Jeffrey Epstein set up two business meetings with Todd Boehly, the chairman of Premier League team Chelsea and part-owner of baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers and basketball’s Los Angeles Lakers, in 2011 — almost three years after the financier had been imprisoned in a Florida jail for sex offenses — according to newly disclosed emails.
The emails, sent in 2011, were among more than 3 million Epstein-related documents that the United States Department of Justice released on Friday.
A coroner ruled Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. However, he was first imprisoned in 2008 after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution, including from a girl under the age of 18. Police in Palm Beach, Florida, had started investigating in 2005 after a complaint from the family of a 14-year-old girl who alleged she had been molested. He served 13 months in a Florida jail and registered as a sex offender as part of a confidential plea agreement, but he was subsequently charged with sex trafficking in July 2019.
However, even after his first conviction, he remained or became connected with some of the world’s richest and most powerful people, despite serving jail time.
One of those people appears to be Boehly, who in May 2022 led a consortium as part of a £4.25 billion (then around $5 billion) takeover of Chelsea, which ended Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich’s 19-year ownership of the club.
Boehly is not the majority shareholder at Chelsea — that is the private equity firm Clearlake Capital — but he has often been the face of the ownership, most notably when he was appointed as interim sporting director after the club was acquired.
In the U.S., Boehly is the chair of asset management company Eldridge, and a part-owner of the Dodgers, the Lakers and the Los Angeles Sparks. There is no suggestion in the emails that Boehly’s engagements with Epstein extended beyond business and no suggestion of any involvement by Boehly with any of Epstein’s sex-related crimes or activities.
On Friday night, The Athletic asked Boehly’s representatives whether he was aware when meetings were arranged with Epstein that the financier had served prison time following a guilty plea — one count of solicitation of prostitution and one count of solicitation of a minor for prostitution. We also asked Boehly to comment on and explain the following: If he did know about Epstein’s criminality, why he therefore agreed to business meetings with the sex offender. We also asked Boehly’s representatives to clarify whether Boehly met regularly with Epstein and to clarify the nature of their relationship. A spokesperson for Boehly said he declined to comment on all questions posed. Chelsea, the Dodgers, the Lakers and the Sparks have all been approached for comment.
At the time of his planned meetings with Epstein, Boehly was a managing partner of Guggenheim Partners, a firm that then had more than $100 billion in assets, according to a deck in the emails from October 2010.
According to the emails, Boehly was introduced to Epstein by a man named David Mitchell, who had almost three decades of experience in real estate investment, finance and mergers and acquisitions.
Boehly and Epstein first appear to have met in January 2011, when Epstein requests an introduction.
The outreach is made by Lesley Groff, an assistant to Epstein, who emails Mitchell on Jan. 13, 2011.
Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the release of three million additional pages of the Epstein Files on Friday. (Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)
She says: “Hello David. Jeffrey requested I touch base with you on your ‘Guggenheim person’ (…) might this person be able to come see Jeffrey Mon or Tues (Jan. 17 or 18). Please let me know.”
According to the emails, a meeting is organized within two days to take place on Tuesday.
In April, Groff writes to Epstein saying that she had written to Boehly’s assistant to request another call.
The next recorded arrangement for a meeting takes place in September 2011. On Sept. 7, Mitchell writes to Boehly asking if they can “get together with my friend Jeffery (sic).” Mitchell, who has made the subject title of the email “Peter Mandelsohn (sic),” tells Boehly he wishes to speak with Epstein about bringing Mandelson into “the Irish situation.”
Mandelson most likely refers to the British politician, who was most recently in the news last year when he was fired as Britain’s ambassador to the United States following revelations about his own links to Epstein. Emails revealed by Bloomberg had exposed how Mandelson had continued to support Epstein following his 2008 convictions, giving him advice and proposing that Epstein respond by using techniques from Sun Tzu’s “Art of War.” Mandelson shot to fame as a key figure in Tony Blair’s Labour Party and government, first as a Member of Parliament between 1992 to 2004 and as a leading figure in the Cabinets of both Blair and Gordon Brown.
When asked about the potential meeting, Boehly replied to Mitchell to say: “Sure — in Europe this week.”
Mitchell then sets about organizing the meeting. He wrote to Epstein on Sept. 12.
Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 mug shot. (Kypros / Getty Images)
He said: “Hope you are well. Can we get together with Todd again to speak about my AIB deal and Peter.”
After Epstein approves, Lesley Groff, his assistant, writes: “Hi David. Can we say 12:30 at Jeffrey’s house next Monday, Sept. 19th? Let me know the names of all who will be coming..”
Emily Curtis, described as “mission control” for organizing Boehly’s diary in the emails, then responds to request the meeting be moved to Boehly’s offices. This, she says, is because of Boehly’s travels and small window of time.
In the end, the second recorded meeting is set up for September 19th as a conference call. Groff emails Mitchell and Boehly with the log-in details for the call. Mitchell did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.
The Athletic asked Boehly’s representatives to clarify if he met Epstein at other times, beyond those occasions referenced in the emails, and they declined to comment. Other high-profile individuals, such as billionaire Bill Gates, former Harvard president Larry Summers and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the man formerly known as Prince Andrew, have all faced scrutiny previously for maintaining business ties, correspondence or friendships with Epstein after his 2008 conviction.
A provisional schedule for the week of Boehly’s conference call with Epstein, sent out by Groff to Epstein, laid out that he had a tentative appointment set up with filmmaker Woody Allen and a dinner with former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak organized.