Wexner, Les

(born September 8, 1937) is an American billionaire businessman, the founder and chairman emeritus of Bath & Body Works, Inc. (formerly Limited Brands). Wexner grew a business empire after starting The Limited, a clothing retailer with a restricted selection of profitable items, and later expanded his holdings to include Victoria’s Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch, Express, Inc., and Bath & Body Works. Wexner announced, in February 2020, that he was transitioning from CEO of L Brands into the role of chairman emeritus. Wexner had a very close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein that began in the 1980s and continued until Epstein’s death. Wexner was once the “main client” (more like only client) of Epstein’s money-management firm, according to Bloomberg. Wexner allowed Jeffrey Epstein to run his business out of a house he owned and resided in whilst CEO of Victoria’s Secret.₁

1985 was the year that Leslie Wexner became a billionaire. It was also that year that the chairman of The Limited (now L Brands) began to build up his public persona. This effort to “re-brand” himself began with a series of fawning media profiles. The main outlets that participated in Wexner’s first main, personal PR campaign were written by prominent New York City-based outlets, like New York Magazine and the New York Times.

The New York magazine profile, which was the cover story for its August 5, 1985 issue, was entitled “The Bachelor Billionaire: On Pins and Needles with Leslie Wexner.” Though filled with photos of a middle-aged Wexner grinning and embracing friends as well as lavish praise for his business dealings and his “tender” and “gentle” personality, one of the main themes of the article revolves around what is apparently a spiritual affliction or mental illness of Wexner’s, depending on the reader’s own spiritual persuasion.

The New York Magazine article opens as follows:

“On the morning Leslie Wexner became a billionaire, he woke up worried, but this was not unusual. He always wakes up worried because of his dybbuk, which pokes and prods and gives him the itchiness of the soul that he calls shpilkes [“pins” in Yiddish]. Sometimes he runs away from it on the roads of Columbus, or drives away from it in one of his Porsches, or flies from it in one of his planes, but then it is back, with his first coffee, his first meeting, nudging at him.”

One may interpret this use of shpilkes, literally “pins” or “spikes” in Yiddish and often used to describe nervous energy, impatience or anxiety, as Wexner merely personifying his anxiety. However, his decision to use the word dybbuk, which he does throughout the article, is quite significant. Also notable is how Wexner goes on to describe this apparent entity throughout the article and his intimate relationship with it.

As defined by Encyclopedia Britannica, a dybbuk is a Jewish folklore term for “a disembodied human spirit that, because of former sins, wanders restlessly until it finds a haven in the body of a living person.” Unlike spirits that have yet to move on but possess positive qualities, such as the maggid or ibbur, the dybbuk is almost always considered to be malicious, which leads it to be translated in English as “demon”. This was also the case in this New York magazine profile on Wexner. Read More…

Child Trafficking

Epstein and Wexner had a rather enigmatic relationship. In 1985, The Evening Standard reports, the talented Mr. Epstein started to orbit Wexner. Epstein then became an increasingly ubiquitous force in Wexner’s corporate concerns. By 1991, Wexner conferred Epstein with power of attorney over his vast empire, essentially giving Epstein the keys to his kingdom. Wexner’s friends and colleagues were perplexed by their mysterious relationship.

After Epstein’s arrest, Wexner wrote a letter to L Brand employees vowing that he was “NEVER aware of the illegal activity” charged in Epstein’s latest indictment. In early 2006, however, Palm Beach police charged Epstein with multiple counts of child molestation, but it took Wexner 18 months after the fact to ostensibly sever his connection to Epstein.

Despite their purported 2007 rupture, one of Wexner’s charitable foundations received a $56 million infusion from a trust linked to Epstein in 2011. Also in 2011, the deed to Epstein’s Manhattan mansion was transferred from a Wexner-owned concern to an Epstein company based in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Wexner, too, claims that he discovered Epstein embezzled “vast sums” of money from him in 2007, but he never notified authorities.

Epstein, however, as a lone college dropout from Coney Island, could not have blackmailed powerbrokers with impunity. Such men can have access to ruffians, murderers, and even organized crime. Les Wexner is an example of an alleged perpetrator who has had purported ties to organized crime. Wexner is a denizen of Ohio, and his L Brands is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. A 1991 report from the Columbus Division of Police (CDV) implicates Wexner in a 1985 murder and also discusses his possible affiliation with the organized crime. The report focuses on the execution style murder of Columbus attorney Arthur Shapiro whose law firm represented Wexner’s clothing empire. Shapiro took two bullets to the back of the head in broad daylight, and the CDV report notes that his murder had the distinct signature of “Mafia” hit. The CDV report that fingers Columbus’ most lionized citizen in a Mafia hit was ordered to be destroyed by CDV Chief James Jackson, who would be reprimanded for ordering the report’s destruction.

The CDV report describes Walsh Trucking Company, owned by Frank Walsh, as a “major trucking company for The Limited.” The CDV report also notes Walsh’s connection to the Mafia. A 1987 Women’s Wear Daily article states that “Walsh had done in excess of 90 percent of Limited’s business,” accounting for $73,600,000. And a 1996 article from Bergen County’s The Record chronicles Walsh’s guilty plea for bribing Teamster officials and mail fraud and that “federal prosecutors” had concluded Walsh was an appendage to the “Genovese” crime family.

Wexner had known sociopathic pedophile Epstein for approximately six years when he handed Epstein the keys to his kingdom. As I mentioned, the mysterious relationship between Wexner and Epstein befuddled his friends and colleagues. In August of 2019, Vanity Fair published an apologetic on behalf of Wexner, “‘HE PICKS THE WRONG FRIEND, THEN THERE’S ALL HELL TO PAY’: HOW JEFFREY EPSTEIN GOT HIS HOOKS INTO LES WEXNER,” which sought to explain the bizarre  relationship between Wexner and Epstein. The Vanity Fair article was mind-boggling in either its seismic naivete or disingenuousness: The article determined that Wexner’s “loneliness” made him susceptible to being bamboozled by conman Epstein. But according to Virginia Giuffre and Alfredo Rodriguez, their relationship had far more sinister undertones. Although Wexner claims that Epstein embezzled “vast sums” of money from him, he never notified authorities about Epstein’s grift. If loneliness drove Wexner to befriend Epstein, then common sense almost certainly dictates that Wexner would request law enforcement intervention to retrieve the “vast sums” purloined by Epstein. But if their relationship was rooted in the claims of Giuffre and Rodriguez, then Wexner’s actions, or lack thereof, would be understandable. (source)

Shapiro was killed the day before he was scheduled to appear before a grand jury as part of an IRS investigation into his finances. Some suspect that he might have been in a position to reveal information at this hearing that could have caused problems for prominent people in Columbus, leading to his murder.

Robert Morosky, a former employee of Wexner’s who served as vice chairman of the Limited, sums Wexner’s character up by stating that “Les is an insecure guy with a big ego…he had a lot of money but craved respect.” He obtained this respect through his dealings with Epstein and other pedophile investment moguls and politicians, providing the funds to support their operations while also giving himself a fast pass to the high life of parties furbished with expensive champagne and underage girls.

Wexner has managed to keep his shady dealings and questionable connections out of the spotlight for years, but with the new revelations regarding his connection to Epstein, it seems that this has finally changed. The investigation into Epstein will surely lead to more shocking discoveries, but interesting information could also be revealed through a closer look at the secret world of Les Wexner. (source) [/ihc-hide-content]