npr:

A coterie of intimidating lawyers. A deployment of charm. An aura of invincibility. A five-figure donation to a New York Times reporter’s favored nonprofit. A bullet delivering a message. Even, it is alleged, a cat’s severed head in the front yard of the editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair.

Such were the tools the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein is said to have used to try to soften news coverage and at times stave off journalistic scrutiny altogether.

Before his death earlier this month, Epstein owned the largest townhouse in Manhattan, little more than a mile from many of the nation’s leading news organizations. He counted a former and a future president among his friends. He partied with royalty and supermodels. He was said to advise billionaires.

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