IN JANUARY 2011, I GOT a call from Reichart Von Wolfsheild, a genius computer programmer and engineer who had developed the data management program Qtask. Qtask was used to keep track of the many pieces of information a law practice must use—from files, pleadings, depositions, conversations among team members, and evidence, to calendars, client contacts, emails, and letters. Qtask was also the software company that RRA had used to store case-related information. Rumor was that the firm had even invested in the company. When RRA imploded, all of Scott Rothstein’s investment assets, and presumably those of the firm, were seized by the government and subject to forfeiture.
Because of the relation to RRA, Qtask, Reichart’s software company, was a prime target of the government. The bankruptcy trustee then attacked Qtask as the storage system of information likely to include Ponzi-scheme-related evidence. It was a shame because Reichart—who wasn’t involved in the firm’s dealings, illegal or otherwise—was an innocent entrepreneur. He didn’t deserve the headache.
Nonetheless, the bankruptcy action dragged Reichart in to defend the confidentiality of the program’s users. The government wanted his software company to turn over confidential information derived from the database, which Reichart couldn’t allow or else every client he had would have pulled out for fear of similar forced disclosure. Reichart spent a lot of money protecting this important user data, causing his product to practically be killed during the proceedings. Still, he was a good and honest guy who would have died fighting for his product and what he thought was right.
I had followed the attacks on Reichart in Judge Ray’s bankruptcy court. Since I was also being attacked, we were in the same boat. By the time Epstein invited Reichart to his island, Little Saint James, in January 2011 for a scientific brain-trust meeting he was hosting, Epstein also knew all about Qtask. Epstein’s lawyers had asked me many questions in my deposition about the program and especially about the projects that I had stored in Qtask related to Epstein. This program basically contained all the most secret investigative information that I had on Epstein, and Epstein knew from the RRA bankruptcy proceedings that Reichart was the protector of that information. Epstein also knew that if he could get access to my Qtask projects, he would know everything that I knew—or didn’t know—about him, enabling him to very easily defend against my attack.
While Reichart knew of me as a trial lawyer at RRA, and was aware that I was litigating a case against Jeffrey Epstein, he had no idea about the substance of that litigation. Nonetheless, Reichart was an honorable person and Epstein had underestimated his loyalty to doing what was right. So, when Epstein invited Reichart to his island, Reichart accepted the invitation in order to do a reconnaissance mission.
Reichart wasn’t back for a day before he reached out to me through his lawyer, a mutual friend named Rob Buschel, to tell me about his visit to the Caribbean island where Epstein hosted various scientists and mathematicians. He gave me a full download.
Reichart isn’t like a normal person. He has an extraordinary mind and remembered every single detail from the entire trip. Other people at this event included Nobel Prize winner Murray Gell-Mann, Ron Reisman of NASA, actor and financial wizard Brock Pierce, Caltech biochemist Frances Arnold, and journalist Dan Dubno. As soon as Reichart introduced himself to Epstein, he was cornered about the true reason why he was invited.
In Epstein’s typical way, he attempted to befriend Reichart by telling him, “You and I are connected in a weird way, through the RRA litigation.” He then asked him, “Do you know Brad Edwards? He’s a problem for me. To resolve this problem, I filed a lawsuit against him to throw flak at it.” Epstein told Reichart that his plan was to just continue throwing knives at this “Edwards problem” with the intent to derail the cases that I had filed against him. To facilitate his master plan, Epstein was requesting information and data to which he knew he wasn’t entitled, similar to my emails he was trying to get. To further this goal, Epstein asked Reichart directly how he could obtain the information that I had accumulated on him, which was stored in RRA’s Jeffrey Epstein Qtask project. He wanted to know whether he should subpoena it from Reichart directly.
More important for my purposes, Reichart reported to me that Epstein actually talked openly about sex and about girls on the island. Epstein shared that he liked young girls, but not “children,” which Reichart interpreted Epstein to mean prepubescent. Epstein attempted to justify his philosophy that age is inconsequential, explaining that he simply wanted girls who were physically developed but were as young as possible. To Reichart, it appeared that Epstein was a “cult leader”—the many girls around him appeared to follow him and respect his “cult.”
Epstein told Reichart that he targeted very young girls, and that before he got in trouble, he hadn’t cared about their ages. Reichart described him as a lion that wanted to prey on girls who were, according to an old definition, “nubile,” or, as Epstein put it, “the youngest-looking girl with breasts.” Epstein said that he was now aware that people were watching him, so he was not going to be caught with an underage girl again, at least not in the United States, where it is illegal to touch them. At the same time Reichart felt that Epstein was not sorry in the least for his past sexual interactions with underage girls.
In fact, Reichart said, other than complications that arose from the law, Epstein seemed to see no problem on any level with his previous activity that landed him in legal trouble. In an attempt to minimize what he’d done in the eyes of others, Epstein would say to a New York Post reporter in February 2011 that his sexual interactions with minors were no big deal. He told the reporter specifically, “I’m not a sexual predator, I’m an ‘offender.’ It’s the difference between a murderer and a person who steals a bagel.” To Epstein, the law was wrong. Not his ways. But he knew getting caught again would not be as easy to get out of. The next “bagel” he stole would be much more costly.
Epstein spent most of his time with Reichart talking about formulaic systems that might be invented to “get young girls.” Epstein expressed the view that women were “a life support system for a vagina.” So, he wanted to discuss the statistical analysis of the marketplace and new ways for finding girls. He admitted that he knew nothing about computers but he thought the internet might hold the key for meeting volumes of young females in a short time.
A lot of the information Reichart provided I was already aware of. Epstein knew there was not a thread of truth to the lawsuit he filed against me and was using it to try to get information to which he was not entitled. He saw me as a major problem that he needed to shut down, both to eliminate any trouble from his prior conduct and to ensure that he could continue to go about business as usual. Epstein’s arguments that my RRA emails were relevant to his fake lawsuit were an old tune at this point. The weak points only confirmed what I already understood: he was trying to get inside my private work product, my thinking, and my strategy in order to effectively map out his moves against me.
Reichart verified something else I suspected: Epstein was not going to stop his sex abuse or change his thinking about girls simply because he had been caught in Palm Beach and jailed for a few months under a cushy deal. He couldn’t stop. This was his way of life. It was what drove him. Now he was just looking for more sophisticated and technologically advanced ways to find more girls and pursue them with less risk. The only thing jail had taught him was to be more careful and not get caught.
Reichart was on my team, but Epstein had no idea, so I was not about to blow his cover. Reichart’s information would have helped with the judge presiding over my case, but the facts would come out eventually, so I decided to use his information in other ways.
With Reichart confirming Epstein’s desire to discover what I knew about him, there was no doubt in my mind that Epstein had kept a copy of my entire trove of emails when they were turned over to his lawyer (supposedly for benign copying purposes and nothing more). We had warned Special Master Carney that this would happen.
Improperly having my emails wasn’t enough. Epstein wanted everything he wasn’t supposed to have. He wanted to find a way to get into my Qtask files, where I had stored my most valuable information about him. This was the reason he’d brought a computer programmer to his island: to figure out how to steal the most secretive part of my files and work product, including all the information too sensitive to put into emails. It would have been a smart move had it worked, but it didn’t. Reichart couldn’t be bought by the bad guys.