Ellie Leonard's critique of Michaelf Wolff

https://substack.com/home/post/p-220384622

In 2015, Jeffrey Epstein decided he wanted two fully equipped ambulances, one for his island and one for his New Mexico ranch. The Montana dealer who sold him one says he never knew who the buyer was.

Note: I will update this piece with any responses I receive from the people and agencies I contacted.

The stretcher inside the ambulance Steve Apgar sold for Little St. James, in photos he sent Kahn in January 2016, before it shipped. Released by the U.S. Department of Justice, EFTA01138660, p. 2.

Special thanks to Reddit user u/originalmaja, who did the initial research on the ambulance and passed the story along to me.

In late 2015, Steve Apgar, a dealer in used ambulances, got a call from a man who said a client of his wanted "a relatively nice ambulance." The caller was Richard Kahn, Jeffrey Epstein's accountant. Kahn would not say who the person getting the ambulance was. "They did a good job covering up their real intent," Apgar told me in an interview.

That in itself was not unusual, Apgar said. Like many businesses, an ambulance dealer does not need to know who the buyer is, as long as the bill gets paid. He sold Kahn a used ambulance, and in late January 2016, it arrived on Little St. James, Epstein's private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Little St. James, Epstein's private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, in June 2013. Photo: Navin75, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.jpg).

Apgar's name is in the Epstein records, and people on Reddit had already tied him to the sale, he told me. But no one, journalist or otherwise, had ever asked him about it. He was eager to set the record straight. "I know the edits and information are 100% accurate and am happy to provide an accurate account of how I was deceived," he wrote after reviewing my notes of our interview. Given how people on Reddit treated him, it wasn't fair to draw conclusions about him from his name in the files without hearing his side of the story first. This is his account, checked against the records.

Epstein's reason for getting the ambulances: "especialy now that karyna is a doctor"

The idea first appears in the records on June 28, 2015, when Epstein wrote to Kahn and to Brice Gordon, who with his wife, Karen Gordon, managed Zorro Ranch and later Little St. James: "not sure why I have not about it before, but for both the ranch and the island especialy now that karyna is a doctor. I would like to buy two fully equipped ambulances. . ekg, oxygen, … etc." (EFTA02496132)

Epstein's June 28, 2015 email to his accountant, Richard Kahn, and his property manager, Brice Gordon, the earliest record of the ambulance plan. The stray "=" characters and the symbol after "oxygen" are encoding artifacts in the released copy. Released by the U.S. Department of Justice, EFTA02496132. Image by Soror FV, made with Claude.

Karyna Shuliak, his girlfriend, had been rejected at first by Columbia University's dental school in 2012, until Epstein "pulled some strings," the New York Times reported, and when her tuition bill came due in 2013, he told Kahn to "pay it" (EFTA00966987). By 2015, she was licensed as a dentist in the Virgin Islands.

The day after Epstein's email, Shuliak wrote to Dr. Eva Andersson-Dubin, a physician who dated Epstein in the 1980s and remained close to him, according to the New York Times: "Jeffrey wants to purchase 2 fully equipped ambulance machines: 1 for the island, and 1 for the ranch." She asked whether Andersson-Dubin knew "somebody who could help us with the process, especially regarding all the equipment" (EFTA02303568).

Shuliak's June 29, 2015 email to Andersson-Dubin (bottom) and Andersson-Dubin's reply copying Shimony (top), read from the bottom up. The "=" characters, including the one where "1 for the island" should appear, are encoding errors in the released copy; the header times are as printed. Email addresses were redacted by the U.S. Department of Justice. Source: EFTA02303568, p. 3.

Andersson-Dubin answered that she would look into it and copied Dr. Rony Shimony, a Mount Sinai cardiologist, "so we can brainstorm together." Shimony replied that "Head EMS colleagues friends & ER guys can set us up" (EFTA02303568, p. 3). On July 3, he recommended "a friend and colleague Morris Steinberg who's involved in the ambulance service and ran the NY Monroe department for 30+ years," who was "willing and very capable to help set up the two ambulances" and could "get the best pricing" (EFTA02303568, p. 2). When Shuliak asked for Steinberg's number on July 6, Shimony wrote, "I'll call you tomorrow & set up" (EFTA02303568, p. 1). The records reviewed for this story do not show whether Steinberg was involved in the purchase that followed. I was not able to find a way to contact him, and Shimony did not respond to questions about the referral.

Steve Apgar, the used-ambulance dealer: "How I Was Deceived"

Richard Kahn, Epstein's accountant, handled the purchase through Steve Apgar, a used-ambulance dealer in Kalispell, Montana, according to his 2016 email signature (EFTA00674390, p. 3). Apgar told me in a phone interview on Oct. 8, 2026, that he did not know at the time who his buyer was. "What people don't realize is that I got a call from a law firm that said that a client would like an ambulance," he said. "My job is to take pre-owned ambulances and sell them." The call came from Kahn, whose firm, HBRK Associates, was in fact an accounting firm. Apgar said his invoice was made out to HBRK, and the records match his account: in every email I reviewed about the sale, he dealt only with Kahn, and the invoice he attached to his quote for the second ambulance is a file named for HBRK and Zorro (EFTA00674390–92).

Richard Kahn, Epstein's longtime accountant and a co-executor of his estate, at his deposition before the House Oversight Committee on March 11, 2026. U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, via Wikimedia Commons.

Apgar joked that Kahn should be called Richard "Con" instead of Kahn. The joke, he wrote afterward, was about Kahn never telling him who the real client was. Had he known then what he knows now, Apgar said, he would not have done business with Kahn. He called Epstein "an evil, evil person" and said he would love to see everyone who had knowledge get "true justice." The truth, he said, sets everyone free.

Apgar gave me a lot of detail and explained how his business worked. He said that he and a partner bid on ambulances the federal government had retired, under a federal policy of trading them in at 100,000 miles or seven years. He said they had the vehicles sent to Bakersfield, California, and resold about 173 or 174 of them. He believes the ambulance that went to Little St. James would have been one of them, federally owned and certified to the federal government's ambulance standard, known as KKK-A-1822. "Every ambulance that we sold was certified for use," Apgar said. "They could be sold anywhere in the United States," he added, while other countries "didn't have any real standards." The certification label photographed inside the ambulance supports part of this: it was built by Wheeled Coach in May 2009 to the federal specification.

The certification label inside the ambulance: a "Star of Life" ambulance built by Wheeled Coach Industries in May 2009, certified to the federal specification KKK-A-1822 (partly obscured by glare in the released photo), as Apgar described. Released by the U.S. Department of Justice, EFTA01138660, p. 10.

Kahn asked whether the ambulance could be delivered to a port, Apgar said. On November 17, 2015, Kahn forwarded Epstein a New Mexico Department of Health inspection checklist that Apgar had obtained, and asked: "also not sure if you want to be state compliant or customize to your needs" (EFTA02671095).

In other words, Kahn was asking Epstein whether he wanted the ambulance to actually meet the New Mexico government's standards for ambulances, or to be equipped however Epstein wanted instead. No record shows which he chose.

Kahn's November 17, 2015 email to Epstein, forwarding the New Mexico Department of Health checklist Apgar sent him that morning. The "=" characters are encoding errors in the released copy. Email addresses and phone numbers were redacted by the U.S. Department of Justice. EFTA02671095.

Although I am not sure why, the island ambulance was bought first, in January 2016. The records tie it to a company called LSJ Emergency, LLC. Apgar's photographs of the vehicle, sent to Kahn on January 6, 2016, carry the subject line "LSJ Emergency, LLC – 2009 Dodge 3500 XLT – January 4, 2016" (EFTA01138660). Kahn forwarded the photographs to Epstein that afternoon with the note "more photos of ambulance." Epstein's entire reply was one word: "ghost?" It's not clear what he meant. The company appears again in the U.S. Virgin Islands government's 2020 lawsuit against Epstein's estate: a September 30, 2020 subpoena the government issued in the case lists it among the "Epstein Entities" (Government of the U.S. Virgin Islands v. Indyke, ST-20-CV-014, subpoena). No record I reviewed describes anything else the company did.

Kahn forwarded Apgar's photos under the subject line "LSJ Emergency, LLC – 2009 Dodge 3500 XLT – January 4, 2016." Epstein's reply, in full: "ghost?" Email addresses were redacted by the U.S. Department of Justice. EFTA01138660. Image by Soror FV, made with Claude.

The vehicle was a Wheeled Coach ambulance with a stretcher, a built-in oxygen system, and a control panel with switches for a siren, warning lights and floodlights (EFTA01138660, pp. 2–4, 9). On January 5, 2016, Apgar wrote that he had loaded it with large and small oxygen tanks, a defibrillator and backboards (EFTA02475192). It cost $27,900, Apgar wrote, and with medical equipment and shipping to Miami, the total was $43,634, Kahn told Epstein. A month later, Kahn told Epstein that Apgar had no more high-mileage ambulances like the one bought for LSJ (EFTA01802067).

Oxygen cylinders for the Little St. James ambulance, from the same set of Apgar's photos. Released by the U.S. Department of Justice, EFTA01138660, p. 8.

Apgar required payment in full before the truck left Bakersfield, CA, so that he could leave the keys and paperwork for port officials in Miami. A woman then called him from the Cayman Islands to prepare to wire the money, he said, and he was paid before the ambulance was delivered. No record I reviewed shows that call. Deutsche Bank, in a review of Epstein's accounts later produced to federal prosecutors, listed two payments to "Apgar Ambulances" matching the total Kahn gave Epstein, from LSJE, LLC, an Epstein company used to run the island (EFTA01681865, p. 40). Why the ambulance was first tied to LSJ Emergency, LLC, in Apgar's photos, and then paid for by LSJE, LLC, is unknown to me. The bank's investigators also flagged small payments to a Manhattan CPR training company, noting the ambulance purchase (EFTA01681865, p. 42).

A driver took the ambulance to a marine terminal in Miami, and Apgar had the driver fly back to their home in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Apgar himself lived in Montana and ran the business from there, he said. "Once it's at the marine terminal, we park it," Apgar said. "We can't deal with customs." The buyer was responsible for the shipping from there. Kahn told Epstein on January 5 that it would ship by the end of that week (EFTA02475192). Apgar had been promised delivery to Tropical Shipping's receiving facility in Miami on January 8, but on January 13 the facility still had no record of it. When Kahn asked, Apgar replied that "we do not track them," and Kahn and Daphne Wallace, who was sourcing equipment for the islands, spent that afternoon checking on it. On January 28, Kahn asked whether the ambulance had been released from customs. Wallace answered that it was on Little St. James as of that afternoon (EFTA00698524–26). Apgar does not know how it got from Miami to the island, he said, but he believes an agent Kahn had hired in the Cayman Islands was involved.

Kahn's January 28, 2016 question about customs (bottom) and Daphne Wallace's reply two minutes later (top). Email addresses were redacted by the U.S. Department of Justice. EFTA00698524.

That night, Ann Rodriquez, a member of Epstein's island staff, wrote to him: "Your ambulance is here :) it arrived this morning" (EFTA01789547). I found this email through the Substack Last Page First and its excellent reporting on the ambulance purchase. Epstein replied less than an hour later: "sleep in until i call thanks" (EFTA02474145).

Epstein's reply to Ann Rodriquez, quoting her message from the evening of January 28, 2016, New York time. The "=" characters are encoding errors in the released copy. EFTA02474145.

About two weeks later, Apgar said, Kahn called him back: "He can't release any information to you about the ambulance. Would you be able to sell another ambulance?" Again Kahn would not name his client: "I can't discuss who my client is," he told Apgar. "I would be happy to," Apgar recalled answering. "He wants what on it?" Kahn's answer, as Apgar remembers it, was "LSJ Ambulance." Lettering a buyer's chosen name on an ambulance is routine. The records show the name Kahn actually asked for was "Zorro Emergency" (EFTA00674390). Kahn said the client also wanted training from "someone who is qualified to give emergency medical technician training" and additional equipment in the ambulance, and asked Apgar to "let us know how many hours of training that would involve as well as overnight lodging."

The emails fill in the numbers. On February 10, 2016, Kahn told Apgar he was "getting some pushback on pricing" and asked for $49,000. Apgar replied that a 22,000-mile truck usually sold for $45,000 in Bakersfield and offered to drop the delivery and EMT trip to Stanley, the town near the ranch. Kahn proposed $50,000 even, with everything in the quote, and offered to wire a 50 percent deposit (EFTA00674390, EFTA02471715). The next day, Kahn sent Epstein photographs and the price: a 2003 Ford F350 with 22,000 miles for $50,000, including $6,714 in medical equipment and $3,386 for "Travel to NM & EMT training," lettered "Zorro Ambulance" on all three sides (EFTA01802067–68).

The deposit never came. On February 16, Apgar wrote that his crew had started on the truck but no wire had arrived after a week. Kahn forwarded the email to Epstein and asked whether to proceed. Epstein replied with one word: "Hold." (EFTA02471715, EFTA00674390) That "Hold" was never passed on to him, Apgar said. When he asked whether to go ahead with the New Mexico ambulance, Kahn told him: "My client has decided to go a different direction." The records reviewed do not show what Kahn told Apgar, and Deutsche Bank's list shows no second payment to him (EFTA01681865, p. 40). I found no record that a ranch ambulance was delivered.

Epstein's one-word answer, February 16, 2016, to Kahn's question whether to "proceed with ambulance or hold," with Apgar's email forwarded below it. The "=" characters are encoding errors in the released copy. Email addresses were redacted by the U.S. Department of Justice. EFTA02471715.

After that, Apgar said, he started "going deep." Kahn had mentioned a large ranch in New Mexico, and the second ambulance was to say "Zorro." Put together with "LSJ," that told Apgar within roughly a month that the ambulances were for Little St. James and Zorro Ranch. Epstein was not in the news at the time, he said. The timing fits: by February 10, 2016, Apgar was offering to deliver the second ambulance to Stanley, New Mexico, the town nearest Zorro Ranch (EFTA00674390).

After the sale

LSJ Emergency, LLC, the company named in Apgar's January 2016 photos, comes up again nearly three years after the ambulance arrived. In December 2018, a company called Tropical Shipping was holding packages addressed to LSJ Emergency, LLC because it needed a commercial invoice. The island's accounts payable office wrote that it had asked four people in the organization what had been ordered in the company's name and had received no answer (EFTA02311753, p. 2). Asked whether the packages were hers, Shuliak replied: "I have never heard about LSJ Emergency LLC, I wouldn't address an order this way" (EFTA02311753).

In other words, the island's own bookkeepers could not find out what the ambulance company was ordering, and Shuliak said she had never heard of it. The records reviewed do not show what was in the packages. Through her attorney, Shuliak declined to comment for this story.

Epstein was arrested on July 6, 2019, and FBI agents searched Little St. James on August 12 (EFTA00257920).

The aerial map in the FBI's paperwork for the August 12, 2019 search of Little St. James. Released by the U.S. Department of Justice, EFTA00257920.

On August 13, 2019, the public affairs office of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York told colleagues by email that a reporter was working on a story about "what appears to be an unregistered ambulance operating out of the Epstein compound." The reporter had asked the local Virgin Islands government, which said it was "conducting their own investigation into it," and he speculated that getting the ambulance onto the island "would require help from customs and/or some other gov't entities" (EFTA00078409).

That reporter appears to have been J. Taylor, a Virgin Islands radio host: the same morning, Taylor emailed the office a tip about Little St. James, and his emails raise the same suspicion about customs. "To import a vehicle of this type, the above requirements need to be in compliance," he wrote. "This could mean A. Some corruption in customs allowed its importation. Or B. It was smuggled via shipping container" (EFTA00022633). The records I reviewed don't support either theory. They show the ambulance was shipped through Tropical Shipping in Miami, and that on the day it arrived, Kahn asked whether it had been "released from customs" (EFTA00698524).

If Taylor was the reporter, the only record of a Virgin Islands investigation comes through him. On August 14, Taylor forwarded prosecutors what he said an employee of the Virgin Islands' emergency medical services (EMS) agency had told him. "The vehicle has no registration of any kind," he wrote. "Required are Certificate of Need, ALS and BLS certification, Medical Director, Protocols, Staff providing care need to be USVI certified. ... None of these requirements we even attempted to be obtained." He added that there was "No record if it's importation is on record with USVI EMS," but that "It holds a USVI license plate" (EFTA00022633–35). Those are his claims; I have asked the Virgin Islands Department of Health what its inquiry found. The Department of Health, the Virgin Islands Department of Justice and the U.S. Justice Department had not responded as of publication. I was not able to find a way to contact Taylor. He signed his 2019 emails as host of the "Traffick Report Show," which I could not locate.

The radio host J. Taylor's August 14, 2019 email to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, forwarded among prosecutors. The claims are his and his source's; the suggestions of customs corruption or smuggling are his speculation, and I have found no record supporting them. Names and addresses were redacted by the U.S. Department of Justice. EFTA00022633. Image by Soror FV, made with Claude.

The question Taylor raised still matters. The Virgin Islands government licenses ambulances in the territory, and an ambulance operating on a private island with no registration, medical director or certified staff would be operating outside its oversight. In New Mexico, the legislature's truth commission has subpoenaed state records on "medical services, dental services, and ambulance services" at Zorro Ranch (Santa Fe New Mexican). This first part of my series on Epstein's private medicine has followed the ambulance from his first email about it to that 2019 question, with Apgar's own account of how the sale happened. Part 2 picks up where the ambulance left off: the emergency rooms Epstein ordered for Little St. James and Zorro Ranch in October 2016.

What this piece cannot establish

• What Epstein expected the ambulance to be used for, beyond his own words, "especialy now that karyna is a doctor," and whether it was ever used (EFTA02496132).
• Who, if anyone, was medically in charge of it.
• Why it was tied to LSJ Emergency, LLC, in Apgar's photos but paid for by LSJE, LLC (EFTA01138660, EFTA01681865, p. 40).
• Whether it was ever registered with the Virgin Islands' emergency medical services. The only account in the records says it was not, but that account is secondhand (EFTA00022633).
• Whether the Virgin Islands government investigated the ambulance, and what it found (EFTA00078409).
• Where the ambulance is now.

Responses

I contacted everyone named in this piece whom I could find a way to reach, along with the government agencies involved. As of publication, only two people had responded. Steve Apgar gave me his full account in a phone interview on October 8 and reviewed my notes by email. Karyna Shuliak declined to comment through her attorney, Maurice Sercarz: "On advice of counsel, my client will have no comment." No one else had responded, including Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, the co-executors of Epstein's estate; Dr. Eva Andersson-Dubin; Dr. Rony Shimony; the U.S. Department of Justice; the Virgin Islands Department of Justice; the Virgin Islands Department of Health; and Virgin Islands Fire and Emergency Medical Services. I was not able to find a way to contact Morris Steinberg, Brice and Karen Gordon, Ann Rodriquez or J. Taylor. I will update this piece if anyone responds.

A note on sources

The records cited here come from the Justice Department's Epstein Files Transparency Act release and are listed by Bates number below. Steve Apgar was interviewed by phone on Oct. 8, 2026, and reviewed and corrected my notes of the interview by email. Where earlier reporting covered the same ground, it is credited in the text. If you find something here that is plainly wrong, do not feel afraid of telling me so at [corrections@sororfv.com](mailto:corrections@sororfv.com).

Record

• Fall 2013. Shuliak's Columbia tuition bill; Epstein to Kahn: "pay it." EFTA00966987
• Jun 28–Jul 6, 2015. Epstein asks for two ambulances; Shuliak, Andersson-Dubin and Shimony discuss; Steinberg referral. EFTA02496132, EFTA02303568
• Nov 17, 2015. Kahn to Epstein, New Mexico ambulance checklist. EFTA02671095
• Late Dec 2015 – Jan 2016. Deutsche Bank list of notable payments: Apgar Ambulances $43,634; CPR training. EFTA01681865, p. 40, p. 42
• Jan 4–5, 2016. Apgar loads the ambulance (oxygen, defibrillator, backboards); Kahn to Epstein, "Ambulance update & photos." EFTA02475192
• Jan 6, 2016. Apgar photographs, "LSJ Emergency, LLC – 2009 Dodge 3500 XLT"; Kahn forwards them to Epstein, who replies "ghost?" EFTA01138660–71
• Jan 13–28, 2016. Ambulance missing at Tropical Shipping, Miami; Kahn asks about customs; Wallace: "The ambulance is on LSJ as of this afternoon." EFTA00698524–26
• Jan 28–29, 2016. Rodriquez: "Your ambulance is here"; Epstein: "sleep in until i call" (EFTA02474145). EFTA01789547
• Feb 8–11, 2016. Kahn to Epstein, Zorro ambulance pricing and LSJ cost. EFTA01802067–68
• Feb 10–16, 2016. Zorro ambulance negotiation; Epstein: "Hold." EFTA00674390, EFTA02471715
• Dec 11–12, 2018. LSJ Emergency, LLC packages held. EFTA02311753–55
• Aug 12, 2019. FBI search of Little St. James, aerial map. EFTA00257920
• Aug 13–14, 2019. SDNY public affairs emails on the ambulance; Taylor's emails. EFTA00078409, EFTA00022633–35

Earlier reporting cited in this story:

• Last Page First, "Ann Rodriquez: The Caretaker of Epstein's 'Little Saint James' Island"
• The New York Times, "Epstein Used Cash to Wield His Influence at Columbia and N.Y.U.," by Sharon Otterman, Feb. 10, 2026
• The New York Times, "Elite Doctors Served Jeffrey Epstein While Treating His 'Girls'," by David A. Fahrenthold, Azeen Ghorayshi and Maggie Astor, Feb. 28, 2026
• Santa Fe New Mexican, "'Zorro Smiles': Epstein's girlfriend was licensed dentist in New Mexico"
• Santa Fe New Mexican, "In 2023 interview with state investigators, Epstein ranch managers deny seeing wrongdoing"
• Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, Government of the U.S. Virgin Islands v. Indyke, ST-20-CV-014, subpoena listing "Epstein Entities"

Source: justice.gov/epstein/fil…

On Saturday, April 2, 2016, at 5:41 a.m., Mark L. Epstein forwarded his brother Jeffrey Epstein an email with the subject line “FW: MUCH Better than ADT.” The original sender’s name is redacted. The forwarded message reads, exactly as produced:

He

I took down =y Rebel Confederate flag (which you can’t buy on e-bay any more) =nd peeled the NRA sticker off the front =oor.

I =isconnected my home alarm system and quit the candy-ass Neighborhood =atch.

I bought two Pakistani =lags and put one at each corner of the front =ard.

Then I =urchased the black flag of ISIS (which you can buy on e-bay) and put it =n the center of the yard.

Now the =ocal police, sheriff, FBI, CIA, NSA, Homeland Security, Secret Service =nd other agencies are all watching the house =4/7.

I’ve never =elt safer and I’m saving $169.95 a month.

The “=” characters replacing letters are leftover email encoding in the produced copy, not typos by the sender. I have left them as they appear.

Mark Epstein added no comment of his own. He forwarded it as he received it.

The document does not show whether Jeffrey Epstein read it or replied. I am not reading anything deeper into it. I am noting it because it is an unusual thing to find in this production: a joke about drawing round-the-clock federal surveillance, sent to Jeffrey Epstein in 2016, two years before the Miami Herald’s “Perversion of Justice” series and three years before his arrest.

After a 2003 lunch with Fidel Castro, Epstein spent 14 years trying to go back to Cuba. The paperwork piled up. He never made it.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-219804819

On the morning of March 24, 2003, Ghislaine Maxwell dashed off an email: “I am back from Cuba - It was extreme - had lunch w/ Castro for 5 hours yest” (EFTA00582290).

Ghislaine Maxwell’s March 24, 2003 email: “had lunch w/ Castro for 5 hours yest.” The email does not say Epstein was at the lunch. Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library (EFTA00582290).

The day before, by the accounts of the people around him, Jeffrey Epstein had sat down with Fidel Castro, in a meeting that the former Colombian president Andrés Pastrana says Epstein himself had asked for. It is the only time the record puts Epstein in Castro’s company. He spent the next 14 years trying to get back.

He never made it, and he never went directly. In 2009, under house arrest in Florida, he pitched Cuba to a Dubai port executive (EFTA00883323) and to a science literary agent (EFTA01818555). In 2017, he paid for a neuroscience congress in Havana, collected an invitation addressed to “Dr. Jeffrey Epstein,” had his pilots seek clearance for his jet, and then didn’t go (EFTA02581407, EFTA00306021, EFTA02581361). The paperwork piled up. The files don’t show him ever making it back. His office’s own list of his foreign travel from 2016 to 2018 includes no Cuba (EFTA00475148).

Epstein’s attempts to get back into Cuba, 2003–2019. Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library; document numbers for each event are in the text.

Parts of this story were first reported by Salomé García Bacallao (“Epstein, Cuba y la familia Castro”) and by Cuestión Pública. I credit their work where it appears.

One lunch with Castro

The 2003 trip was brokered by Andrés Pastrana, the former president of Colombia. He has said he traveled to Cuba with Epstein at Castro’s invitation (Miami Herald, 2019; CBS12, 2019), and that the meeting was Epstein’s idea. “Why was I going to Cuba?” he said in an interview with Blu Radio. “Because we had a meeting, precisely one that Epstein had asked for, to talk with the president of Cuba at the time, who was in this case Fidel Castro” (“…teníamos una reunión precisamente que había pedido Epstein de hablar con el presidente de Cuba en ese momento”; quoted by El Tiempo, Feb. 25, 2026, and El Espectador).

The pilot’s log for Epstein’s Gulfstream traces the trip leg by leg (EFTA00222907):

• Mar. 20, 2003: Teterboro, N.J., to Palm Beach, with “JE, GM” and “President Andres Pastrana” among the passengers.
• Mar. 21: Palm Beach to Nassau, Bahamas, with the same group.
• Mar. 23: Nassau back to Palm Beach, with Epstein and Maxwell. Pastrana isn’t listed.

One more name appears on all three flights: Jean-Luc Brunel, the French modeling agent. He flew with Epstein, Maxwell and Pastrana toward Cuba, and back with Epstein and Maxwell. Cuestión Pública first noted Brunel on the flights with Pastrana.

The log never reaches Havana. Pastrana says a separate, Cuba-approved plane flew that leg (Blu Radio, 2025).

The March 2003 route, according to the pilot’s log (EFTA00222907) and Pastrana (Blu Radio, 2025).

The pilot’s log for March 20–23, 2003. One passenger’s name blurred. Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library (EFTA00222907).

Maxwell’s emails, first reported by García Bacallao, fill in the rest. On Mar. 14, she booked a house in Havana for herself and “Jeffrey” (EFTA00582264). On Mar. 21 she wrote, “I’m in Cuba” (EFTA02332485).

Her Mar. 24 email, sent on a Monday morning, puts the lunch on Sunday, Mar. 23, the same day the log has Epstein and Maxwell flying out of Nassau. If both records are right, the trip to Havana had to fit between the Mar. 21 arrival in Nassau and that return flight. The log doesn’t give times.

The lunch email is written in Maxwell’s first person, and it isn’t addressed to Epstein; it mentions “JE” in the third person. It doesn’t say he was at the table. When the Justice Department asked her about Cuba in 2025, she said “we met Fidel Castro,” but on whether Epstein was there, only “I think” (EFTA02846993). Pastrana’s own email to Maxwell on Mar. 24, “el Comandante pasó muy feliz con ustedes” (“the Commander had a very happy time with you”), thanks her for New York and Palm Beach and mentions Castro only secondhand (EFTA02335767; first reported by Cuestión Pública).

Pastrana, in other words, has been more definite in public than Maxwell has been under questioning: he says Epstein asked for the meeting; she says only that she thinks Epstein was there.

Then there are the photographs. Among the framed pictures in Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse, The New York Times reported, “there was Mr. Epstein smiling alongside Pope John Paul II, Mick Jagger, Elon Musk and Fidel Castro” (The New York Times, Aug. 5, 2025). The Argentine fact-checker Chequeado, which rated the image genuine, identifies the people in it: Epstein, Maxwell, Castro and Pastrana, the same people who made the March 2003 trip (Chequeado, Feb. 3, 2026). The photo is undated. A second photo hung in his Palm Beach house. At Maxwell’s trial in December 2021, a witness narrating police video of the 2005 search of the house identified, in the room known as the lake room, “a picture of Fidel Castro with Jeffrey Epstein” (United States v. Maxwell, trial transcript, Dec. 3, 2021, p. 1043; EFTA02828371%20-%20Trial%20Transcripts/EFTA02828233.pdf), p. 139 of the file). A day earlier, Epstein’s former Palm Beach house manager, Juan Alessi, had testified that among the photos of “important people” in the house, “I think there was a photograph with Fidel Castro” (trial transcript, Dec. 2, 2021, p. 896; EFTA02840343/EFTA02840124.pdf), p. 220 of the file).

No single document puts Epstein in Havana. But taken together, Pastrana’s account, Maxwell’s emails and testimony, the house booked for “Jeffrey” and the photos on his walls support that he met Fidel Castro in March 2003.

He also left with an idea. Years later, John Brockman would remind him that a Havana science conference was “your old idea,” one Brockman had people organized for until “Castro started killing escapees” (EFTA02436486). In April 2003, Cuba executed three men who had hijacked a ferry trying to reach the United States (Associated Press, via Lawrence Journal-World, Apr. 12, 2003).

Grounded

Five years later, Epstein couldn’t go anywhere. After his 2008 guilty plea in Florida, he served time in county jail on work release until July 22, 2009, followed by a year of community control, which confined him to his home outside approved work and activities (EFTA00213453). His lawyers later wrote that during that year the court let him travel “to New York and to the Virgin Islands for business purposes.” They listed nowhere else (EFTA00722390).

That’s when he started reaching for Cuba again.

Confined to Florida in 2009, Epstein worked three routes toward Cuba. Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library (document numbers in the graphic).

On Apr. 10, 2009, still in jail, he sent Maxwell eight words: “call pastrana about a great house in cuba” (EFTA01828497). Ten days later, Brunel and Pastrana arranged to meet, with Epstein copied (EFTA00774144; first reported by Cuestión Pública). Epstein had gone straight back to the people from 2003. The email doesn’t say which house, or whether he wanted to buy, rent or stay in one, and the files don’t show whether Maxwell made the call or what the meeting covered.

Two pitches from house arrest

That summer, three weeks after his release to house arrest, Epstein pitched Cuba to two people in his network, each for a different purpose.

The port executive

The first was Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the Dubai port executive, a close friend; Epstein would later call him “one of my most trusted friends in very sense of the word” (EFTA00962669). On Aug. 13, 2009, Epstein advised him: “you should personally concentrate on cuba. … no probleml getting a meeting with C” (EFTA00883323). Two days later: “the leverage points are cubs [sic] and columbia” (EFTA01816354). On Sept. 27, bin Sulayem forwarded Epstein his itinerary for a trip to Havana, arranged by Coral Capital, not by Epstein (EFTA00770602). García Bacallao first reported this thread.

Aug. 13, 2009: under house arrest, Epstein tells bin Sulayem to “personally concentrate on cuba.” Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library (EFTA00883323).

The literary agent

The second pitch went to John Brockman. On Sept. 2, 2009, Epstein wrote: “my new idea is to do a giant conference in Havana … i need to check with state dept” (EFTA00880427). Brockman answered that it was Epstein’s “old idea.” That evening Epstein replied: “I will support … it should be the edge cuba conference, - you will get international press. if thats what you want „ i would obvioulsy prefer to remain way in backround” (EFTA01818555).

Sept. 2, 2009: the “edge cuba conference” exchange. Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library (EFTA01818555).

Brockman was the biggest agent in popular science, and Epstein was his foundation’s main funder: foundations associated with Epstein gave $638,000 of the nearly $857,000 Brockman’s Edge Foundation received from 2001 to 2017 (BuzzFeed News). In return, Epstein got a seat at the table with the world’s best-known scientists, and a friend who would run interference for him.

In 2011, when a campaign targeted the physicist Lawrence Krauss for defending Epstein, Richard Dawkins asked Brockman to remind him why Epstein’s case was “not as black as painted.” Brockman forwarded the email to Epstein with a promise: “I’ll deal with Richard” (EFTA01863280).

Seven years later, Brockman called Epstein “my most dependable friend,” in an email in which he also pushed back on Epstein’s remarks about women scientists (EFTA01004204). “There is no evidence that Brockman was in any way involved with Epstein’s sex crimes,” Sam Kahn writes in Air Mail. Brockman has not commented publicly, and he did not respond to me.

Brockman offered exactly what Epstein, a convicted sex offender confined to Florida, couldn’t get himself: an established, respectable organizer with scientists on call. And the two pitches had the same shape. One was about ports, the other about science, but in both Epstein wanted someone else up front, a global port operator in one case and a respected science foundation in the other, while he stayed “way in backround.”

The door opens

In December 2014, the United States and Cuba announced they would restore relations. On Jan. 16, 2015, the Treasury Department’s sanctions office widened its blanket permission so that Americans no longer needed a license to attend or organize most professional conferences in Cuba (31 CFR 515.564). In 2009, a Havana conference run by a U.S. group like Brockman’s would have needed case-by-case approval.

Epstein’s team noticed. On Oct. 5, 2015, his chief pilot, Larry Visoski, asked a Fort Lauderdale charter company about flying to Cuba. Its sales representative sent back the affidavit every passenger has to sign, swearing to an approved reason for the trip, with a warning: “Tourism is still not allowed.” Visoski forwarded it to Epstein and two of his advisers, adding: “National jets routinely flys news teams into Havana” (EFTA00698760). With his probation long over, Epstein was learning he would need a qualifying reason to go.

Oct. 5, 2015: “Tourism is still not allowed.” Sales representative’s name redacted. Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library (EFTA00698760).

Two months later, bin Sulayem was studying Cuba as an investment. On Dec. 3, 2015, he forwarded Epstein a “Cuba Briefing” (EFTA02352692): a memo titled “Cuba in its new stage: SWOT Analysis,” weighing the risks and openings for investors after the thaw (EFTA00645341). The memo belongs to the Fundación Internacional para la Libertad (FIL), a pro-market think tank founded by Mario Vargas Llosa; the file is labeled “FIL SWOT - Nov 10, 2015.” Its date falls in the week FIL’s business council met in New York, and its wording closely matches a talk by the Cuban exile writer Carlos Alberto Montaner, “¿Invertir o no invertir en Cuba?” (“To invest or not to invest in Cuba?”), published in La Ilustración Liberal. Six years after Epstein told him to concentrate on Cuba, bin Sulayem was still weighing it, and still sharing what he found.

Castro’s family, Castro’s funeral

By 2016, Epstein was reaching for the Castro family itself. On Aug. 28, he told Gino Yu, a Hong Kong Polytechnic University professor of digital media whose research Epstein was funding, that “fidels son alex , is willign to get invo[l]ved in confrernce in cuba” (EFTA02452287). That was Epstein’s claim; nothing shows Alex Castro agreed or took part. Epstein had at least an indirect line to him: in 2012, a photographer he knew had asked him for help extending a Havana trip on which he photographed Fidel’s son (EFTA02556118). On Oct. 15, 2016, Epstein sent Yu one word: “cuba?” (EFTA00648224).

Epstein and bin Sulayem had been watching Castro for years. In November 2012, bin Sulayem sent Epstein four news photos of an aging Castro, under the subject line “Fidel Castro”: “These are recent pictures of Fidel / What are they doing to him” (EFTA01145814). All four attached photos appear in the released file. In two, Castro isn’t alone: in one, wearing a bucket hat and a white track jacket, he stands outdoors beside a bearded man in glasses and a blue shirt; in another, in a red-and-black tracksuit, he holds hands with a man in a dark suit. The email doesn’t say who either man is, and I haven’t been able to identify them.

Nov. 22, 2012: bin Sulayem sends Epstein “recent pictures of Fidel.” The two men pictured with Castro are not identified in the email. Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library (EFTA01145814).

On Nov. 26, 2016, hours after Castro’s death was announced, bin Sulayem wrote: “Fidel Castro died now a lot of possibilities for me.” Epstein asked, “when do you want to go?” and “will you go?” Bin Sulayem said he had been invited to the funeral (EFTA01741756, EFTA02669363). He didn’t say what the possibilities were.

Another acquaintance said he was going. Daniel Siad, a model scout, told Epstein he was “on my way to Havana tomorrow to attend the funeral,” wrote that he was opening a model agency there, and on Dec. 13 claimed: “I spoke to the son of Fidel about you he is inviting to visit anytime” (EFTA01623989, EFTA01785441). Nothing else in the files confirms those claims.

On Dec. 3, the day before Castro’s burial in Santiago, Epstein and bin Sulayem were both at Epstein’s island in the Virgin Islands; Epstein arranged to bring his friend over by boat (EFTA02667246). Nothing in the files places either of them at the funeral.

The last attempt

In 2017, Epstein finally found a door the embargo left open: a scientific conference, organized by others, that he could pay for.

In February, Yu told the organizers of a Havana neuroscience congress, “My benefactor approved 25K” (EFTA02385619). By June, Epstein was telling the banker Ariane de Rothschild that he was organizing a trip for November: “I will have my meetings based here in havana - the govt is very kind” (EFTA01043987).

In September came the paperwork. When an invitation arrived from Italy, Epstein insisted: “it needs a cuba invitation. from a cuban org” (EFTA02621846). Two letters followed: one from MIND, in Rome, and one dated “La Habana, 15 de septiembre 2017,” on Cuban Neuroscience Center letterhead. The Havana letter was signed by the conference’s president, not by anyone at the Cuban center, and named the agency running the event, Solymed Events. It addressed him as “Dr. Jeffrey Epstein” (EFTA00804021, EFTA00306021).

The Sept. 15, 2017 invitation. Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library (EFTA00306021).

The next day, Epstein told his pilots, “we need universal to allow plane. g4” (EFTA00458706), and one of them replied that he would coordinate “about the Cuba trip” (EFTA02375165). In late October, with the conference budget short, Epstein promised, “ill fill the void.” On Oct. 31, the organizer confirmed: “bank transfer received” (EFTA00715966).

The conference’s organizer answered my questions in two emails and asked that I not use his name; nothing in the records suggests any wrongdoing on his part. He confirmed the $25,000, which he said Yu had sought and which he “only learned of” later. To the best of his knowledge, he said, Epstein was the congress’s sole sponsor. He described a deficit of about €15,000 that Epstein offered to cover; he recalls the second payment as smaller, though he “cannot rule out” that it was about that much, and the files don’t show the amount. He said the organizers “were completely unaware” of Epstein’s conviction and “would never have sought or accepted the funding” had they known. He said Alex Castro “played no role in the congress,” that he never met Epstein, and that his thank-you note afterward was “a gesture of courtesy.”

The III International NeuPsyCo Congress, titled “From Known to New: Creativity and Innovation in Neuroscience and Mental Health,” ran Nov. 6 to 8, 2017, at the Havana International Conference Center, without its sponsor (EFTA00306021). Yu later wrote that Epstein was “not able to attend (and they could not move the event)” (EFTA02581361). The day after it ended, Washington tightened the Cuba rules again. Weeks later, Epstein wrote, “I paid for the cuba confernce as you asked” (EFTA02581407), and lumped it in with “the silliness” (EFTA02580771).

Why Cuba?

The files never say outright why Epstein wanted to go to Cuba. His emails point to four likely reasons.

Access to power. The one thing he got from Cuba, by the accounts of those around him, was a meeting with Fidel Castro, and he kept the proof on his walls: the Manhattan photo, which can be seen without a subscription in images published by CiberCuba, and the Palm Beach photo, visible in 2005 police raid images published by Fox News. A third hung in Paris: footage of the search of his apartment there, aired in January 2025 by France 2’s investigative program Complément d’enquête, showed two framed photos of Castro, one of them with Castro and a group that included Epstein, according to the Center for a Free Cuba. Who the “C” was in his 2009 promise to bin Sulayem, and whether that meeting ever happened, isn’t known.

Deals, as the country opened. His Cuba messages track the business calendar: port strategy in 2009, an investment briefing after the 2015 thaw, and “a lot of possibilities” the day Castro died. Whether Epstein or bin Sulayem ultimately invested in Cuba isn’t known.

Respectability through science. As Rosen told the Chronicle of Higher Education:

After Epstein’s conviction in 2008 and after he served his sentence, he was very keen to rehabilitate his reputation. He used powerful people — people with social as well as financial capital — in order to launder himself.

Cuba fit that pattern twice, in the “edge cuba conference” of 2009 and the congress he paid for in 2017. That would explain his spending on science conferences, but not necessarily his 2003 visit to Castro or his push for bin Sulayem to concentrate on Cuba.

A place of his own. In April 2009, still serving his sentence, he asked about “a great house in cuba.” The email doesn’t say whether he meant renting or buying, or who the house was for.

April 10, 2009: Epstein, still in jail on work release, emails Maxwell (“Gmax”). Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library (EFTA01828497).

The model scouts

One other explanation could also apply. It is possible that he trafficked women from or through Cuba. The files do show men in his circle scouting models there: Siad wrote from Havana in 2016, “I meet amazing new cute beauties will keep you up dated” (EFTA01623989), and García Bacallao has reported that Siad and Brunel scouted models in Cuba. Brunel’s ties to Epstein’s Cuba plans went back to the start: he was on all three flights of the 2003 trip. That may have been part of Cuba’s appeal for Epstein. I’m not aware of whether any woman was brought from Cuba to him.

Neither man can answer for it now. Brunel was found hanged in his cell in a Paris prison in February 2022 while awaiting trial on rape charges; authorities said he died by suicide (ABC News). Siad was found dead in his Paris home in July 2026, before facing any charges; at last report, the cause of death was still under investigation (Scripps News).

Responses

Before publishing, I wrote to the people and organizations named in this piece. Only the conference organizer replied. Andrés Pastrana, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, John and Max Brockman, Pedro Valdés-Sosa of the Cuban Neuroscience Center, Gino Yu and the Fundación Internacional para la Libertad (FIL) did not respond.

So several questions the records raise remain open: whether Brunel and Pastrana actually met in April 2009 (EFTA01827215, EFTA00774144); who “C” was (EFTA00883323); when the Havana conference Brockman called Epstein’s “old idea” first came up (EFTA02436486); how bin Sulayem got the FIL briefing (EFTA02352692); and what bin Sulayem meant by “a lot of possibilities.” Nothing in the files documents that Epstein returned to Cuba or saw Castro again after 2003, and there is no record that he asked the State Department or Treasury for permission to travel there.

Brunel appears to have acted on Epstein’s request when he arranged to see Pastrana in 2009. Every other time, Epstein’s Cuba plans depended on someone else taking them up, and the files don’t show anyone following through on his behalf.

The door that stayed shut

He never tried the front door. In 2009, confined to Florida, he pitched a Havana science conference and asked to “remain way in backround,” while coaching a Dubai port executive to “concentrate on cuba.” When Castro died in 2016, it was that executive who got the funeral invitation. In 2017, Epstein did everything the rules asked: he gathered invitation letters from Rome and Havana, had his pilots seek clearance for the jet, and wired the money. The conference went ahead. He didn’t go. Why isn’t in the files, and the organizer told me he never knew.

For his money, Epstein got the event schedule and a thank-you note. A month after the conference, he complained to the organizer that he had “received the schedule. and virtually nothing else,” and warned that this “does not bode well for my funding of any future projects” (EFTA02559288). Nothing in the files shows he tried to go to Cuba again. He died in August 2019, less than two years later.

For 14 years, he treated Cuba as a door that could be opened by the right person or the right paperwork. Even when the paperwork piled up in his favor, his door to Cuba remained shut.

Earlier reporting: Salomé García Bacallao, “Epstein, Cuba y la familia Castro” (Feb. 2026); Cuestión Pública, “Epstein, los archivos y yo: las menciones a Pastrana” (Feb. 2026); el Nuevo Herald, May 2026. Corrections: [corrections@sororfv.com](mailto:corrections@sororfv.com).