US President Donald Trump and American financier Jeffrey Epstein, accused of child prostitution, were friends for about 15 years, writes the newspaper The New York Times.
They met around 1990, when Epstein bought a house near Trump's Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida. They communicated regularly, visited each other, organized parties and dinners to which they invited models. Their friendship ended around 2004, and the cause of the conflict was the desire of both of them to buy an oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach (Florida). Trump won the dispute, purchasing the property for $41 million.
According to the publication, Trump himself later told his entourage that he had another reason to distance himself from Epstein - he had behaved inappropriately with the daughter of one of the members of the Mar-a-Lago club.
Epstein was detained by New York state law enforcement agencies on July 6, 2019. The prosecutor's office said that there was evidence that in 2002-2005 he received dozens of underage girls at his home in Manhattan, the youngest of whom was 14 years old. Epstein's circle of friends and acquaintances includes a large number of former and current officials from the United States and many other countries, including former heads of state, major entrepreneurs and show business stars.
The criminal prosecution of the financier in the United States was discontinued after his suicide in his prison cell on August 10, 2019.