Brad Karp, chairman of the giant law firm Paul Weiss, said on Monday that he regretted his social interactions with Jeffery Epstein, after a series of emails revealed that the prominent lawyer had socialized with the disgraced financier and, at one point, asked him for help landing his son a job on a Woody Allen movie.
Mr. Karp had come to know Mr. Epstein largely through his legal work for the billionaire Leon Black, a co-founder of the private equity firm Apollo Global Management, which was a longtime Paul Weiss client. Mr. Black paid Mr. Epstein nearly $170 million for tax and estate planning advice, and his business and social dealings with Mr. Epstein have long been a source of controversy.
It was previously reported that Mr. Karp had advised Mr. Black on how to handle a dispute over Mr. Epstein’s fees, and Mr. Karp and Mr. Epstein frequently emailed during that period.
But new emails between the two men were included in the millions of documents the Department of Justice made public on Friday under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required federal prosecutors to make public all the investigative material they had gathered during investigations into Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking network.
Mr. Karp was in the news last year after Paul Weiss cut a deal with President Trump to head off a potentially crippling executive order. The firm’s settlement was criticized in the legal community and was seen as empowering Mr. Trump to go after other big law firms over their legal work for some of his political opponents.
The emails released on Friday revealed that Mr. Karp had attended two dinners at Mr. Epstein’s mansion in New York. At one of the dinners, in 2015, Mr. Karp met Mr. Allen, the movie director. After the dinner, Mr. Karp sent Mr. Epstein an email in which he thanked him for “an evening I’ll never forget.”
Later, Mr. Karp emailed Mr. Epstein asking him if could help his son get work on one of Mr. Allen’s movies.
In a statement, Paul Weiss said, “Mr. Karp attended two group dinners in New York City and had a small number of social interactions by email, all of which he regrets.”
The emails released by the government also show that Mr. Karp and Mr. Epstein discussed how to deal with a former mistress of Mr. Black’s and her demands for money.
In one email, Mr. Epstein suggested to Mr. Karp that he recommend that Mr. Black retain a firm to surveil the former mistress. In another email, Mr. Epstein raised questions about the woman’s visa status.
It is unclear if Mr. Karp and Mr. Black acted on Mr. Epstein’s suggestions.
Mr. Epstein killed himself in August 2019, a month after his arrest on charges that he had engaged in the sexual abuse and trafficking of teenage girls.
Michael S. Schmidt is an investigative reporter for The Times covering Washington. His work focuses on tracking and explaining high-profile federal investigations.
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