The longtime attorney and one-time accountant of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein told lawmakers earlier this month that they were never questioned by federal authorities about their work for the disgraced financier, according to deposition videos released Tuesday by the House Oversight Committee. 

During their hourslong depositions over two days, attorney Darren Indyke and accountant Richard Kahn provided new details about their years of work for Epstein, raising questions about the lack of scrutiny they seemingly faced from federal prosecutors after investigations began into his crimes, and why both men continued to work for Epstein despite the allegations against him following Epstein’s 2008 plea deal on solicitation charges in state court. 

“I drank the Kool‑Aid at the time. I think that’s the answer, is I drank the Kool‑Aid at the time,” Indyke told lawmakers when pressed about why he never quit working for Epstein. 

Both men denied being aware of the scope of Epstein’s crimes and described their relationship as strictly professional, though their decades-long work with Epstein make them some of the most knowledgeable people about Epstein’s life and businesses. Indyke and Kahn serve as co-executors of Epstein’s estate, were bequeathed by Epstein $50 and $25 million respectively, and managed Epstein’s legal and financial affairs. 

Following are the main takeaways from the depositions.

Epstein allegedly had $30M in annual expenses 

Both men sought to defend Epstein’s finances, arguing that the web of holding companies and bank accounts used by Epstein were standard practice and that Epstein needed to operate in cash after his 2008 guilty plea limited his access to credit. They denied that they either knew of or facilitated payments to support his sex trafficking operation that included underage women and girls. 

“It did not strike me as unusual that Mr. Epstein’s business, household and personal needs required large amounts of cash on a regular basis. I never believed that the cash I withdrew from Mr. Epstein, and his staff, was used by Mr. Epstein, or his staff, for any improper purposes,” Indyke said. 

Indyke denied attempting to “structure” bank withdrawals to avoid triggering an alert to the Treasury Department, though he acknowledged that he regularly withdrew $7,500 at a time for Epstein, totaling more than $700,000. 

“I did not believe that any amount of cash that I gave to the accounting department was going to be used for an improper purpose. I believed that there were legitimate reasons to bring that cash in and I did so,” he said. 

According to Kahn, Epstein’s homes, employees, and other expenses cost between $25M and $30M annually.  

“I used to prepare for Epstein a budget on one sheet of paper that included all of his entities, and I believe his annual upkeep for everything, not just his employees, for his homes, employees, planes, cars, gifts, and personal expenditures was somewhere in the $25 to $30 million range,” Kahn said. “That includes the fuel for his planes, repairs and maintenance for his planes, if he does capital improvements on one of his properties, if he buys a car, if he gives a gift, if he hires a decorator. Everything.” 

Why they didn’t quit working for Epstein 

Both men were pressed about why they continued working for Epstein despite his 2008 guilty plea and subsequent civil lawsuits against him. Indyke told lawmakers that he believed Epstein was “devastated and extremely contrite” about his crimes. 

“When he was in jail and he looked devastated and told me he wasn’t ever going to be in that position again and told me he didn’t know that there were people that were underage and said this was never going to happen again, I believed him,” said Indyke, who frequently visited Epstein in jail. 

According to Indyke, he later became skeptical about some of the accusations against Epstein — telling lawmakers he “drank the Kool‑Aid at the time” — and did not believe Epstein would continue to commit crimes based on the increased scrutiny on him. 

“Obviously, he did a lot of terrible things,” Indyke said. “I say this again because I want everybody to be clear about this. I didn’t see it. I didn’t see anything, and nobody complained to me about anything. So I don’t know. But all these people came forward, so obviously there’s something there. So your question is, what do I believe now. I believe he did bad things.” 

Lawmakers pressed Indyke about the dozens of lawsuits filed against Epstein following his release from jail, suggesting he knew that more allegations were levied against Epstein yet he continued to work for him. 

“Had I known that he was doing it, I would have walked away. But in the context of all of this ‑‑ all of the information that was provided, which suggested that a lot of what was being said was not true and a lot of what was being claimed happened in the past after he had gone to jail and after he said he wasn’t going to do it again, I didn’t have a reason to believe, after he got out, that he was doing it again,” he said. 

Kahn similarly told lawmakers that he believed Epstein’s claim that his arrest was a “mistake.” When pressed about the public allegations that came out against Epstein in 2018, Kahn said he was too busy “putting out fires” to decide to step away from the work. 

“Everything was happening quite fast. We got dropped by the bank, and I was then being asked to do things. I still was thinking about leaving, but I was, you know, quite busy at that time putting out fires,” Kahn said. “I would have liked to think with a clear head … I would have certainly left working for him.” 

Their roles in alleged ‘sham marriages’

Both Indyke and Kahn also faced questions about their alleged role arranging “sham marriages” to keep Epstein’s victims in the United States. Multiple lawsuits, which were later settled with no admission of wrongdoing, alleged that the men help arrange the marriages for Epstein. 

Kahn said he regretted writing an “embellished” letter of recommendation to support one of the marriages, saying he was unaware that the marriage was forced. 

“These two women provided me with a form letter and later came to my office and advised me on sample lines that I should include in the letter. I agree that the letter was embellished. I saw the letter as no different than me writing a co-op recommendation letter for a friend who I had not seen in 10 years, and I wrote in the letter how great his kids are, and these are kids that I never met,” Kahn said.

“These two women never told me that this marriage was forced. I will tell you, in hindsight, I regret writing this letter because I now know that I unknowingly contributed to these women’s pain and suffering. But this was not me participating in immigration fraud,” he said. 

Indyke acknowledged the marriages in his deposition, though he pushed back on the claim they were “shams” or fraudulent. 

“I was not aware that it was a sham marriage. I’m still not sure that it’s a sham marriage, but she was one of the people that was married,” he said about one of Epstein’s victims. 

Indyke’s denials about what he allegedly told witnesses

Lawmakers also pressed Indyke over allegations that he discouraged one of Epstein’s victims from speaking to law enforcement. 

According to an FBI report released earlier this year by the Department of Justice, a victim told investigators that Indyke advised her “never talk to the police” and to come to him if she needed help. 

Indyke denied that he ever advised a victim not to go to law enforcement, though he stated he advised them about speaking with an attorney. 

“It’s been a long time now, but I believe I would have said and did say something to the effect that you don’t have to speak to them without a lawyer present, and if you want, counsel would be provided for you. And the reason that I was asked to do that is that people were expressing fear about having to talk to law enforcement. They didn’t know ‑‑ they had never done it before and it scared them and they wanted to know,” Indyke said.

Kahn’s recollections about Epstein’s safe 

Kahn also faced questions about his actions immediately after the raid on Epstein’s New York townhome in 2019. According to documents released by the DOJ, Kahn recovered some items that were stored in Epstein’s safe that were left behind following the search before turning them over to the FBI. 

According to Kahn, Epstein’s house manager thought the items left behind in the safe “were not safe to be left alone in the house” because the building’s locks and security were disabled following the search. Kahn said that the house manager put the items into two suitcases and delivered them to Kahn’s home for safekeeping. 

“I never opened them. I left them in my dining room. I believe a day or two later, I got a call … that the FBI was at the house again looking to collect things that they didn’t take from their first visit. I believe the request of me was, ‘Can you please bring the two bags to the home?'” Kahn told lawmakers. “I went home. I grabbed the two bags. I brought them to the residence, and I believe at that point in time, the FBI gave me a receipt for the two bags.”