Over the years, the households of New York financier Jeffrey Epstein and billionaire businessman Howard Lutnick, now the U.S. Commerce Department secretary, overlapped in seemingly conventional ways, like the need for a good painter. Another time, Epstein received the resume for Lutnick’s nanny.

Subscribe to read this story ad-free

Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.

They were, after all, next-door neighbors for more than a decade in an elite Upper East Side enclave of Manhattan.

But their lives also intersected in far more influential or personal ways, such as when in 2012 Lutnick, his wife and their four young children sailed on a yacht to have lunch with Epstein on his private Caribbean island. Or seven months later, when an aide to then-Prince Andrew wanted Epstein’s opinion about Lutnick, then the CEO of the Wall Street brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald.

“What is your view on Howard Lutnick? Just met him with PA,” wrote the aide, referring to Andrew, who was angling to do business with Cantor Fitzgerald.

“My neighbor smart,” Epstein replied.

The relationship between Lutnick and Epstein spans years both before and after Epstein was convicted in 2008 for soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida. Their email communications, which were sporadic, are included in the millions of pages of Epstein investigation documents released by the Justice Department this year.

The files show Lutnick reaching out to Epstein as early as 2009 and contacting him as late as 2018. Their interactions weren’t robust, but they remained in touch, including through phone calls and charity galas.

Lutnick has denied any wrongdoing. He has not been accused of any impropriety tied to Epstein.

But he has offered shifting accounts about their relationship, initially saying in recent years that he had no association with Epstein. Lutnick said he had cut ties with his neighbor in 2005 because he believed he was a “disgusting person.” Then, after the Justice Department files were released, he acknowledged visiting Epstein’s island.

The extent of Lutnick’s personal association with Epstein, who died by suicide in a New York City jail in 2019 while awaiting federal sex trafficking charges, will be the focus Wednesday of a Capitol Hill inquiry.

Lutnick voluntarily agreed to appear before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the committee’s chairman, making him the latest to testify before the bipartisan panel investigating the federal government’s handling of the case against Epstein.

Lutnick, who left Cantor Fitzgerald last year after Trump named him commerce secretary, is among at least a half-dozen top officials in the Trump administration, including the president himself, whose names appear in the files. Trump, who has not been accused of any crime in connection with Epstein and denies any wrongdoing, has acknowledged being friendly with him before they had a falling out about two decades ago, years before Epstein became a convicted sex offender.

Some congressional Democrats have accused Lutnick of lying and called on him to resign or be fired. His appearance in the files has also prompted students at Haverford College, Lutnick’s alma mater in Pennsylvania, to demand his name be stripped from the private liberal art school’s library.

Neither the Commerce Department nor the White House responded to requests for comment about Lutnick’s pending testimony, but Lutnick told Axios in March: “I have done nothing wrong and I want to set the record straight.”

A White House spokesperson also defended Lutnick earlier this year, saying, “President Trump has assembled the best and most transformative Cabinet in modern history.”

Comer’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

An inconsistent timeline

Lutnick will most certainly face questions over his credibility, said Matt Dallek, a historian and political management professor at George Washington University.

“It’s risky business for him to go before Congress and testify about Epstein,” Dallek said. “Because lo and behold, he visited the island with his kids.”

Trump, he added, will want to know how Lutnick performs.

“If Lutnick comes off as wishy-washy or ineffective, Trump could sour on him,” Dallek said. “Especially if he wants a fall guy for the economy.”

Lutnick has repeatedly denied mingling with Epstein.

In a 2024 Forbes profile, Lutnick’s spokesperson told the magazine he “never had any association with Mr. Epstein.” And in a podcast interview in October, Lutnick described visiting Epstein’s townhouse with his wife, Allison, in 2005 and seeing a massage table in the middle of a room filled with candles. Lutnick said Epstein told him he received massages “every day” and got “weirdly close” to say “the right kind of massage.”

“In the six to eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house,” Lutnick said, “my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.”

“I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy,” he added. “If that guy was there, I wasn’t going, because he’s gross.”

He also said in the podcast interview that Epstein was the “greatest blackmailer ever.”

House Democrats have said they want to know why Lutnick believed that, especially after the Justice Department wrote in a memo last July that there was “no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals.”

In letters and at a Senate budget hearing last month, Democrats have repeatedly asked Lutnick about his relationship with Epstein, including why in 2013 Epstein’s accountant emailed: “Attached is resume of Lutnick nanny,” and said arrangements were being made “for you to meet her.”

Lutnick dodged senators’ questions at the hearing, saying he would “answer them all” when he appeared before the House Oversight committee.

A decade of contact

The files outline Lutnick’s occasional email contact with Epstein over nearly a decade.

Emails appear in 2009, the year after Epstein’s conviction. Epstein received a message saying, “Lutnick would like to speak to you.”

Two years later, they were arranging phone calls. One evening, Epstein scheduled Lutnick for “drinks” before dinners with director Woody Allen and fashion designer Vera Wang, according to his emails. The next day, Epstein suggested in an email that Lutnick forgot his phone.

In December 2012, Epstein was scheduled to attend a breast cancer charity dinner at a large hotel ballroom in which the Lutnicks were among the event co-chairs. And two days before Christmas, the Lutnicks and their children, along with another family with young kids, planned to visit Epstein’s home in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the emails show. The day after the visit, Epstein’s assistant wrote to Lutnick, “Jeffrey wished me to pass along the below to you: Nice seeing you.”

When asked about the island visit during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing in February, Lutnick said there was nothing “untoward” about the interaction but said he did not recall why his family agreed to go.

The files also show mutual financial interests.

A few days after the visit, both men were among the signatories on a stock purchase agreement in AdFin, a digital advertising technology company.

The next year, the possible deal between then-Prince Andrew and Cantor Fitzgerald began brewing. Andrew’s aide, David Stern, wanted Epstein’s advice.

Epstein called Lutnick “smart,” but he warned Stern that Andrew “will end up in the news” because of his involvement with Lutnick, who at the time had a sportsbook and gambling technology company subject to audits and financial disclosures. “Don’t do it,” Epstein wrote, warning in another email that Andrew “will have holy hell to pay” because of Lutnick’s gaming affiliation.

The following month, Epstein advised Stern on what the terms of an agreement between Andrew and Cantor Fitzgerald should look like, according to the emails. But when Stern asked Epstein two months later if he had seen the proposal, Epstein replied in one word: “Goofy.”

It’s unclear what ultimately came of it, but a Cantor Fitzgerald spokesperson said in a statement that the firm “has never had any business dealings with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.” (Last year, King Charles removed Andrew’s royal titles amid a growing scandal over the former prince’s known ties to Epstein.)

In the following years, Epstein received three invitations to events involving Lutnick.

In late 2017, Epstein donated $50,000 to a Jewish philanthropic organization that was hosting a Wall Street benefit dinner honoring Lutnick, the emails show. Epstein did not attend, but wrote “tell Lutnick he can fill” the table.

Their last email communication appears to be from the spring of 2018 — over what was a pressing issue in their neighborhood.

“Are you aware as to them building to block our park views. What should we do about it? Time is of the essence,” Lutnick wrote in a message sent to Epstein’s assistant.

The nearby Frick Collection art museum was gearing up for an expansion, threatening their coveted views of Central Park. Lutnick urged Epstein to write a letter to the city. In a later email, Epstein changed the subject: “On another note what do you think the prospects for adfin are?” He was referencing the tech company whose stock they purchased in 2012.

Lutnick responded: “Producing revenue finally. This is their year. Next 12 months they need to become economically self sufficient.”

AdFin would shutter in October 2019, three months after Epstein’s second arrest and his death in jail.