Newly released documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein paint a clearer picture of how deeply he embedded himself in the worlds of finance, politics, academia, and media.
It’s taken years to trace his network of relationships, and records show a number of high-profile Texans appearing in Epstein’s communications. The names include a former university president, prominent business figures, and public relations consultants.
Gwen Howerton covers Texas culture for Chron.com and she’s been following the story. Listen to the interview in the player above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Perhaps the biggest name on this list is former Baylor president Ken Starr. Say more about his relationship with Epstein and why he’s showing up in these documents.
Gwen Howerton: Yeah, so like you said, Ken Starr is the biggest name, I would say, in these files.
He obviously was Epstein’s lawyer in 2008-2007 as part of his legal defense team. But these files show that while he was president of Baylor, they continued to have a very close relationship, even going so far as to hosting Epstein on Baylor’s campus in 2012 which I believe was not known before.
What other Texans did you find in these documents?
These have been sourced by a variety of people, including myself, but they include his former friend Terry Kafka, who was a Dallas advertising executive and businessman. And then there was another friend of his, Warren Eisenstein, who was an optometrist.
There was Thomas Hubbard, a UT professor, who asked for money from Epstein’s Foundation in 2015. And then, there was Merrie Spaeth, who is a Dallas public relations executive, and she did some crisis consulting for Epstein.
We need to be clear for listeners, being named in these files doesn’t automatically imply any sort of wrongdoing. Are any of these Texans, though, accused of criminal activity related to Epstein from what you know?
Not that I know of, no. And I think that’s important to point out, is that showing up in these emails does not automatically imply criminal conduct.
And yeah, just because you emailed Jeffrey Epstein does not necessarily mean that you flew on his plane or you went to the island. I think that’s extremely important to point out.
Well, what about any response from those Texans on this list of contacts? Any word from people like Ken Starr or others?
Some of them like Ken Starr passed away in 2022, but a lot of the responses that we’ve seen from these people kind of mirror what you see from the people who corresponded and associated with Epstein nationwide, right? You know, people saying that their contact with him was limited. People saying that, you know, they did a little work for him once and then never again.
But, you know enough that these emails kind of allow us to sort of fact check them, right? So somebody like Merrie Spaeth, who said she did a little bit of work for him, and then you can see that, you know, she was emailing him for work as late as 2015.
Your piece also mentions a few Texas businesses and institutions that appeared in these emails. Tell us more about those instances.
Yeah, so there was one, and this was first reported by the Dallas Morning News, but Match.com, which is based in Dallas, even after Epstein had to register as a sex offender in the state of Florida, they were sending him profiles of young women on their platform.
And the Dallas Contemporary Museum of Art is also mentioned. They asked him for a painting that was in his collection.
Taken together, what does all this mean? I think I have a question a lot of listeners have: What’s an everyday Texan supposed to do with all this information?
I think the important takeaway here is not that every person named in these files is necessarily a criminal, so much as it shows just how vast his circle was.
He wanted to correspond with and associate and work with elites all over the country, and I think it really is sort of a testament, the Texans that show up in this, just how wide his reach was.
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