Richard Kahn Was Inside Epstein's Wires, Southern Trust, and a $20 Million Bequest

Richard Kahn appears in 48,081 normalized DOJ File Transparency Act records, but the number matters less than the pattern inside the documents themselves [1]. Across bank files, trust agreements, onboarding packages, and internal compliance emails, Kahn shows up wherever Jeffrey Epstein's money needed an identified human operator attached to it [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. A confidential financial contacts list says Kahn could email wires for Epstein accounts and verbally confirm them in Harry Beller's absence [2]. A March 19, 2013 board consent for Southern Trust Company, Inc. lists Jeffrey Epstein, Darren K. Indyke, and Richard Kahn as the corporation's directors [3]. Deutsche Bank AML staff later wrote that Kahn and Indyke had to be treated as control persons because they controlled Southern Trust Company, which was the sole member of Southern Financial LLC [4]. A 2016 J.P. Morgan entity account application for Southern Trust lists Jeffrey Epstein as the 100% controlling owner and Richard Kahn as the authorized contact person [5]. By September 2018, Kahn was pressing Deutsche Bank to open a Butterfly Trust brokerage account described internally as an irrevocable trust with several of Epstein's employees as beneficiaries [6]. In January and February 2019, trust agreements placed Darren Indyke and Richard D. Kahn in the trustee seats, and the amended February 4 version directed a $20 million bequest to "Richard David Kahn" [7][8]. Hours later, Kahn emailed Karyna Shuliak saying Epstein had asked him to send a $150,000 wire from Butterfly Trust [9]. These records place Kahn inside the wiring, entity control, brokerage setup, and trust machinery itself.

Start with the simplest document in the set: a one-page contact sheet prepared for a period when Epstein would be unreachable. It is operational paperwork, and it says Kahn "will email wires for Epstein accounts" and "has authority to verbally confirm wires in Harry's absence" [2]. On its face, the document places Kahn in the approval chain for money moving out of Epstein's personal accounts and NES, LLC [2]. The later Southern Trust records show that role was part of a larger structure. The March 2013 board consent for Southern Trust identifies Kahn as one of only three directors, alongside Epstein and Indyke [3]. By December 2014, Deutsche Bank's onboarding and AML staff were asking for proof of appointment of that board and insisting that Kahn and Indyke be run as control persons because they controlled Southern Trust Company, which in turn was the sole member of Southern Financial LLC [4]. In a separate alert review, the bank described "our client name" Richard Kahn as the "controlling person of Southern Financial LLC" while distinguishing him from unrelated Richard Kahn alerts [4]. A 2016 J.P. Morgan application pushed the same structure into another bank's files: Epstein as 100% controlling owner of Southern Trust, Kahn as the contact person, Southern Trust as the account name [5]. By the time these records reach J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank, Kahn appears in the control paperwork banks use to decide who speaks for the entity.

The trust story in the files begins before the January and February 2019 documents that now get the most attention. On September 25, 2018, Deutsche Bank wealth-management staff circulated an internal email about "Butterfly brokerage" that described the vehicle in unusually blunt terms: it was "a trust with several of Epstein's employees as beneficiaries, and him as grantor," and Epstein would "have trading authority along with the trustee" even though the assets were "no longer his since the trust is irrevocable" [6]. The email was not written by a gossip columnist or an outside litigant. It was written inside the bank while staff were trying to determine account coverage and eligibility standards [6]. Kahn appears inside the same chain asking Stewart Oldfield for an update on when the account could be opened, adding that Epstein had asked about it a month earlier [6]. That matters because it places Kahn in the live brokerage setup, not merely in back-office cleanup after the fact [6]. A separate confidential authorized-signer matrix reinforces the breadth of his presence: Richard D. Kahn appears there as authorized signer for HBRK Associates Inc. and for the 2007 Jeffrey E. Epstein Insurance Trust #3, among a broader constellation of Epstein-linked companies and trusts [10]. The pattern across these records is structural and repetitive. Months before Epstein's 2019 arrest, bankers were already treating at least one irrevocable trust connected to him as a client vehicle with employee beneficiaries, shared trading authority, and Kahn in the account-opening flow.

The January 18, 2019 trust agreement is the first hard correction to the weaker version of this article. That document names Darren K. Indyke and Richard D. Kahn as trustees and expressly states that it revokes "The Jeffrey E. Epstein 2018 Trust" [7]. The February 4, 2019 amended and restated version keeps Indyke and Kahn in those trustee roles and goes further: page 5 directs a $20 million bequest to "RICHARD DAVID KAHN, if he survives me" [8]. The same amended trust also contains a continuity clause for employees and service providers. Section 2.5 says that beneficiaries who had been employed by or provided services to Epstein, his entities, HBRK Associates, Inc., or entities owned by Darren Indyke had to remain in place for two years after Epstein's death to preserve their bequests, and it directs the trustees to keep those workers in place for that period absent cause for termination [8]. That language matters because it treats the trust not only as a distribution instrument, but as a continuity plan for the operating network around Epstein's assets [8]. Then comes the same-day wire email. On February 4, 2019, Kahn wrote to Karyna Shuliak that "jeffrey asked me" to send a $150,000 wire from Butterfly Trust to a JPMorgan Chase account ending in 2898, then followed up that evening asking whether it was "ok to send wire today" [9]. The same week Kahn appears in Epstein's trust as both trustee and major beneficiary, he is still moving money at Epstein's direction.

The local document set explains why Kahn keeps resurfacing in the public accountability fights of 2025 and 2026. On December 2, 2025, Senate Finance Committee Democrats released a document request to Treasury and the IRS that specifically named Richard D. Kahn, Southern Trust Company, Southern Financial LLC, Butterfly Trust, the 1953 Trust, and multiple related accounts and entities in their demand for records tied to Epstein's financial network [13]. On January 23, 2026, Rep. Robert Garcia said the House Oversight Committee had formally issued subpoenas to Kahn, Indyke, Leslie Wexner, and former federal officials, adding that survivors had told the committee Kahn and Indyke may have known about Epstein's conduct and helped facilitate it through their management of his legal and financial affairs [11]. In February 2026, Reuters reported that Kahn and Indyke, acting as co-executors of Epstein's estate, had agreed to a proposed settlement of up to $35 million with women who accused the estate of enabling Epstein's abuse; Reuters also reported that the deal involved no admission or concession of wrongdoing by either man [12]. Those public steps do not prove every allegation made against Kahn. They do show that investigators, lawmakers, and plaintiffs continue to circle the same architecture visible in the local files: Southern Trust, Southern Financial, Butterfly Trust, HBRK Associates, and the 2019 trust documents that placed Kahn inside the structure [3][4][5][6][8][10].

These records establish structure and timing. They leave open who drafted each trust provision, whether Butterfly brokerage ultimately opened on the exact terms discussed in September 2018, how much of the February 4 trust was ever funded before Epstein's death, and which distributions were actually paid under the later estate administration [6][7][8][9]. They also leave unresolved what Kahn knew about every underlying abuse allegation at the moment each bank form, trust clause, or wire instruction moved through his hands [2][3][4][5][8][9]. Those gaps matter. So does the pattern that remains after the gaps are set aside. Kahn repeatedly appears where money needed to move, where banks needed a human control person, where trusts needed a trustee, and where Epstein's estate needed continuity after his death [2][4][5][6][7][8][9]. That is the central finding here. It rests on the DOJ files themselves, plus public reporting and official statements that show why Kahn remains under scrutiny in 2026 [11][12][13]. The files linked below are the government's own records. Read them.