Jeffrey Epstein's Brother Provides Insight Into the Financier's Friendship With Donald Trump

In March 2003, Vanity Fair published a profile on Jeffrey Epstein aptly titled "The Talented Mr. Epstein". It was obviously referencing the 1955 novel-turned-movie The Talented Mr. Ripley, in which actor Matt Damon plays a con artist and chameleon who eventually becomes a murderer. Three years later, Epstein was arrested and charged with solicitation of prostitution from a minor. He was sentenced to 13 months in prison, most of which was spent on work release.

What's interesting about the Vanity Fair profile is the lack of information about the financier's life before he became impossibly wealthy. We know he grew up in a middle-class family in Brooklyn. Epstein's father worked for the city's parks department, but his mother isn't mentioned at all. Apparently, he has a younger brother named Mark, who came forward in July 2025 to provide more insight into his late brother's friendship with President Donald Trump. Here's what we know.

The only thing we knew about Mark Epstein before he spoke with CNN's Erin Burnett was that he worked in real estate at some point. Epstein's father put an emphasis on education and wanted his sons to find a "way out" of the life he built for them. Fast forward to 2025 and Mark's appearance on "Erin Burnett OutFront".

Mark echoed what President Trump has said in interviews about his relationship with Epstein. "They were very good friends," he said. Epstein would often share jokes that Trump made, and was a frequent visitor to the financier's office back in the 1990s. Mark referenced the fact that Trump flew on Epstein's private jet multiple times. He also claimed that his brother had also flown on Trump's plane. "I don't know if they've ever looked at his flight logs," mused Mark.

According to Mark, he flew on his brother's plane in 1999 during a trip from Florida to New York, which also included Trump. During this flight, Epstein repeated a question he asked Trump a couple of weeks prior. While on the plane, Epstein asked Trump the same question again, this time for Mark's benefit. The financier wanted to know why his friend slept with so many married women. "Because it's so wrong," replied Trump.

While this is certainly a shocking answer, Mark told the story in order to demonstrate how close his brother and Trump were. "Now it's a funny line," said Mark, "but the answer is not the poignant part of the story here. The question is the poignant part." Mark goes on to say that this is the kind of question only a good friend would feel comfortable asking. Mark also said that the president's claims that he never visited his brother at his office is a lie.

Two weeks before he went on CNN, Mark spoke with NewsNation's Chris Cuomo about his brother's death. "Every time they say something or try to do something to quash that he most likely was murdered, they put their foot further in their mouth," said Mark. This was in response to a memo released by the Department of Justice (DoJ) and FBI that found Epstein had in fact died by suicide.

Mark also revealed that he had previously requested footage from the camera mounted above his brother's jail cell, using the Freedom of Information Act. He was denied and told it wasn't available because there was an open investigation. The footage has since been released to the public, though reportedly nearly three minutes were removed, per Wired.