When Jeffrey Epstein died in prison in 2019, he took a lot of secrets with him. One was how a sexual predator who didn't finish college managed to bond with some of the richest and most powerful men in the world, such as Prince Andrew of the United Kingdom and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
Another was why Epstein possessed an exceptional Italian cello. It was the only non-financial asset recorded in the annual tax returns of its foundation, described only as “cello” and with a registered value of 165,676 dollars.
Epstein never played that instrument nor did he seem to have any interest in musical instruments as an investment.
The first mystery is extensive, and it is still unraveled by lawyers, victims and journalists. The second is apparently small and limited to the rarefied world of stringed instruments. However, both mysteries are linked and the strange way in which the cello came and went from Epstein's hands offers a clue to the life and legacy of the infamous criminal.
Epstein's mansion in Manhattan was full of curiosities. There was a portrait of Bill Clinton in a blue dress, a stuffed giraffe, as well as prosthetic breasts in the master bathroom.
But more than objects, Epstein collected people. Over the years, he cultivated leaders in the fields of business, finance, politics, science, mathematics, academia, music, and even yoga. He often cemented his relationships by connecting other people in his orbit, making donations to causes they supported or with other gifts and favors.
That's where the cello came in.
False statements and accordion classes
During their childhood in Brooklyn, Epstein and his younger brother, Mark, showed aptitudes for music. Both began taking saxophone lessons and then moved on to more difficult double-reed instruments. Jeffrey played the bassoon and Mark played the oboe, both in demand in orchestras and other ensembles. As a bassoon player, Jeffrey won a scholarship in 1967 to Interlochen, the prestigious summer music camp located in the forests of northern Michigan. When his mother visited him that summer, he asked her to bring her bagels.
As an adult, Jeffrey Epstein claimed that he had been a budding concert pianist, which was a lie. And he said he started taking piano lessons at the age of 5, which, according to Mark Epstein in an interview, was not true (he took accordion lessons as a child). Epstein later took piano lessons, but never reached more than high school level.
The cello became a recurring motif in Epstein's story of his life, which began after he and a friend backpacked Europe in the early 1970s. One of the anecdotes Epstein later told was that of playing the piano for Jacqueline du Pré, the British cello virtuoso. According to Epstein, he met Du Pré in 1971 during a visit to London. Du Pré enjoyed the patronage of Queen Elizabeth II, and it was through the cellist that Epstein claimed to have gained access to members of the British royal family and forged a very close friendship with Prince Andrew.
The story wasn't entirely implausible. Du Pré, who died in 1987, was still performing at the time when Epstein visited London, where the man bought a full-length fur coat that he wore for years. But Du Pré hardly needed Epstein as a companion, since, among the countless professional musicians in the world, she was married to the famous pianist Daniel Barenboim.
At Interlochen, with which Epstein became an important donor and regular visitor, he met and became friends with a 14-year-old cellist, Melissa Solomon, in 1997. According to her in a 2019 podcast, he insisted that she take the exam to enter Juilliard and agreed to pay for her studies there. She said that Epstein never tried to have sex with her (she did get her to massage her feet), but after she refused to attend a party with Prince Andrew, Epstein severed ties and stopped paying for school.
Another Interlochen student, identified only as Jane, testified at the recent trial of Epstein's closest partner, Ghislaine Maxwell. Jane said that Epstein and Maxwell began to seduce her when she was a 13-year-old student at the camp and that Epstein subsequently raped her, all while promising to boost her career.
Thanksgiving at the ranch
In the mid-1990s, Epstein appeared behind the scenes at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, after the performance of cellist William DeRosa, a young prodigy who had made his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at age 11. By the time Epstein saw it, DeRosa was considered one of the best cellists in the world, performing at Carnegie Hall, on television and with the most important orchestras.
Epstein and DeRosa's paths didn't cross again until 2004, when DeRosa began dating a blonde model named Kersti Ferguson.
Ferguson, who was born in Savannah, Georgia, said in an interview that he met Epstein through a mutual friend at age 18. Ferguson and Epstein spent time in a mansion he owned in Palm Beach, where she met Maxwell. Epstein invited Ferguson to her property in the Virgin Islands while she was studying college, and after she finished with a boyfriend, Epstein invited her and her mother to their ranch in New Mexico to spend Thanksgiving there. Sometimes, he called her four times a day. He showed him photos in which he appeared alongside those he described as powerful friends, including former President Bill Clinton, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman.
After she started dating DeRosa, Epstein insisted on meeting him. “Be nice,” DeRosa recalls that Epstein warned her. He seemed fascinated by DeRosa's musical talent. He once proposed that they play together, but DeRosa refused him. He said he'd never heard Epstein play the piano.
In 2006, Epstein was arrested in Florida after an investigation found evidence of sexual intercourse with minors. Ferguson stated that Epstein never suggested having sex with her or asking her to recruit other young women. On the contrary, when Ferguson tried to hug him, he “cringed”, he recounted, as if he feared contracting a disease. And she thought he and Maxwell were in love, although Epstein confided to Ferguson that he had no intention of getting married.
Rich and powerful
After Epstein's arrest, Ferguson never heard from him again. Epstein pleaded guilty to hiring the services of a minor prostitute and was sentenced to 13 months in prison, although he was allowed to serve much of that sentence at his home.
Then, in 2010, when Epstein was trying to reconstitute his orbit of the rich and powerful, he called it. “I need to buy a cello,” Epstein told him without further ado and asked if he could involve DeRosa in the search. When Epstein spoke to DeRosa again, he explained that he was going to buy a cello for a young Israeli cellist. “Go get one,” he ordered, and then hung up.
Soon after, DeRosa went to visit her mother in Los Angeles and learned that a musician who recorded soundtracks for Hollywood studios was selling a cello (previously, the instrument had been played by a member of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra).
Although this cello was not a Stradivarius or a Montagnana, it had a distinguished history and was manufactured by Ettore Soffritti, who worked at the stringed instrument factory in Ferrara, Italy, from the end of the 19th century until his death in 1928. Benning Violins, a Los Angeles distributor, described the sound of the cello as “rich and powerful” and said that the instrument was “suitable for the most refined of cellists.”
DeRosa tried the cello. He was captivated. He said he considered it “one of the best modern cellos in existence” (by “modern” he meant anyone produced after the Italian Renaissance). With a sales price of $185,000, he also considered it a bargain.
Epstein seemed satisfied when DeRosa told him that he had found something. He said that the recipient of the cello, a young Israeli named Yoed Nir, had to try the instrument first. DeRosa knew almost all the promising cellists, but she had never heard of Nir.
DeRosa had the cello to try it out and Nir played it on a visit to DeRosa's mother's house in Los Angeles. Nir, about 30 years old and with dark shoulder-length hair, who waved dramatically while playing, performed some of Bach's unaccompanied cello suites. It was clear that he had musical training (he had graduated from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance), but DeRosa considered that his playing was not exceptional according to her exacting judgment. I could think of many young cellists most deserving of such an instrument. “I thought it was rather strange that Jeffrey had chosen this guy,” DeRosa recalls.
Nir approved the instrument and Epstein asked Richard Kahn, his accountant, to negotiate the purchase of Benning Violins. Kahn obtained an appraisal and negotiated the price until it was reduced to $165,000 (DeRosa, who felt that her reputation was at stake since she had initiated the transaction, this seemed an insult).
“You can't treat people like that.”
Weeks later, when DeRosa returned to New York, Epstein's assistant called him and told him that he should go to the tycoon's house the next morning at 7:30 a.m. sharp. There, Epstein pointed to a huge closed cardboard box. DeRosa said she opened the package and verified that it was the same cello she had located in Los Angeles.
“Did you earn anything for the transaction?” , Epstein asked him.
“No,” DeRosa replied, furious at the suggestion that he had taken a cut for the purchase.
Epstein came out without saying anything else. “He didn't show any interest in cello,” DeRosa recalled.
Ferguson was upset when he heard about the meeting. He called Epstein and reprimanded him. “You can't treat people like that,” he said. He didn't apologize.
The money to buy the cello came out of Epstein's foundation and the purchase was reflected in his 2011 tax return. Kahn drafted an agreement in which the cello would be loaned to Nir at no cost, according to a person familiar with the agreement.
Soon after, singer Judy Collins performed at Café Carlyle. A positive review in The New York Times mentioned in passing that Collins had “added a new element, the cellist Yoed Nir”.
Afterwards, Epstein and Ferguson left their disagreement behind and she urged DeRosa to forgive him. When a valuable Stradivarius cello came on the market, Epstein offered to buy it for DeRosa to use. DeRosa had a unique connection to the instrument, as she had belonged to a foundation that had lent it to her at the beginning of her career.
The seller was so sure that they would reach an agreement that DeRosa took possession of the instrument. But Epstein refused to pay the price of $14 million they were asking for and refused to pay more than $10 million, according to DeRosa. The agreement was not consummated and DeRosa returned the cello. It was later sold for a higher price than requested, according to DeRosa.
DeRosa regrets
DeRosa and Ferguson were shocked in 2019 when Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking. Ferguson could not believe that the man she thought she knew could have committed the acts he was accused of. Given his wealth and connections with powerful people, she thought he would get rid of the situation. The model sent him a letter to prison in which she offered to visit him and bring him food. He never received a reply. On August 10, Epstein committed suicide.
Several months later, DeRosa wrote an email to Nir to find out what had happened to the Soffritti cello. Nir only said that he had returned it to a New York law firm in October 2019 at the request of the Epstein Foundation. The case had broken and the cello had been slightly damaged, according to DeRosa (Nir said that the case was not broken when he returned it and that the instrument was in “very good condition to play”). The foundation asked Benning Violins to re-market and sell it, and Benning agreed to supply a new case.
Knowledgeably or not, Epstein had made a good investment. This time the price was 220,000, or 33 percent more than Epstein had paid eight years earlier. With the backing of a financial partner whose name DeRosa did not disclose, he took possession of the cello in early 2020, just before the coronavirus pandemic put a halt to live performances.
Like many people in Epstein's orbit, DeRosa now regrets getting involved with him and wishes she had kept the cello. “I wish I had never let Jeffrey buy the cello,” DeRosa said. “I'm not a merchant. I'm a concert cello player. It will always bother me to know that I let it go,” he concluded.
A clue in the cafe
The mystery continues: Why did you buy the Epstein cello on principle? What was your connection to Nir?
An important track emerged at Judy Collins' 2011 concert at Café Carlyle. The longtime Collins pianist and musical arranger, Russell Walden, recalled that there was something about that night that stuck in his memory. At the cafe, he met Nir's wife, Anat. Nir mentioned that she was the daughter of Barak, the former Israeli prime minister.
There are almost no public references to Barak's children. When contacted recently in Tel Aviv, he confirmed that Yoed and Anat Nir are his son-in-law and daughter.
Barak, who was prime minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001 and later held other senior positions in government, said another former prime minister, Shimon Peres, introduced him to Epstein in 2003. Barak stated that he and Epstein met dozens of times, but that he “never participated in any party or event with women or anything like that.”
Over the years, Epstein courted Barak, among other things, by investing $1 million in a limited company established by Barak in 2015.
He said he introduced Epstein with Nir in 2010 or 2011, although he was unaware that Epstein had lent Nir the cello. Therefore, Barak said, “it cannot be true” that Epstein used the cello loan to get a favor. A more likely explanation, he said, “is that Epstein did it based on Yoed's reputation as a highly talented cellist” (when asked if he had ever told his father-in-law about the loan, Nir refused to answer).
However, the loan of a $165,000 cello was the kind of favor that Epstein could only have made known if he wanted something in return. After all, not everyone had the resources and connections to get an extraordinary cello for the relative of a powerful political leader, just the kind of person Epstein had the ability to keep close.
© The New York Times 2022