The former Barclays chief executive Jes Staley and the ex-US Treasury secretary Larry Summers were appointed as executors of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, according to a newly released tranche of documents linked to the deceased child sex offender.
Filings published on Tuesday by the US Department of Justice included various versions of Epstein’s last will and testament, which showed the financier intended to hand responsibility of managing his affairs to associates including the two high-profile men in the event of his death.
Staley’s name initially appears in a 2012 version of Epstein’s will, but as a “successor executor”, meaning he would be required to handle Epstein’s affairs only if others were unable to carry out their duties. However, he appears as a full executor in later versions, dated 2013 and 2014. Summers is also named in the 2014 will as a successor executor, the filings show.
Neither Summers nor Staley are in what appears to be the final version of Epstein’s will in 2019. The well-connected financier died in prison in August 2019 while awaiting trial over child sex trafficking charges.
Larry Summers, left, and his wife, Elisa, in a recently released photo from the House oversight committee. Photograph: AP
The newly released filings will raise further questions about the depth of the two men’s relationships with Epstein, with Staley having already been banned from the UK banking sector for playing down his relationship with the convicted child sex offender.
Summers, an economist and former US Treasury secretary, stepped down from a teaching role at Harvard in November after a previous tranche of documents suggested he stayed in contact with Epstein well into 2019 and ceased shortly before Epstein was arrested in July of that year.
During a tribunal hearing in the spring in which Staley attempted to overturn his ban from the UK financial sector, he was asked whether he was a “trustee” of Epstein’s estate and said he “declined it and refused to be a trustee”.
He later also told the tribunal “I refused to be executor to his estate”, according to court transcripts. While an executor is responsible for executing a plan laid out in a will, a trustee is responsible for managing and distributing assets.
The Financial Conduct Authority’s original investigation, triggered by a cache of more than 1,200 emails between Staley and Epstein, concluded that the pair were “indeed close” and had a relationship that “went beyond one that was professional in nature”.
Staley stepped down as Barclays chief executive in 2021 after the FCA’s investigation became public and he was banned from the UK financial sector in 2023.
A spokesperson for Summers said: “Mr Summers had absolutely no knowledge that he was included in an early version of Epstein’s will and had no involvement in his financial matters or the administration of his estate.”
The Guardian approached representatives for Staley for comment.
