extensive index add to its usefulness. In the pursuit of money, influence, and fame, the line between right and wrong sometimes becomes blurred, leaving a trail of shattered trust and broken dreams. Take an illuminating journey into the cons, scams, and shady deals that have shaped our nation.

HARVEY WEINSTEIN
The rise and fall of Miramax Films is a rags to riches to rags again Hollywood story, through which runs a horrifying vein of sexual abuse and intimidation on the part of its supremo, Harvey Weinstein. Even in an environment as infamously sleazy as Tinseltown, the extent of Weinstein’s corruption and depravity are shocking.

The Weinstein brothers — Harvey and Bob — formed the Miramax Film Corporation in 1979. Their intent was primarily to distribute movies. This was born from their love of independent films, particularly the work of filmmakers based overseas. At first, the Weinsteins weren’t looking to make movies themselves. They were interested in putting obscure films in front of a wider audience, and they began picking up small, lesser-known movies for distribution throughout the United States.

Throughout the 1980s, Miramax slowly grew into a powerhouse of a company. The Weinsteins became increasingly involved with some of their pet projects, such as 1981 slasher movie The Burning, which he had a hand in producing. This was early in his career, and Weinstein didn’t yet wield the power of making or breaking the career of any actress who didn’t accede to his demands. Still, it was during the shooting of The Burning that some of Weinstein’s more disturbing tendencies would surface.

In a 2017 interview with the Buffalo News, Paula Wachowiak recounted an ugly situation she found herself in while making the movie. Twenty-four years old at the time, Ms. Wachowiak was an intern on the movie and one day found herself taking checks to Weinstein’s room to be signed. Weinstein opened the door wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, which he dropped to accept the folder full of checks. After an awkward conversation centered on the checks, during which the folder was the only thing covering his genitals, Weinstein asked the horrified intern to give him a massage.

Much to her credit, Ms. Wachowiak refused, and she stood her ground when the producer tried to cajole and coerce her. She finally left the room with the checks signed, and in a state of deep upset. Based upon reports from women who encountered him during his time as a music promoter, which pre-dated his involvement with movies, Paula Wachowiak was not the first woman to be sexually harassed by Harvey Weinstein. She was most definitely not the last.

Weinstein’s M.O. was often to be naked, or nearly naked, when a female entered the room, and then to ask her to massage him, wash his back, or perform some other sexualized service. The assaults took place most often in hotel rooms, and they happened in different countries all around the world as he traveled on business for Miramax. His chosen targets were invariably women who were within his control or subject to his sphere of influence — women he judged had a high chance of giving in to his demands and then not talking about it afterward. Many were actresses and felt pressured because, if they rebuffed Weinstein’s advances, he would make sure they would no longer get work in the motion picture industry.

According to statements made by many of Weinstein’s victims, if a woman didn’t take the hint, he would get more physical, trying to kiss or undress her against her will. Stories circulated among Miramax employees, particularly females, who sometimes went to meet with Weinstein in pairs to provide a measure of protection.

As the 1980s faded into the 1990s, Miramax was going from strength to strength. Stephen Soderbergh’s relatively low budget Sex, Lies, and Videotape was a smash hit and helped really put the company on the map. Thanks to financing and investment opportunities, the Weinsteins were able to take a more active hand in producing movies. Miramax was a major player in putting independent or arthouse movies out in both theaters and on home video, which was exploding in both sales and rentals. In 1993, the brother sold the company to Walt Disney, with the proviso that they continued to run things their own way. They made millions of dollars on the deal. Miramax’s profile was catapulted into the stratosphere when the company picked up Quentin Tarantino’s seminal Pulp Fiction, which would be nominated for seven Academy Awards (it won one). Over the years, Weinstein-backed movies have garnered hundreds of Oscar nominations.

As Harvey Weinstein’s power and influence grew, he became bolder and more brazen with his various abuses. The movie-making business is renowned for its cut-throat nature, yet even by those standards, he acquired a reputation for using bullying tactics to get what he wanted. Weinstein had a volatile temper and was easily provoked when things weren’t going his way. Males and females alike were subjected to outbursts of rage, although men were spared his unwelcome sexual advances and assaults.

Rumors circulated among actors, producers, and crew, but for decades he seemed untouchable, pure Teflon. Weinstein was powerful, and understandably feared. Speaking out against him could end a career, or worse, which explains why so few people attempted it over the years. For his part, Weinstein came to regard himself as untouchable. Time would ultimately prove him wrong about that.

Weinstein was almost outed in 2015 by a model named Ambra Battilana Gutierrez. After Weinstein grabbed her breasts and her thighs in a New York City hotel, she reported him to the police. Although the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not file charges against the movie producer, time was running out for Harvey Weinstein.

In October of 2017, the deluge of accusations against Weinstein had reached critical mass. Until then, journalists had found it difficult to get Weinstein’s victims to go on the record. A story published in the New York Times, written by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, finally remedied that. Here it was, laid out in black and white, for all the world to see: a piercing insight into Weinstein’s sordid world. The revelations it contained were explosive, and they were supported by the testimony of numerous reliable witnesses, most of whom had suffered indignity, abuse, and even outright assault at his hands.

Former actress Rose McGowan spoke out publicly against Weinstein and wrote about Weinstein’s assault on her in a memoir, titled Brave. McGowan recounted being attacked when Weinstein pushed her into the hot tub in his Utah hotel room, took off her clothes, and performed oral sex on her without her consent. (Weinstein denied that the assault ever happened.)

Ashley Judd stated that Weinstein used a variation of his frequent “give me a massage/let me give you a massage” routine, then tried to make her watch him while he showered. She made her excuses and left but never forgot Weinstein’s appalling behavior toward her. Weinstein sought retribution by having Judd blacklisted from major film projects, such as Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. Jackson was told that Judd, along with fellow actress (and spurner of Weinstein’s advances) Mira Sorvino, were both “a nightmare to work with.” As a result, Jackson avoided casting them in his fantasy epic.

Although she did not go into specific detail, actress Angelina Jolie experienced a disturbing encounter with Weinstein which she said “was beyond a pass, it was something I had to escape.” She refused to appear in future projects that Weinstein was involved with, such as Martin Scorsese’s TheAviator.

Weinstein attempted damage control by paying off some of his accusers, requiring in return that they refrain from discussing the settlement in public. Yet there were so many accusations and allegations against him that it became impossible for him to silence them all. Weinstein’s lawyers were quick to point out that in many cases, settlements are agreed to by the defendants to prevent themselves from being dragged through a lengthy court proceeding … and that Weinstein’s offering to settle does not necessarily indicate his guilt. While this is true to a certain extent, the argument becomes increasingly less credible when one considers the sheer number of individuals accusing him of sexual predation — a figure that has been reported as close to, or even exceeding, one hundred women.

October 2017 was a bad month for Harvey Weinstein. The “Me Too” movement, founded in 2009 by Tarana Burke in support of survivors of sexual violence, gained global attention when actress Alyssa Milano tweeted: “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘Me too’ as a reply to this tweet.” Milano replied “Me too” herself, and she penned a scathing indictment of Weinstein for Rolling Stone magazine the following January, stating that “Harvey Weinstein ripped a whole generation of actresses from society. An entire generation of talented, amazing, smart women that did not comply with his horrific demands was erased from the entertainment industry.”

Milano’s Tweet was retweeted more than 20,000 times. Tens of thousands of women used “Me too” as a response to indicate that they had been victims of sexual predation. Many male supporters stood in solidarity alongside them. One positive side effect of the Weinstein exposé was that a frank, long-overdue conversation about widespread sexual harassment and assault was finally beginning to take place.

Predictably, Harvey Weinstein apologized, his reason being, “the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it.” Considering the severity and enormity of the accusations against him, it’s difficult to see this as being anything other than public relations spin. Few people believed it, particularly those he had victimized. Weinstein’s name became toxic overnight. He had become such a public liability that even his own company, the Weinstein Co., fired him from his position as CEO.

Apologizing from one side of his mouth, Weinstein denied the majority of the accusations from the other. Still, they continued to mount, coming in from around the world, with some dating back to the 1980s. Actress Asia Argento stated that Weinstein had raped her in Cannes, in 1997. She had been 21 at the time of the assault. Argento declared that the Cannes Film Festival had been “his hunting ground.” Actresses Mira Sorvino and Gwyneth Paltrow added their voices to the chorus, as did many other women. Weinstein continued with his denials, speaking via his lawyer.

Georgina Chapman, Weinstein’s wife, left him on October 11, taking their five children with her, saying that “my heart breaks for all the women who have suffered tremendous pain because of these unforgivable actions.”

At the end of October, the Producer’s Guild of America slapped Weinstein with a lifetime membership ban. Other professional organizations soon followed suit. Law enforcement agencies in both the United States and Europe launched criminal investigations into his activities in their respective nations. In May of 2018, police in New York charged Weinstein with rape and sexual abuse. He turned himself in, and soon managed to bond himself out on a $1 million bail ticket — albeit with an electronic tag strapped to his ankle.

While he was awaiting trial in the summer of 2018, more charges were filed, and civil lawsuits were lodged against him by victims. Weinstein continued to plead not guilty. In 2019, an increasingly frail-looking Weinstein granted an interview in which he once again declared himself innocent. The gist of his argument was that he had done so much work promoting and enabling women in the film industry, how dare they be so ungrateful as to cast aspersions on his behavior now? He had donated hefty sums to charity and made sure that actresses were paid big bucks. If there was a victim in all this, his subtext seemed to say, then it was really Harvey Weinstein — the falsely accused.

Few, if any, were buying it. Still more accusations emerged prior to the beginning of his trial in January of 2020. The trial lasted for a month. At its conclusion, Weinstein was acquitted of some charges, but the jury found him guilty of third-degree rape and a first-degree criminal sexual act. The presiding judge sentenced him to 23 years’ imprisonment. While he was serving his time, still more accusations surfaced.

At the time of writing (March of 2022), Weinstein was still in prison and awaiting another spell in court, this time to decide the outcome of 11 more criminal charges that were leveled against him. As before, the disgraced producer maintained his innocence. Whether he would be convicted or not remained to be seen, but given his advanced age and frail condition, it seemed highly likely that Harvey Weinstein’s story would end with his death behind bars.

We can only hope that the Hollywood’s corrupt practice of tolerating (and sometimes even celebrating) sexual predators will die along with him.

JONATHAN & DIANA TOEBBE
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the term espionage as “the practice of spying or using spies to obtain information about the plans and activities especially of a foreign government or a competing country.”

Throughout United States history, there have been those in positions of trust who were willing to sell out their nation’s secrets to a foreign power for their own material gain. The damage done to national security can be incalculable.

During the late 1960s, former U.S. Navy warrant officer John Walker volunteered himself to become a Soviet mole. For the KGB, he was a godsend. Over the years that followed, Walker passed on a slew of naval technology secrets to the Russians, helping them render their submarines significantly quieter and more dangerous than ever. His motivation was simple: although he claimed to be ideologically disenchanted with the military and the American outlook in general, Walker was broke, and he realized that he could make a fortune by putting the lives of his fellow sailors at risk.

Walker didn’t just sell the Soviets technical data. He also revealed cutting-edge naval tactics, the specifics of how U.S. vessels would engage in battle against their enemies if war ever broke out. He revealed how to break the U.S. system of cryptography, allowing the Soviets access to encoded military and intelligence communications. Over the years he was active as a spy, along with a ring of co-conspirators, Walker was responsible for providing the enemy with a strategic and tactical edge that would have cost thousands of American lives in the event of World War III actually taking place.

In 1985, Eighteen years after he walked into the Soviet embassy in Washington, Walker was finally caught. His disgruntled ex-wife reported to the FBI that he was a turncoat, her claim also backed up by their daughter. She made a credible case, and the Bureau placed him under surveillance. He was arrested and the spy ring he created broken up. Walker died in prison at the age of 77, before he was eligible for parole.

Nearly four decades later, the Bureau would confront a similar case of corruption and espionage-for-profit. In October of 2021, FBI agents, along with U.S. Navy investigators, arrested engineer Jonathan Toebbe and his wife, Diana, on suspicion of attempting to sell nuclear secrets overseas.

The Toebbes were well placed to obtain restricted data, due to Jonathan’s classified work with the Navy. He was a civilian contractor and possessed a security clearance that gave him access to highly sensitive material. Toebbe was an expert in the design and implementation of submarine power and propulsion systems, a field in which the United States leads the world. Diana was a humanities teacher.

Almost a year before their arrest, Jonathan and Diana Toebbe made clandestine contact, via the internet, with somebody they thought was a spy from a foreign nation. Unbeknownst to them, the “spy” was in fact an FBI agent, who strung the unsuspecting couple along with promises while simultaneously building up a case against them for the crime of espionage.

According to the criminal complaint filed against them, on October 10, 2021, the Toebbes mailed a packet of information along with a note asking the recipient to “please forward this letter to your military intelligence agency. I believe this will be of great value to your nation.” Up for sale were technical specs pertaining to U.S. submarines, including classified operations manuals and various performance thresholds. The Navy does not like its enemies to know the limits and capabilities of its weapons systems and platforms, particularly those which rely on stealth and secrecy to survive — such as the new Virginia-class fast attack sub.

With the fish now hooked, the FBI slowly began to reel the Toebbes in. They couldn’t move too quickly, lest they risk scaring the spies off before gathering enough evidence to convict them in court; at the same time, there was the possibility that the amateur spies were shopping the stolen secrets around to other nation states and might find a genuine buyer. The consequences for U.S. naval supremacy were potentially catastrophic if that information found its way into the wrong hands.

To keep the Toebbes interested, the federal agents sent the equivalentof $10,000 — not U.S. dollars but cryptocurrency, which the Toebbes believed would be harder to trace than cash. Jonathan was reluctant to deal face to face, fearing entrapment, but agreed to make an exchange in Washington, DC, over the Memorial Day weekend of 2021. Although the FBI has not publicly released the identity of the country to which they were trying to sell data, the agency has acknowledged that it managed to place a prominent “sign” of some kind in a DC building associated with it.

Whatever that sign was, the Toebbes wrote back and confirmed that they had seen it. This reinforced the notion in their mind that they really were communicating with agents of another country and not being set up. In June, the couple delivered intelligence to a dead drop location, under direct observation by the FBI. The data was contained on a SanDisk, which they had placed inside a peanut butter sandwich. Agents wired them $20,000 in return.

Another information delivery took place the following month. The Toebbes worked as a team, with Jonathan making the physical drop off and Diana standing watch, looking out for anybody trying to surveil them. Success seemed to have emboldened him, because in August, he made another dead drop solo — one that netted him another $20,000.

FBISpecial Agent Justin Van Tromp obtained an arrest warrant and brought Jonathan and Diana in for questioning.

In February of 2022, Jonathan Toebbe’s lawyers agreed to a plea deal that would see him plead guilty of conspiracy to communicate restricted data. At the time of writing, the amount of prison time he will serve remains to be determined, but it is likely to be around fifteen years. The case against Diana Toebbe is less advanced than that against her husband, but as somebody who at a minimum aided and abetted her husband in selling sensitive material to what she believed was a foreign country, she is unlikely to receive a great deal of leniency.

To all appearances, the Toebbes were an average, all-American couple. In reality, they are living proof of the dictum that no matter how much one tries to safeguard priceless information, no matter how many passwords, firewalls, and locked doors are put in place, the greatest threat to data security will always come in the form of corrupt human beings.

PETER POPOFF
Since the birth of organized religion, faith and money have been inextricably linked. There have always been those who are willing to exploit faith and devotion for their own personal gain. It is a sad truth that hope can make one vulnerable, and this has never been truer than in the case of so-called “faith healers.”

The idea of curing ailments with divine power is not new. History is littered with examples of so-called miraculous healings. Arguably the most prominent would be those of Jesus Christ, and many Christians today believe that God has the power to heal the sick when invoked through prayer. Whether this is true or not is beyond the scope of this book, but there has been no shortage of those who have tried to cash in on the belief … with varying degrees of success.

Take the case of Peter Popoff, a televangelist who achieved national prominence in the 1980s on a popular TV show. Popoff was charismatic and knew how to work a crowd, homing in on those with injuries and chronic ailments. He knew the names of his targets in advance and, more impressively, could also name their specific affliction. His accuracy bordered on the uncanny, and with good reason — Popoff was cheating.

The scam was simple but effective. Prior to the show, planted members of the audience would engage other attendees in conversation, with the intent of gleaning information on their medical history. Attendees were also encouraged to fill out prayer request cards, which involved detailing personal information on their state of health. This data was then collated by Popoff’s wife, Elizabeth, who in turn transmitted it directly to her husband’s radio receiver earpiece. Popoff would proceed to “heal” the unsuspecting mark, in a theatrical display of mummery which often culminated in an apparently miraculous “get up and walk” climax.

In 1986, the magician and debunker of fraud James “the Amazing” Randi, aided by several colleagues, caught the Popoffs red-handed. All it took was a radio receiver tuned to the same frequency Elizabeth was using to tip her husband off. She offered a running commentary on various individuals in the audience, which Peter capitalized on to great effect. The Popoffs built a multimillion-dollar enterprise on the back of Peter’s supposedly supernatural abilities to sense and heal illness. It took James Randi just minutes to destroy any credibility Popoff had by playing those recordings on “The Tonight Show,” hosted by Johnny Carson. The result was predictable: public embarrassment and bankruptcy.

Popoff’s story doesn’t end there, however. After being outed by Randi et al., the discredited televangelist set to work rebuilding his brand, changing its focus by veering away from faith healing and setting his sights instead on faith-based debt erasure. His current sales pitch contends that God’s will wants you to be free from debt and that Peter Popoff is the divine instrument that can help you get there … assuming you have some money to donate, that is. One of his more recent ventures involves “miraculous” spring water, blessed by the evangelist himself — and capable of helping erase debt, especially if the recipient is able to respond with an “optional donation.”

There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Popoff’s unique brand of “supernatural debt reduction” works, yet that is no deterrence to his legion of optimistic and faithful followers, who continue to send his ministry both money and prayers in equal measure.

It is unclear whether the majority of evangelists act out of a sincere belief or a cynical desire to make money. It is a question of prophet versus profit. Yet, in spite of the vast fortunes there are to be made and the numerous instances of corruption that plague it, evangelism does have an upside. Many televangelists, including those included in this chapter, have donated significant sums of money to charity. Some have even set up charities themselves, and while all of them benefited handsomely from taking advantage of their fellow human beings, it is only fair to point out that they also gave something back to others. For those men of faith who proved to be corrupt, this may provide at least a sliver of redemption.

JEFFREY EPSTEIN
It has long been said that the United States is the land of opportunity, a place where it is possible to go from humble origins to attaining great power, wealth, and influence. For some, that is the American Dream, and there are many famous examples throughout U.S. history. Take, for example, Abraham Lincoln, the rustic rail-splitter who educated himself and went on to hold the highest position in the land — the office of President of the United States.

Sometimes, however, the American Dream can become corrupted, turning into something more akin to a nightmare. So it was with the financial mogul Jeffrey Epstein. Born in 1953, Epstein was raised in Brooklyn, New York. His parents worked solid, if unspectacular jobs, which isn’t to say that they weren’t necessarily smart. Their son, however, was academically gifted, and soon left the other children in his class behind. He had a natural aptitude for math, but as is sometimes seen with intelligent youths, he could sometimes lack the discipline required to finish a project. Epstein went to college but failed to graduate.

His lucky break came in the form of a job at the investment bank and brokerage, Bear Stearns, in 1976. Epstein’s affinity for math soon got him noticed, and he was given a succession of increasingly pivotal roles within the firm — roles that reflected his ability to understand and manipulate money.

Epstein spent five years at Bear Stearns, a period that essentially served as his internship in the world of financial wheeling and dealing. In 1981, he left the firm to start his own company. Lucrative contracts followed. This was the 1980s, the decade when greed and decadence became the very height of fashion, particularly on Wall Street. Toward the end of the decade, Epstein began catering his business to a very specific clientele: billionaires. He helped the uber-rich become even richer, and he lined his own pockets handsomely in the bargain.

Now immensely wealthy, Epstein had the ability to cater to his dark side. In 1998, he purchased his own private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands for just under $8 million. According to some, it was here, and to his other upscale residences on the U.S. mainland, that Epstein brought underage girls, whom he would then sexually assault. Much of what happened on the island remains opaque. Epstein was a secretive man who took his privacy and security seriously, for obvious reasons. If the accounts of contractors who visited the island are to be believed, the residential areas were festooned with pictures of semi-naked women.

The island, one of two that Epstein purchased, was outfitted to the highest degree of luxury, a 72-acre paradise getaway for the financier. If some of the allegations against Epstein are true, however, then for the girls who were trafficked through there, it was a hellhole.

It is said that not just Epstein, but also his friends and associates, sexually assaulted girls and young women who were taken to the island and held captive there. Considering the location of the island, there is almost no way any of the perverted financier’s victims could have made an escape. The only ways in or out were to fly, landing on the helipad, or to come by boat. Once the unsuspecting females were on the island, Epstein had control of their only means of leaving.

One of the many tragedies regarding the case is the fact that Jeffrey Epstein’s term as a serial predator could, and most definitely should, have ended in 2008, when he was first charged with and convicted of sex crimes — prostituting a 13-year-old girl in the state of Florida. Because of an unbelievably lenient plea deal, rather than serve hard time, Epstein instead served just thirteen months of a jail work-release program — time that he spent working out of his own office.

Why was he given such a privileged deal? Because of his vast wealth and influence. In all likelihood, if Jeffrey Epstein had been a plumber with a few hundred dollars to his name, he would have been sent to a federal prison rather than a county jail. Instead, he got off lightly and was permitted to rape and abuse more innocent girls. Had Epstein been made to face federal charges instead of being charged at the state level, he probably would have spent decades behind bars. Although he was required to register as a sex offender, the black mark on his record did absolutely nothing to curtail further abuses.

Over the course of the next 12 years, Epstein continued to traffic vulnerable females, both on his island and at his upstate private properties in the United States. On June 6, 2019, the net finally closed on him. When his private jet landed in New Jersey, he was arrested and taken into police custody. When questioned by detectives, he denied any involvement in human trafficking or sex crimes, claiming that as far as he was aware, all of the “women” who had engaged in sex with him were aged eighteen or older. Considering the fact that some were as young as 11 years old, the claim was laughable.

Epstein was denied bail, with the judge understandably believing him to be a flight risk. Alarms were subsequently raised when Epstein was found in his New York prison cell with injuries to his neck, believed to be the result of a botched suicide attempt. He remained in prison and was placed on suicide watch.

On August 10, he was found hanging in his cell. With CPR in progress, Epstein was rushed to the hospital. After receiving further assessment and resuscitative care in the emergency department, a doctor pronounced Epstein dead. He was 66 years old.

The apparent suicide (as the coroner declared it to be) caused an uproar. Epstein had been taken off suicide watch, having convinced the authorities that he was not at risk for taking his own life. It would later emerge that the prison guards assigned to monitor Epstein had not been paying attention to their charge, choosing instead to surf the Web and take naps. For an eight-hour period overnight, the guards had not checked in on him once. To make matters worse, the pair then falsified duty logs in an attempt to cover themselves.

Jeffrey Epstein’s in-custody death led to a slew of conspiracy theories. The phrase “Epstein didn’t hang himself” went viral. One theory laid blame at the feet of former president Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary, following the long-running conspiracy theory that the Clintons arranged to have their rivals and enemies murdered. Broken bones in Epstein’s cervical spine led some to conclude that he had been forcibly strangled by somebody else instead of taking his own life.

There is little evidence to support any of the theories, but it’s not difficult to see why they became so popular. The broken bones in Epstein’s neck can indeed occur in violent assaults, but they can also result when a person hangs or strangles themselves. The fact that Epstein was taken off suicide watch is easily explainable when one considers the significant staffing shortages at the prison in which he died. While it is inexcusable that the guards did not check on him even once throughout the night, it is also true that the prison staff were pulling long hours of overtime shifts at the time. Rather than being paid off by some nefarious third party, it is far more likely that they were simply exhausted.

Jeffrey Epstein moved in prestigious circles. He socialized with presidents and princes, celebrities and billionaires. After his death, scrutiny turned to his associate, the socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who was accused of procuring underage girls for Epstein to prey upon. At her trial in December 2021, several witnesses testified that Maxwell had coerced them into giving Epstein massages and having sexual intercourse with him.

In March 2022, despite pleading not guilty, Maxwell was found guilty on five out of six criminal charges, for sex trafficking and ensnaring underage female victims for Epstein to molest. Her legal team has launched an appeal. If it is unsuccessful, Maxwell is likely to spend the rest of her life behind bars.

Perhaps the best known of Epstein’s associates was Prince Andrew of the British Royal Family. The prince was accused of having sex with a 17-year-old girl named Virginia Roberts Giuffre, which was allegedly arranged by Epstein, on three different occasions, one of them occurring on his private island. Prince Andrew denied the claims, but in the wake of these and other allegations, many were not convinced. An ill-advised interview given by the prince on BBC TV’s Newsnight program backfired spectacularly, only serving to turn even more of the public’s opinion against him. It emerged that Epstein, a convicted sex offender, had been the prince’s guest at Windsor Castle and had attended other royal functions. Little wonder that the British people were outraged.

Prince Andrew categorically denied remembering even meeting, let alone having sex with, his accuser. That defense was easily refuted, in the form of a photograph showing Prince Andrew with his arm around the teenager’s waist, while Ghislaine Maxwell hovers in the background. The picture, it is claimed, was taken by none other than Jeffrey Epstein himself … or, as the prince referred to him in the interview, “Mr. Epstein.”

The consensus was that Prince Andrew came across as emotionless and, crucially, completely unrepentant. Even if the accusations of unlawful sexual contact should prove to be untrue, he refused to accept any responsibility for having remained within Epstein’s orbit despite knowing full well that he was a convicted sex offender. Her Majesty the Queen apparently agreed. She wasted no time in stripping the prince of his royal title and the privileges that went along with it. He was not permitted to continue as the patron of numerous charities. Prince Andrew was no longer: all that remained was a man named Andrew Windsor.

Queen Elizabeth took this drastic action against her own son for one reason alone: to protect the British monarchy from being further tainted by the former prince’s association with Jeffrey Epstein. Despite the fact that no criminal charges were leveled against the former prince, he still faced a potentially damaging and certainly deeply embarrassing civil lawsuit from Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Rather than undergo the humiliation of a potentially drawn-out legal process, Andrew, his reputation and public standing now in tatters, settled the case for an undisclosed amount of money in February of 2022.