--- alias: - Jay P. Lefkowitz - Jay Lefkowitz - Lefkowitz category: Law Enforcement & Legal created: 2026-09-25 location: New York, New York relations: - end: 2026-03 fn: 1 role: partner type: employed_by with: '[[Kirkland & Ellis]]' - end: 1993 fn: 1 role: deputy executive secretary, then director of cabinet affairs start: 1991 type: employed_by with: '[[Domestic Policy Council]]' - end: 2002-01 fn: 1 role: general counsel start: 2001-03 type: employed_by with: '[[Office of Management and Budget]]' - end: 2003 fn: 1 reverse: true role: Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy start: 2002-01-31 type: appointed with: '[[George W. Bush]]' - end: 2009-01 fn: 2 reverse: true role: Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea start: 2005-08-19 type: appointed with: '[[George W. Bush]]' summary: Kirkland & Ellis litigation partner and veteran of both Bush White Houses who led Jeffrey Epstein's 2007 non-prosecution negotiations while serving as special envoy for human rights in North Korea. tags: - Person - JayLefkowitz - Lawyer - KirklandAndEllis - JeffreyEpstein - NonProsecutionAgreement - GeorgeWBushAdministration - NorthKorea updated: 2026-09-25 --- Jay P. Lefkowitz is an American lawyer, a litigation partner at Kirkland & Ellis and a former official in the administrations of [George H.W. Bush](/people/george-hw-bush/) and [George W. Bush](/people/george-w-bush/), who was the principal defense negotiator of the September 2007 [Epstein non-prosecution agreement](/events/epstein-non-prosecution-agreement/) between [Jeffrey Epstein](/people/jeffrey-epstein/) and the [U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida](/organizations/us-attorneys-office-for-the-southern-district-of-florida/). From August 2005 to January 2009 he was also the part-time Special Envoy for Human Rights in [North Korea](/places/north-korea/), appointed by the second Bush. He retired from Kirkland in March 2026, saying that he would not have taken the Epstein matter "knowing what we all know now."[^1][^2][^3] ### Government Career Lefkowitz took both his undergraduate degree in history and his law degree at Columbia University. From 1991 to 1993 he served in the [White House](/places/white-house/) under George H.W. Bush as deputy executive secretary of the Domestic Policy Council and then as director of cabinet affairs, and in 1990 he was a public member of the United States delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in [Geneva](/places/geneva/). Before joining the second Bush administration he was a partner in the Washington office of Kirkland & Ellis. He became general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget in March 2001, and on January 31, 2002 the White House announced his appointment as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, to "advise the President on a wide range of domestic policy issues and advise the domestic policy council."[^1] On August 19, 2005 President Bush appointed him Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea under the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004. The [State Department](/organizations/state-department/)'s 2006 biography described him in that post as "also a senior partner at Kirkland & Ellis, LLP, where he serves clients in trial and appellate litigation," and noted his 2004 membership of the United States delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe conference on anti-Semitism in [Berlin](/places/berlin/). He filed his final report as envoy in January 2009. A 2013 Kirkland profile dated his government service as 2001 to 2003 in the White House and at the Office of Management and Budget and 2005 to 2009 as envoy, and described his 2011 Supreme Court victory for generic drug manufacturers in Pliva v. Mensing.[^1][^2] ### Entry into the Epstein Defense Epstein's defense had been conducted since 2006 by Roy Black, [Alan Dershowitz](/people/alan-dershowitz/), [Gerald Lefcourt](/people/gerald-lefcourt/), [Lilly Ann Sanchez](/people/lilly-ann-sanchez/) and others. In early August 2007, immediately after the federal office presented a term sheet requiring a state guilty plea, jail time, sex offender registration and civil damages, Epstein added Lefkowitz and [Kenneth Starr](/people/kenneth-starr/), then of counsel to Kirkland & Ellis while dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law. U.S. Attorney [Alexander Acosta](/people/alexander-acosta/) had been an associate at Kirkland a decade earlier and had worked on at least one matter with each of them. On the evening of August 6, 2007, First Assistant U.S. Attorney [Jeffrey Sloman](/people/jeffrey-sloman/) emailed Acosta: "Just saw Menchel. I didn't know Kirkland made a call into you. You were right. Unbelievable." Acosta answered that the Kirkland lawyers "are likely to go to DC. We should strategize a bit. We are not changing positions, and that should be made clear."[^4] Lefkowitz and Starr met Acosta, Sloman, the line prosecutor [A. Marie Villafaña](/people/ann-marie-villafana/) and Drew Oosterbaan, chief of the [Justice Department](/organizations/department-of-justice/)'s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, on September 7, 2007, Acosta's first meeting with the defense. On September 12 Lefkowitz, Lefcourt and [Jack Goldberger](/people/jack-goldberger/) met federal prosecutors with State Attorney [Barry Krischer](/people/barry-krischer/) and Assistant State Attorney [Lanna Belohlavek](/people/lanna-belohlavek/), a session at which, the Justice Department's [Office of Professional Responsibility](/organizations/office-of-professional-responsibility/) later found, "the USAO made additional concessions." On September 19 Villafaña forwarded to her supervisors a defense redline that restored provisions she had already rejected, writing: "This is NOT good faith negotiations."[^4][^5] The final terms were settled in email between Lefkowitz and Villafaña. On September 13 she wrote that she had been "spending some quality time with Title 18 looking for misdemeanors," and he answered that he was "[a]lready thinking about the same statutes." On September 20 an internal email reported that he wanted the registration requirement removed; on September 23 he wrote that the defense had agreed to plead to Florida Statute 796.03 on a "mistaken assumption," and Acosta told him to deal directly with [Andrew Lourie](/people/andrew-lourie/) and Villafaña. On September 24, as the agreement was executed, Lefkowitz wrote: "Please do whatever you can to keep this from becoming public." It was signed for the defense by Epstein, Sanchez and Lefcourt.[^5][^6][^7] ### After the Signing On October 10, 2007 Lefkowitz wrote to Acosta that "[n]either federal agents nor anyone from your Office should contact the identified individuals." Acosta met him for breakfast on October 12, and Lefkowitz's follow-up letter thanked him "for the commitment you made to me during our October 12 meeting in which you . . . assured me that your Office would not . . . contact any of the identified individuals, potential witnesses, or potential civil claimants." The Office of Professional Responsibility found no evidence that the breakfast "led to the NPA, which had been signed weeks earlier, or to any other significant decision that benefited Epstein." When Sloman moved in late November 2007 to notify victims under the Justice for All Act of 2004, Lefkowitz objected on November 29 that victims should not be invited to the state sentencing or "encouraged to contact law enforcement officials."[^6][^8] On December 11, 2007 Starr transmitted to Acosta two submissions written by Lefkowitz, one of them a 20-page attack on the "improper involvement" of federal authorities that accused Villafaña of "unprecedented federal overreaching" and of forcing a registrable plea. The same day the office answered Lefkowitz in a five-page letter issued over Acosta's name and written by the line prosecutor, who described herself as "a simple line AUSA" who had "handled the primary negotiations for the Office." It stated that she had continued to deal with him professionally "even after I learned that you had been proceeding in bad faith for several weeks," thinking she had wrongly treated solicitation of minors as registrable "and that you would 'fool' our Office into letting Mr. Epstein plead to a non-registrable offense," that "neither you nor your client ever intended to abide by the terms of the agreement that he signed," and that "you repeatedly went over my head, involving Messrs [redacted] and Acosta in the negotiations at various times." The letter stated that he and his co-counsel had contacted a federal judge in an attempt to "lobby" him over the choice of the victims' attorney representative, a selection the agreement reserved to the office.[^4][^9] Starr and Lefkowitz sent Acosta a 110-page letter on December 17, 2007. On January 3, 2008 Acosta recorded a telephone statement from Lefkowitz: "I may have made a mistake 6 months ago. [Belohlavek] told us solicitation [is] not registrable. It turns out that the actual offense charged is." Through the spring Lefkowitz pressed the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, telling Oosterbaan its role should be "review only," and he and Starr then sought review by the Criminal Division and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. On June 23, 2008 Senior Associate Deputy Attorney General John Roth wrote to both men that intervention was not warranted and that "[e]ven if we were to substitute our judgment for that of the U.S. Attorney, we believe that federal prosecution of this case is appropriate." Epstein pleaded guilty in state court a week later.[^4][^7] In late 2008, while considering employment at Kirkland & Ellis, Acosta stopped receiving email on the Epstein matter and obtained formal Department approval of his recusal because he had "begun to discuss possible employment" with the firm. On June 15, 2009, with Epstein on work release, Villafaña wrote to Lefkowitz, Black and Goldberger on the history of Epstein's performance under the agreement. In March 2011 the victims in [Doe v. United States](/events/doe-v-united-states/), the [Crime Victims' Rights Act](/concepts/crime-victims-rights-act/) case, moved to use the plea correspondence as evidence and to unseal it; on April 7, 2011 Lefkowitz, Black and Martin Weinberg moved to intervene in their own names, and Lefkowitz was admitted pro hac vice on April 18. Epstein moved for limited intervention on September 2, 2011.[^4][^7][^10] ### Later Contacts In March 2011 the general counsel of [JPMorgan](/organizations/jpmorgan-chase/)'s investment bank reported to the bank's general counsel, [Stephen Cutler](/people/stephen-cutler/), a conversation with Lefkowitz, who "represented Epstein in state plea/fed NPA process" and believed that "any pre-plea conduct is subsumed within plea/NPA." The exchange was entered in 2023 in the [Virgin Islands' suit against JPMorgan](/events/government-of-the-united-states-virgin-islands-v-jpmorgan-chase-bank/).[^11] The Office of Professional Responsibility's November 2020 report found that Epstein had hired Starr and Lefkowitz "when Epstein was seeking Acosta's personal involvement in the case," attorneys "with whom Acosta was acquainted from his previous employment with that firm," and concluded that the evidence did not establish that Acosta extended any improper benefit because of those relationships. Villafaña told the office that "the ability of Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr and Jay Lefkowitz to convince Alex Acosta that I didn't know what I was talking [about] also, all came into play."[^4] On his retirement from Kirkland in March 2026 after three decades at the firm, Lefkowitz said: "Although I believe everyone is entitled to representation no matter how heinous their crimes, knowing what we all know now, I would not have taken on the Epstein matter." A Kirkland spokesperson said: "To say the least, we deeply regret the firm's 2007 representation of Jeffrey Epstein."[^3] [^1]: The White House (George W. Bush archives), "Personnel Announcement," January 31, 2002. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020131-10.html ; Kirkland & Ellis LLP, "Q&A With Kirkland's Jay Lefkowitz" (Law360), February 27, 2013. https://www.kirkland.com/news/in-the-news/2013/02/qa-with-kirklands-jay-lefkowitz [^2]: U.S. Department of State, "Jay Lefkowitz, Special Envoy, Human Rights in North Korea," biography, released May 25, 2006 (term of appointment from August 19, 2005). https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/66929.htm ; "Final Report of Jay Lefkowitz, U.S. Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea," January 2009. https://2009-2017.state.gov/s/senk/115268.htm [^3]: "Jeffrey Epstein's Disgraced Lawyer Jay Lefkowitz Who Secured Sweetheart Deal Leaves Firm," *The Daily Beast,* March 2026, quoting Lefkowitz's retirement statement and a Kirkland & Ellis spokesperson. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epsteins-disgraced-lawyer-jay-lefkowitz-who-secured-sweetheart-deal-leaves-firm/ [^4]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284, Prior DOJ Disclosures, Office of Professional Responsibility, report, "Investigation into the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida's Resolution of Its 2006-2008 Federal Criminal Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and Its Interactions with Victims during the Investigation," November 2020, pp. 9, 59, 62-64, 76, 97-99, 101, 105, 109-110, 150-152. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Prior%20DOJ%20Disclosures/Memos.%20&%20Correspondence/EFTA02847284.pdf [^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00224943, DataSet 9, "Epstein Investigation Timeline," Exhibit A-1, privileged chronology of the federal investigation, pp. 12 to 14, 19 to 20, 24 to 29. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00224943.pdf [^6]: Opinion and Order, *Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 v. United States*, No. 9:08-cv-80736-KAM (S.D. Fla. Feb. 21, 2019), ECF No. 435 (Marra, J.), reported at 359 F. Supp. 3d 1201, quoting ECF No. 407 at paragraphs 33, 37, 52, 61, 63, 82. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.317867/gov.uscourts.flsd.317867.435.0.pdf [^7]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00224943, DataSet 9, "Epstein Investigation Timeline," Exhibit A-1, pp. 34 to 38, 45 to 51. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00224943.pdf ; U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284 (note 4), p. 85 (signatories of the agreement). [^8]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, Executive Summary of the November 2020 report, pp. i-xi. https://www.justice.gov/opr/page/file/1336471/dl [^9]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00013538, DataSet 8, letter, U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida to Jay P. Lefkowitz, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, "Re: Jeffrey Epstein," December 11, 2007, EFTA00013538 to EFTA00013542, signed over the block "R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney, By:" with Acosta copied, and written in the first person by the line Assistant U.S. Attorney. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%208/EFTA00013538.pdf [^10]: Docket, *Doe v. United States*, No. 9:08-cv-80736-KAM (S.D. Fla.), ECF Nos. 48, 51, 56, 68, 70, 93 (March to September 2011), CourtListener. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4502088/doe-v-united-states/ [^11]: Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 1:22-cv-10904-JSR (S.D.N.Y.), Plaintiff's Statement of Material Facts, ECF No. 221 (filed July 24, 2023), paras. 123-124, 374. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.591653/gov.uscourts.nysd.591653.221.0.pdf