Karp Cancels Speaking Event as More Epstein Connections Revealed

Paul Weiss Chairman Brad Karp dropped out of a Tuesday event in which he was slated to discuss “leadership in uncertain times” as details emerge about his communications with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Karp was a promoted speaker at the Wall Street Journal’s Invest Live two-day conference in West Palm Beach, Florida. He was scheduled to discuss how he’s guiding clients through geopolitical developments, artificial-intelligence transformation, and a rapidly evolving US political landscape, according to the Journal’s original itinerary. The discussion has been replaced with the publication’s reporting and outlook on the Federal Reserve.

Karp skipped the event as the latest tranche of Epstein-related documents released by the Justice Department show that the Paul Weiss leader had a more extensive relationship with Epstein than the firm has previously described. Karp reviewed a letter to the New York Times defending Epstein’s controversial 2008 plea agreement, disclosed “strictly confidential” information, and engaged with Epstein on behalf of Apollo Global Management’s Leon Black, the emails show.

Karp did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Wall Street Journal declined to comment.

“Paul Weiss was retained by Leon Black, then the CEO of the firm’s longtime client Apollo, to negotiate a series of fee disputes with Jeffrey Epstein that spanned several years,” Paul Weiss said in a previous statement. “The firm was adverse to Epstein, and at no point did Paul Weiss or Brad Karp ever represent him.”

Karp has appeared in previous batches of what is colloquially known as the Epstein files. The latest dump, released Jan. 30, features a July 2016 email in which Karp asks Epstein for help getting his son a job working on a Woody Allen film production.

Karp also appears in a March 2019 email commenting on a draft of a letter by Epstein’s personal attorneys meant for the New York Times. US Solicitor General Kenneth Starr, who died in 2022, was among a group of attorney signatories defending the plea agreement in a Florida sex abuse and trafficking case.

Epstein’s emails show that Karp reviewed the letter and sent it to four members of the newspaper’s editorial team. It was published two days later.

The “draft looked strong,” Karp wrote in an email to Epstein.

Another April 2018 interaction shows Karp apparently breaching the confidentiality of a stock sale to Epstein: “But please don’t let him know that I shared it. It is supposed to be strictly confidential.”

The email correspondence between Karp and Epstein largely spans from 2015 to 2019, after the sex offender pleaded guilty to state charges of solicitation of prostitution with a minor in 2008 and served a year in prison. Epstein died in a New York jail in August 2019 while facing federal charges of conspiracy and sex trafficking involving teenage girls.

The Justice Department’s release of the largest batch of Epstein files yet is a result of intense public pressure and reveals Epstein’s connections to some of the country’s most prominent lawyers, investors, executives, political figures, academics, and media advisers following his first prison stint.