❓WHAT HAPPENED: Billionaire Les Wexner testified before the House Oversight Committee, claiming he was “duped by a world-class con man” and had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes despite being implicated as an alleged co-conspirator.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Les Wexner, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Ohio State University, and members of the House Oversight Committee.
📍WHEN & WHERE: Wexner’s testimony occurred on Wednesday, February 18, 2026, in Ohio during a closed-door deposition.
💬KEY QUOTE: “I was naïve, foolish, and gullible to put any trust in Jeffrey Epstein. He was a con man.” – Les Wexner
🎯IMPACT: The deposition adds to ongoing scrutiny over Epstein’s network and the release of over three million pages of files under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Alleged Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator and billionaire retail magnate Les Wexner testified before the U.S. House Oversight Committee on Wednesday in a special, behind-closed-doors hearing held in Ohio. Wexner, who hired Epstein to manage his wealth in the mid-1980s, stated, “I was naïve, foolish, and gullible to put any trust in Jeffrey Epstein. He was a con man.”
Wexner, who founded the clothing retailer The Limited and Bath & Body Works, while also acquiring brands like Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria’s Secret, and La Senza, claimed he had no knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities, despite being implicated in alleged sex trafficking by documents found in the recently released Epstein Files. Wexner, 88, explained he severed ties with Epstein nearly two decades ago following Epstein’s 2006 arrest. He emphasized, “I have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide.”
An influential figure in both Ohio and national U.S. politics, especially regarding U.S. support for Israel, Wexner has been embroiled in a number of serious controversies and scandals over the decades. Some in Columbus, Ohio, maintain—despite only tenuous evidence—that the retail billionaire was involved in the March 6, 1985, assassination of Arthur L. Shapiro, an attorney with Schwartz Shapiro Kelm & Warren who represented Wexner’s The Limited retail conglomerate. While Shapiros’s mafia-style murder remains unsolved, local police dismissed Wexner as a suspect—instead pointing the finger at the attorney’s business associate Berry Kessler.
Meanwhile, Wexner became a central figure in the Ohio State University wrestler abuse scandal in late 2019. The athletes who alleged abuse at the hands of the team doctor decades prior demanded the school also address its financial ties to Wexner—one of the university’s biggest donors—due to the billionaire’s ties to Epstein.
The House Oversight deposition follows the release of over three million pages of documents under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, with Wexner’s name appearing over 4,000 times in the files. Wexner is alleged to have ignored complaints by his company’s executives in the mid-1990s that Epstein was using his ties to the retail mogul to pose as a Victoria’s Secret recruiter to gain access to young women aspiring to become fashion models.
Actress Alicia Arden alleged in a police report filed in Los Angeles in 1997 that Epstein had sexually assaulted her while posing as a recruiter for the Wexner-owned lingerie company. Meanwhile, another Epstein accuser, Maria Farmer, filed a police report in 1996, which alleges that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell sexually assaulted her at Wexner’s Ohio estate, where she worked as an artist-in-residence.
Wexner publicly severed his ties to Epstein over a year after charges were filed against the pedophile financier in 2006. However, a 2019 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) document listed Wexner as one of Epstein’s “10 co-conspirators.”
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