Douglas Leese

Douglas Leese was a British businessman and defense contractor. He appears in two records: a January 1996 speech in the House of Commons in which George Galloway named him as a channel for secret commissions on the Al-Yamamah arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and Steven Hoffenberg's account, given to Vicky Ward of Vanity Fair in 2003, that Leese had introduced Hoffenberg to Jeffrey Epstein in the 1980s. Epstein gave a different account of the same introduction.¹²

The Al-Yamamah Commissions

On January 24, 1996, in a Commons debate on Saudi Arabia, Galloway said under parliamentary privilege that the Al-Yamamah contract had been "landed by British Aerospace as a result of corruption on an unprecedented scale," with "enormous bribes and commissions of up to 30 per cent. of the multi-billion pound deal" shared between the defence minister, Prince Sultan, and his family and the sons of King Fahd, notably Prince Mohammed.¹ He named as middlemen Wafic Said, whom he described as a business partner of the Conservative minister Jonathan Aitken, and Mark Thatcher, son of the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher. He then said: "Some of those secret commissions on the Al Yamamah deal have been handled by British Aerospace through a British business man, Douglas Leese, who has close connections with an offshore bank, the Bank of NT Butterfield in Bermuda."¹

In the same speech Galloway said that a report by Sir John Bourn of the National Audit Office documenting some of the commissions "has been suppressed by the Select Committee on Public Accounts for more than three years," and cited testimony in a United States court by Colonel Thomas Dooley, an executive of Sikorsky, describing a "competition for bribes" over Black Hawk helicopter sales in which, Dooley said, Prince Bandar bin Sultan specified the bribes and the middlemen.¹ Galloway's statements were made under privilege and were not adjudicated. Five years earlier, in October 1991, Galloway had used the same privilege to raise the allegations that Robert Maxwell and the Daily Mirror foreign editor Nicholas Davies were connected to Israeli intelligence.³

The Hoffenberg Introduction

Epstein met Hoffenberg, the head of Towers Financial Corporation, in London in the 1980s. Ward reported in 2003: "According to Hoffenberg, the two men were introduced by Douglas Leese, a defense contractor. Epstein has said they were introduced by John Mitchell, the late attorney general."² Mitchell had been Richard Nixon's attorney general and was imprisoned for his part in the Watergate cover-up. At the time Epstein was running International Assets Group, a consulting company, from his apartment on East 66th Street in New York; he claimed to manage money for billionaires only, but testified in a 1989 deposition that he spent 80 percent of his time helping people recover stolen money from fraudulent brokers and lawyers.² Hoffenberg then took Epstein on as a consultant to Towers, which collapsed in 1993 as a Ponzi scheme.²

The Leese Family and Epstein

Leese had been managing director of his father's steering-gear company, Cam Gears, which was sold in 1965 to the American aerospace and defense contractor TRW. After leaving Bear Stearns in 1981 Epstein traveled regularly to London; according to Julian Leese, he became Leese's protégé and a close friend of Leese's sons Nicholas and Julian. In what Drop Site News called his final recorded interview, given to the journalist Tom Pattinson, Julian Leese said that his father sold radar equipment rather than weapons, that Epstein occasionally advised his father and attended some of his business meetings, that the two had fallen out in the early 1980s over Epstein's use of his father's expense account, and that his father had supported Towers Financial Corporation by introducing Hoffenberg to people in his circle. Julian Leese, who worked briefly as an intern at Towers after university, died in 2024.⁴

The Leese sons remained in contact with Epstein after his 2008 conviction. On June 15, 2010 one of Leese's sons wrote to Epstein: "My boy, V good to speak to you over the weekend . I should be back in CA mid August so it would be great if we can find a way to meet up ....too long and we are not getting younger. My bro called last night and sends lots of love." Epstein replied: "Definitely , my great friend , nicole junkeman is considering moving to Singapore . May I have her call you," referring to the investor Nicole Junkermann.⁵ Epstein's calendar for October 30, 2012 carried the reminder "Julian Leese shooting in Sussex Oct. 30th (he wants JE to be there)."⁶ On January 28, 2013 an entry asked: "does Julian Leese want to meet the Pres of the Maldives?"⁷ On June 24, 2013 Epstein's scheduler, Lesley Groff, wrote that "Julian Leese is in NY and would like to come see you (as you suggested)"; the same day's schedule listed a breakfast with Leon Black and a hoped-for meeting with the defense lawyer Reid Weingarten.⁸ Correspondence with members of the family continued to 2018.⁹ No document located in the Epstein Library records contact between Epstein and Douglas Leese himself.