Goldman Sachs executive buys Jeffrey Epstein mansion

Former Goldman Sachs executive Michael Daffey has bought a New York mansion for $51 million that once belonged to deceased sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.

The purchase was made last month, according to a report by CNBC.

“Mr. Daffey had never previously been in the home nor ever met its owner, but he is a big believer in New York’s future and will take the other side of all the people who say the city’s best days may be in the past,” Daffey’s spokesman Stu Loeser said in a statement to CNBC.

Before retiring, Daffey had been chairman of Goldman Sachs’s global markets division. According to Loeser, Daffey paid for the property with a combination of cash and a bridge loan. Epstein’s Palm Beach, Fla., property was also sold on Monday for $18.5 million, CNBC noted.

CNBC reports that the sale of the property has generated income for Epstein’s estate that will jump-start a fund to pay self-identified victims of Epstein’s sexual abuse, many of whom were underage when they first met Epstein. According to CNBC, around $10 million from the sale of the property will go to the Epstein Victims Compensation Fund, which has already paid out an estimated $65 million according to the fund’s administrator.

Compensation to the victims had been paused, CNBC notes, as the estate was low on cash. However, payments reportedly restarted last week soon after the sale of the Manhattan home.

The sale of Epstein’s townhouse was first reported by The Wall Street Journal in early March. The seven-story, 28,000-square-foot property was commissioned to be built in the 1930s by Herbert N. Straus, who was then heir to the owners of retailers R.H. Macy & Co.

Epstein reportedly paid $20 million for the property in 1998, which would have the same buying power as roughly $32.5 million in 2021. The property was originally listed at $88 million.

Last week it was reported that British socialite and Epstein confidant Ghislaine Maxwell is selling her London home in order to pay for her legal fees. Maxwell was arrested in July of last year and is currently being held without bail as she is considered to be a flight risk.