Former Goldman exec behind Epstein townhouse buy: report

Michael Daffey reportedly bought the Upper East Side mansion with cash and a bridge loan

Jeffrey Epstein and Michael Daffey with 9 East 71st Street (Getty)
Jeffrey Epstein and Michael Daffey with 9 East 71st Street (Getty)

A former Goldman Sachs executive is behind one of the biggest — and most notorious — residential sales this year.

Michael Daffey, who managed some of the investment bank’s hedge fund clients, is the buyer of Jeffrey Epstein’s Upper East Side townhouse, Business Insider reported. A spokesman for Daffey said he used cash and a bridge loan for the $51 million purchase.

Proceeds from the sale will go to Epstein’s estate, which has established a fund for his alleged victims. The disgraced financier and conviced sex offender was facing sex trafficking charges when he died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019.

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The 28,000-square-foot home at 9 East 71st Street first hit the market last June, asking $88 million. It got a $23 million price chop in January, and went into contract in early March. The final sale price works out to approximately $1,821 per square foot.

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The townhouse is 50 feet wide, and was built in the 1930s in the Neoclassical style. It was originally a school building before Leslie Wexner, the founder of L Brands and a former associate of Epstein’s, acquired it in 1989. Epstein bought the home for $20 million in 1998.

A month prior to Epstein’s death, it was estimated that his properties were worth around $180 million. Developer Todd Michael Glaser recently paid $18.5 million for Epstein’s former Palm Beach mansion, just under its asking price of $22 million. Glaser plans to demolish the home.

Epstein also owned homes in New Mexico, the Virgin Islands and Paris.

[Business Insider] — Danielle Balbi