A private school in North Dallas received checks totaling more than $28,000 from a bank account controlled by Jeffrey Epstein, federal records show.
The Texas Torah Institute, a Jewish school for boys, received two checks in 2008 and one in 2009. The first two checks were written after lawsuits from two girls alleging abuse had been made public, and while Epstein was in prison after pleading guilty to solicitation.
A Dallas Morning News reporter spoke with a woman at the school’s office last week and provided copies of the checks. The News also reached out by phone and email to inquire about the payments. Representatives from the school did not respond to requests for comment.
The checks are contained in the notorious “Epstein Files”, a vast trove of documents released recently by the US Department of Justice.
Just weeks before the first check was written, Epstein was required to register as a sex offender, and had pleaded guilty in Florida to two charges of solicitation of prostitution - one with a minor. In 2019, he was charged with sex trafficking of minors and accused of abusing dozens of underage girls. He died in jail that year while awaiting trial; his death was ruled a suicide.
The files contain other checks and electronic fund transfers to a number of schools, often documented as tuition payments for children of Epstein’s employees.
The News could find no accompanying emails or other documents for the checks written to the Texas Torah Institute.
Checks signed by Epstein's accountant
The first check, for $3,000, cleared Epstein’s account in July 2008. The second, for $10,750, cleared Epstein’s account in October the same year. The third check, for $14,400, cleared in August 2009, about a month after Epstein was released from custody.
All three checks are written from an account in the Virgin Islands. Epstein owned an island there, where investigators allege he brought young girls to be trafficked and sexually abused.
The checks appear to be signed by Harry Beller, Epstein’s accountant. Attempts to reach Beller by phone and text message were unsuccessful. Other checks from the same bank statements are also signed by Beller and are made out to various insurance companies, a dentist, Federal Express, and a telecom company.
There are other Dallas ties in the files. Merrie Spaeth, a Dallas crisis communications expert, emailed Epstein offering assistance years after his 2008 guilty plea. Dallas-based Match.com provided Epstein with suggested dating profiles of young women in 2012. And a 50th-birthday letter to Epstein, recently described as “raunchy and obscene” by the childhood best friend who wrote it, Dallas businessman Terry Kafka, was made public last year by a US House committee.