What Jeffrey Epstein's birthday book tells us about his Wall Street origins

"The book, which contains sexually explicit snapshots and hand-drawn images, concludes with a less-provocative section titled "Business." It offers a rare glimpse into the Wall Street job that helped launch Epstein's lucrative career as a money manager for businessmen like Les Wexner, the former owner of Victoria's Secret. The section includes letters from five former colleagues from Bear Stearns, the investment bank where Epstein worked for five years before hanging out his own shingle in 1981 as a financial advisor to the rich and powerful."

"Inclusion in the book - assembled in 2003 by his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, years before Epstein's first arrest - is not an indication of wrongdoing. Ted Serure, a managing director at Jeffries, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Calls and emails to Elliot Wolk and Ira Zicherman were not returned. These letters offer a unique window into how some of Wall Street's most powerful men viewed Epstein when he was starting out in finance."

"Alan "Ace" Greenberg, then a partner at Bear Stearns, hired Jeffrey Epstein - who was working as a math teacher at Manhattan's prestigious Dalton School - to the firm in 1976. "A parent at Dalton called my husband and said, 'This kid is brilliant,'" Greenberg's widow, Kathryn Olson Greenberg, told Business Insider. "My husband had the mindset to try someone out." Two years after hiring Epstein, Greenberg became the investment bank's CEO. In the birthday letter, Greenberg wrote that Epstein had been hired to trade stock options on the American Stock Exchange floor. Stock options, which give investors the ability to buy a stock at a fixed price, were becoming more common, but they were typically traded "over the counter," or informall"

The 50th birthday book contains sexually explicit photographs and hand-drawn images but ends with a "Business" section revealing Epstein's early Wall Street role. The Business section includes letters from five former Bear Stearns colleagues that document his five-year tenure at the investment bank before launching his own financial-advisory practice in 1981. Alan "Ace" Greenberg hired Epstein from the Dalton School to trade stock options on the American Stock Exchange, and later wrote about Epstein's role. The letters and responses from former colleagues provide insight into how prominent financial figures viewed Epstein during his career origins.

Read at Business Insider