French architect Robert Couturier said British billionaire Sir James Goldsmith warned him to avoid Jeffrey Epstein around 1987, in an interview published on Wednesday.
Couturier, who designed Goldsmith’s homes in New York and Mexico, told The Guardian that the businessman wanted Epstein kept away from his family.
“He didn’t want him near any of us,” Couturier recalled. Goldsmith died in 1997. His daughter Jemima Goldsmith said she had heard that her father disliked Epstein and that the financier was not his friend.
Meanwhile, Jemima and her brothers Ben Goldsmith and Zac Goldsmith said they had never met Epstein. They also doubted that their father had business dealings with him.
Separately, archived records show Goldsmith’s holding company sought permission to operate in South Carolina in 1985 and opened an office on Hilton Head.
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Those business links feature in efforts to examine allegations by a woman identified as Jane Doe 4. She told the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in four interviews after Epstein’s 2019 arrest that he abused her on the island during the 1980s.
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However, the records examined do not establish that Epstein visited Hilton Head during that period. His brother Mark Epstein said he knew of no such visits.
Former Goldsmith executive Phil Lader also said he never met Epstein or heard his name during his years on the island. Jane Doe 4 additionally alleged that Epstein introduced her to President Donald Trump of the United States, whom she accused of sexual assault.
The White House denies her allegation and says it lacks credible evidence. Epstein died in prison in 2019 while facing federal sex-trafficking charges. Prosecutors had accused him of abusing minors in New York and Florida.
