{"id":15357,"date":"2026-02-04T19:11:39","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T19:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zoominfinancial.com\/?p=15357"},"modified":"2026-02-04T19:11:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T19:11:40","slug":"kirkland-ellis-lawyer-sought-use-of-epstein-helicopter-after-securing-plea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zoominfinancial.com\/?p=15357","title":{"rendered":"Kirkland &#038; Ellis lawyer sought use of Epstein helicopter after securing plea"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=12f17f99-fffc-4746-8ff5-1d94d6eddd55\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>A Kirkland &amp; Ellis lawyer who helped Jeffrey Epstein avoid federal child sex crime charges in 2007 later invited him to his son\u2019s bar mitzvah and asked to borrow his helicopter for a trip to the Hamptons, according to emails released by the US Department of Justice.<\/p>\n<p>Jay Lefkowitz, a senior litigator at the world\u2019s highest-grossing law firm, played an important role in arranging for Epstein to plead guilty to lesser state charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor, part of what both Republicans and Democrats have called a \u201csweetheart deal\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Documents released last week show that in May 2011, less than two years after Epstein\u2019s release from prison, the child sex offender\u2019s assistant emailed a person who appears to have been Epstein\u2019s pilot, saying Lefkowitz was planning to use the helicopter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe wants to depart from Teterboro and fly out to the Hamptons with his wife for their anniversary (how romantic!),\u201d the assistant wrote. \u201cI can be cupid :),\u201d the person replied. Further emails include reminders about Lefkowitz\u2019s planned use of the helicopter, though there is no confirmation of whether the flight took place. <\/p>\n<p>Months later, in September 2011, Epstein\u2019s assistant told him Lefkowitz had invited him to his son\u2019s bar mitzvah in Jerusalem. Epstein said he could not attend.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for Kirkland declined comment. Lefkowitz did not respond to phone and email messages seeking comment.<\/p>\n<p>The messages were among millions of pages of documents related to Epstein that the DoJ published in the past week, after Congress voted overwhelmingly in November to force it to release its files on the late financier.<\/p>\n<p>Epstein was rearrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019 and died in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial. <\/p>\n<p>The so-called Epstein files have drawn attention to the disgraced investor\u2019s vast network of connections across politics, finance, business, academia and the media, revealing his ties to figures ranging from Elon Musk to Peter Mandelson and top Goldman Sachs lawyer Kathy Ruemmler. <\/p>\n<p>They show Brad Karp, chair of the law firm Paul Weiss, appeared to help Epstein in March 2019 \u2014 four months before his arrest \u2014 by looking at a draft of a letter that Epstein\u2019s lawyers wrote for The New York Times in which they defended the earlier plea deal. Karp said the \u201cdraft looked strong\u201d and later that he had sent it to four \u201ceditorial folks I know best at the Times\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>Messages referencing Lefkowitz, who is also a lecturer at Columbia Law School, indicate the attorney combined a personal and professional relationship with Epstein. They cover a period spanning at least nine years. <\/p>\n<p>In 2016, Lefkowitz emailed Epstein about a \u201cvery nice building you built\u201d, with an attached image. <\/p>\n<p>Lefkowitz has won Supreme Court cases for pharmaceutical industry clients and has previously worked as a White House adviser to former president George W Bush and the US special envoy for human rights in North Korea. <\/p>\n<p>Kirkland represented Epstein on a series of matters. A spreadsheet released among the DoJ documents says the law firm acted on matters including \u201cDOJ investigation and related lawsuits\u201d and \u201cJane Doe 101 Litigation\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>The document, which also appears to summarise Epstein\u2019s payments to Kirkland, says the firm billed him more than $3mn in a period ending in September 2009. The earliest payments in the spreadsheet are in 2007. <\/p>\n<p>An undated submission to the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, on a Kirkland letterhead, said Epstein was \u201ca successful businessman and noted philanthropist with no prior criminal record\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>It said Epstein was \u201can ordinary \u2018John\u2019, not a pimp\u201d and that sexual activity involving him and masseuses was \u201cprimarily self-masturbation on the part of Mr Epstein\u201d which was \u201cspontaneous and resulted from face-to-face conversations during the massage\u201d. It said Epstein\u2019s conduct involved women over 16.<\/p>\n<p>The emails illustrate the at-times friendly tone of conversations between Lefkowitz and Alexander Acosta, the then-US attorney in Miami who had previously worked at Kirkland and who negotiated Epstein\u2019s plea deal. <\/p>\n<p>In a January 2008 email to Lefkowitz, Acosta wrote: \u201cJay \u2014 Thanks for the email. I sent it along to the trial team. I\u2019m also looking forward to when this is over, so we can talk about non-work matters. Hope all is well with you and the family. Alex.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/12f17f99-fffc-4746-8ff5-1d94d6eddd55\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. A Kirkland&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Kirkland &amp; Ellis lawyer sought use of Epstein helicopter after securing plea | ZoomInFinancial<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.A Kirkland &amp; Ellis lawyer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/zoominfinancial.com\/?p=15357\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kirkland &amp; 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