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Paul Simon Barrett

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ByEpsteinWiki
Paul Barrett

Former JPMorgan private banker who continued working with Jeffrey Epstein after the bank ended Epstein’s client relationship, then established Alpha Group Capital and managed investments for Epstein and his entities from 2017 into 2019.

Snapshot

Full name: Paul Simon Barrett
Nationality: South African by origin
Profession: Private banker, investment adviser, and family office specialist
Known employers and firms: JPMorgan Chase, Alpha Group Capital LLC, Citigroup, River Road Advisors, and Ravine Road Advisors
FINRA identifier: CRD 4253570
Connection to Jeffrey Epstein: JPMorgan coverage banker, business contact, and later outside investment manager
Documented period of contact: At least 2010 through July 2019, with the most consequential independent advisory relationship beginning in 2017
Criminal status: No Epstein related criminal charge against Barrett was identified as of September 17, 2026
Civil and regulatory status: Barrett lost a FINRA employment arbitration against Citi in July 2025. The dispute concerned his termination and related claims, not participation in Epstein’s crimes.

Key Takeaways

  • Barrett spent nearly two decades at JPMorgan’s private bank and was one of the bankers who covered Epstein.
  • Records show that Barrett remained in contact with Epstein after JPMorgan ended Epstein’s direct client relationship in 2013. A 2026 Senate Finance Committee staff report said Barrett met Epstein numerous times from 2014 onward while pursuing business connected to Leon Black.
  • In 2017 Barrett proposed leaving JPMorgan and building an investment operation that would manage assets for Epstein and associated entities. He formed Alpha Group Capital and began operating it later that year.
  • Released records document a proposed annual advisory fee, forgivable loans, trading authority, brokerage activity, derivatives discussions, weekly investment reports, and a trust provision addressing debt owed by Barrett or his company.
  • Financial Times reporting based on released records said Barrett managed Epstein’s investments through Alpha Group from 2017 into 2019 and described Epstein as an important client.
  • Citi hired Barrett in 2019 to oversee family office business in North America. Citi ended his employment in April 2023 after reporting about his earlier Epstein meetings. Citi said it had only recently learned of the association. Barrett’s lawyers later asserted that some Citi personnel already knew about it.
  • Senator Ron Wyden’s investigative staff named Barrett among bankers whose conduct concerning Epstein and Leon Black merited investigation by prosecutors and financial regulators. That recommendation is not a criminal charge or judicial finding.
  • No public record reviewed for this article establishes that Barrett knew about or participated in Epstein’s sexual abuse or trafficking. No public survivor allegation against Barrett personally was identified.

Overview

Paul Simon Barrett is a former JPMorgan private banker whose relationship with Jeffrey Epstein developed into a direct investment management arrangement after Barrett left the bank. The documentary record places him in two distinct roles.

First, Barrett worked inside JPMorgan. Emails and scheduling records show him communicating with Epstein about investments, meetings, and business opportunities. This continued after JPMorgan terminated Epstein as a client in 2013. The later contacts are significant because Epstein had already pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to offenses involving a minor and was a registered sex offender.

Second, Barrett created Alpha Group Capital LLC in 2017 and managed money for Epstein and his entities outside JPMorgan. Released correspondence describes proposed compensation, loans, trading authority, account activity, and repeated reporting to Epstein. By 2018 a Deutsche Bank email stated that Barrett managed money for Epstein and traded across asset classes. Records and later court filings show that the business relationship continued into 2019.

Barrett’s presence in the record is therefore more substantial than a name in an address book or a single social encounter. At the same time, the evidence reviewed here concerns banking, investment management, business development, and employment. It does not by itself establish knowledge of or participation in Epstein’s sexual crimes.

Identity Verification

The person in these records is Paul Simon Barrett, not another individual with the same name. New York court decisions in Citi Private Advisory, LLC v. Barrett identify the respondent as Paul Simon Barrett. FINRA BrokerCheck associates him with CRD 4253570. Released records also use his full name and identify Alpha Group Capital.

The Financial Times reported that Barrett is originally from South Africa and joined JPMorgan’s private bank around 2000. His work focused on wealthy clients interested in active and complex investment strategies. The same reporting identified him as one of several coverage bankers assigned to Epstein.

Financial Career

Barrett worked at JPMorgan for nearly two decades. His documented work included investment ideas involving equities, bonds, options, currencies, and other products for wealthy private bank clients.

Barrett incorporated Alpha Group Capital LLC in July 2017. The firm began operating in September 2017, around the end of Barrett’s JPMorgan registration. Alpha was a registered investment adviser. Its final federal filing in January 2019 reported approximately $252 million under management for 25 high net worth clients. Public records do not identify all of those clients.

Barrett signed an offer letter with Citi in June 2019 and began work there in July. He became a managing director and oversaw family office or private capital business in North America. Alpha’s registration ended in August 2019.

Citi ended Barrett’s employment in April 2023. Barrett later established River Road Advisors. FINRA records should be consulted for his current registration status because employment and advisory registrations can change.

JPMorgan and Epstein

The released record shows direct communications between Barrett and Epstein during Barrett’s JPMorgan years. An email from November 2010 is among the earliest presently indexed communications. Later records include investment discussions, meeting arrangements, and direct messages addressed to Epstein.

Barrett’s role was not limited to routine account administration. Financial Times reporting described him as a coverage banker who pitched investment ideas across asset classes. One set of 2011 communications concerned ways to take a negative position on the Israeli market after Epstein asked Barrett and senior JPMorgan executive Jes Staley about the subject.

Scheduling records also place Barrett with Justin Nelson, another JPMorgan private banker who appears repeatedly in the Epstein record. An October 2012 item names Nelson and Barrett in connection with a meeting or call. An October 2013 email thread involved Epstein, Barrett, and Staley.

JPMorgan ended Epstein’s direct client relationship in 2013. Yet records examined by the Senate Finance Committee staff show that some JPMorgan personnel continued using Epstein as an introduction or access point to other wealthy prospects. Barrett’s later communications with Epstein must be understood in that context.

JPMorgan has said that Barrett developed a personal relationship with Epstein that he did not disclose and that the bank did not authorize or sanction that relationship. Barrett has maintained in legal filings that he did nothing improper involving Epstein or Epstein’s accounts and did not know of illicit activity.

Post 2013 Contact and Leon Black

The 2026 report issued by Senator Ron Wyden’s investigative staff states that Barrett met Epstein numerous times in 2014 and afterward while pursuing business with Leon Black. Black was the billionaire cofounder of Apollo Global Management and paid Epstein very large sums for tax and estate planning advice.

The report highlights an August 13, 2014 exchange. Epstein asked Barrett whether matters were set for Leon and wrote that $10 million had been wired the previous day. Barrett replied by asking whether Epstein wanted to meet Leon together. The source records are EFTA00633809 and EFTA02387413.

Another email from Epstein to the head of Black’s family office said, “Paul will do as I say.” The source is EFTA01922351. The message establishes Epstein’s own claim of influence over Barrett in that business context. It does not independently prove that Barrett accepted every direction or knew the purpose of the transfers under discussion.

These records matter because they show Epstein remaining commercially useful to JPMorgan bankers after the bank had formally removed him as a client. They also raise questions about what internal approval, supervision, and compliance review applied to the continuing contacts.

Leaving JPMorgan

In April 2017 Barrett sent Epstein a proposed compensation structure for a new working arrangement. The proposal described an annual fee of $250,000, paid in two installments, plus an upfront forgivable loan. The structure was to repeat for three years. The email appears in EFTA00710363.

Barrett left JPMorgan in 2017. Reporting places his practical departure in June, while regulatory records show the end of his JPMorgan registration in September. He incorporated Alpha Group Capital in July and began operations in September.

A July 27, 2017 email to Epstein lawyer Darren Indyke distinguished two entities. Osborne Lane Capital LLC was associated with two loans, while Alpha Group Capital LLC was described as the investment business. That record is EFTA00633353.

The sequence indicates that the transition involved more than an ordinary change of employer. It included a negotiated compensation plan, personal or company borrowing, formation of a new advisory firm, and a continuing business relationship with Epstein.

Alpha Group Capital

The Financial Times reported that a two year advisory agreement dated September 18, 2017 contemplated annual payments of $500,000 from Epstein’s Southern Trust Company to Alpha Group. The copy described in the released files was unsigned. In later correspondence Barrett described the overall agreement as worth approximately $1.1 million over two years.

The proposed mandate gave Barrett broad authority over investments. It included initial public offerings, secondary market trading, bonds, equities, currencies, swaps, and other derivatives. Reported limits included $5 million for individual bond or equity positions and $10 million for foreign exchange and swap positions.

Barrett also received limited powers of attorney for several Epstein brokerage accounts. Communications indicate that Alpha placed or coordinated transactions through Deutsche Bank. Barrett was acting as Epstein’s outside manager and trader in those records. He was not a Deutsche Bank employee.

A July 26, 2018 Alpha email to Deutsche Bank personnel concerned over the counter equity derivatives for Southern Financial. It is preserved as EFTA01383897. Other records discuss equities, options, currencies, structured strategies, and private investment opportunities.

Weekly reports carrying titles such as “Paul Barrett / Epstein week of 11/20/2017” and “Paul Barrett / Epstein week of 12/11/17” document recurring portfolio reporting. Their titles and repetition support the conclusion that this was an organized management relationship, not occasional informal advice.

By late 2018 the relationship appears to have become strained. Barrett wrote to Epstein about compensation, performance, and his willingness to continue in whatever capacity Epstein preferred. In one released message he reminded Epstein that he had left a strong JPMorgan career to work with him. In another, quoted by the Financial Times, Barrett said they had made substantial money together over the years.

The relationship continued into 2019. A May 28, 2019 email and attachment included an Alpha invoice for a $29,000 monthly management fee and asked that payment be wired to Alpha Group Capital. The New York court later identified that email among the public exhibits in the Citi litigation.

Fee, Loan, and Trust Arrangements

The available records describe several separate financial mechanisms between Barrett, his companies, and Epstein related entities.

  • The April 2017 proposal contemplated an annual fee and forgivable loans.
  • The September 2017 advisory materials described annual compensation from Southern Trust Company to Alpha Group.
  • The July 2017 Indyke email associated Osborne Lane Capital with two loans and Alpha Group with the investment business.
  • A 2017 Epstein trust instrument contained a provision addressing obligations owed by Barrett or Osborne Lane Capital to Epstein or Southern Financial. The provision directed the trust to distribute an amount equal to those obligations so that the liabilities would be treated as repaid. A released copy appears as EFTA01266134.

The trust language is important because it shows that the financial relationship could affect Epstein’s estate planning, not merely Alpha’s monthly advisory invoices. It should not be described as an actual debt cancellation without confirming whether the trust became operative, whether the obligations remained outstanding, and whether the relevant provision was ever applied.

Citigroup Employment and Termination

Citi hired Barrett in 2019 to help lead its business with family offices and private capital clients in North America. The hiring occurred shortly after Barrett’s last documented management work for Epstein and around the time Alpha Group ceased operating as a registered adviser.

On April 25, 2023, Reuters reported that Barrett had left Citi after press reports disclosed meetings with Epstein during Barrett’s JPMorgan tenure. Citi stated that it had been unaware until recently of Barrett’s association with Epstein, which predated his Citi employment, and confirmed that he was no longer employed by the bank.

Later court records presented conflicting accounts of what Citi knew and when. Citi said it learned only weeks before Barrett’s termination that Epstein had been a significant client of Barrett’s registered investment adviser. Barrett’s lawyers asserted that several Citi bankers involved in hiring him knew he had worked with Epstein at JPMorgan and Alpha. A text exchange submitted in the litigation also referred to Epstein as Barrett’s anchor client.

Those are competing litigation positions. The available decisions about sealing did not adjudicate which account was true.

FINRA Arbitration and New York Litigation

Barrett began a FINRA arbitration against Citi in September 2023. He asserted claims including defamation, libel, slander, and breach of contract arising from his termination and the surrounding statements. In July 2025 the arbitration panel denied his claims.

Citi then petitioned the New York Supreme Court to confirm the award. The resulting public docket included emails between Barrett, Epstein, and Epstein accountant Richard Kahn from November 2018 through July 2019.

In an October 27, 2025 decision, the court denied Barrett’s initial request to seal or redact those exhibits without prejudice. The court found that he had not provided sufficient evidence or narrowly targeted proposed redactions. On December 21, 2025, the court denied a renewed sealing request with prejudice, again finding the proposed redactions too broad and noting that the documents had already remained publicly available.

These rulings concerned public access to court records. They were not findings that Barrett participated in Epstein’s criminal conduct. The FINRA award concerned Barrett’s employment dispute with Citi, not criminal liability.

Senate Finance Committee Investigation

In August 2026 Senator Ron Wyden’s investigative staff released a report on financial institutions and transactions connected to Epstein. The report said the conduct of individual bankers handling accounts associated with Epstein and Leon Black merited investigation by federal prosecutors and financial regulators. Barrett was among the bankers named.

The report used the 2014 Barrett emails as examples of JPMorgan personnel continuing to work through Epstein after the bank had ended Epstein’s direct client relationship. It also recommended that the House Oversight Committee consider subpoenas for communications involving Barrett and other bankers.

The report represents the findings and recommendations of Senator Wyden’s investigative staff. It is not an indictment, regulatory order, or judgment. As of the date of this article, no public Epstein related criminal charge against Barrett was identified.

Relevant Timeline

Around 2000: Barrett joins JPMorgan’s private bank.

November 2010: One of the earliest presently indexed direct email records connects Barrett and Epstein.

2011: Records show investment discussions involving equities, bonds, options, and a possible negative position on the Israeli market.

October 2012: A scheduling record names Barrett and Justin Nelson in connection with Epstein.

2013: JPMorgan ends Epstein’s direct client relationship. Barrett remains in contact with him.

August 13, 2014: Epstein asks Barrett about a $10 million transfer connected to Leon Black. Barrett proposes meeting Black together.

2014 onward: According to the Senate Finance staff report, Barrett meets Epstein numerous times while pursuing business connected to Black.

April 25, 2017: Barrett sends Epstein a compensation proposal involving annual fees and forgivable loans.

June 2017: Reporting places Barrett’s departure from JPMorgan around this time.

July 2017: Barrett incorporates Alpha Group Capital. A message to Darren Indyke separates the investment business from loans associated with Osborne Lane Capital.

September 2017: Alpha begins operating. An advisory agreement with Southern Trust Company is dated September 18.

November and December 2017: Recurring weekly reports document Alpha’s work for Epstein.

2018: Alpha communications show trading and investment activity conducted for Epstein entities through Deutsche Bank accounts. Barrett and Epstein exchange messages about their business relationship and compensation.

January 2019: Alpha reports approximately $252 million under management for 25 clients in its final federal filing.

May 2019: Barrett sends Richard Kahn an invoice for a $29,000 monthly management fee.

June 2019: Barrett signs a Citi offer letter.

July 2019: Barrett begins working at Citi. A July 16 email to Kahn is among the later records placed on the public court docket.

August 2019: Alpha’s registration terminates after Epstein’s death.

April 2023: Citi ends Barrett’s employment after reporting about his Epstein meetings becomes public.

September 2023: Barrett commences FINRA arbitration against Citi.

July 2025: FINRA denies Barrett’s claims. Citi seeks court confirmation of the award.

October and December 2025: The New York Supreme Court denies Barrett’s requests to seal or broadly redact the emails filed in the confirmation proceeding.

February 2026: The Financial Times reports in detail on Alpha Group’s management of Epstein’s investments.

August 2026: Senator Wyden’s investigative staff recommends further investigation of Barrett and other bankers.

Evidence Appearances

The following records are especially relevant. A document’s inclusion does not mean every statement in it is true, nor does an appearance establish criminal conduct.

Legal Status and Evidence Limits

No Epstein related criminal charge against Barrett was found in the public sources reviewed for this article. No court finding that he knew of or participated in Epstein’s sexual abuse or trafficking was identified. No public survivor accusation against Barrett personally was identified.

Barrett’s documented financial work for Epstein, continued post 2013 contacts, compensation arrangements, and later employment dispute are matters of legitimate public interest. They warrant scrutiny because financial institutions and advisers can provide the infrastructure through which wealthy offenders preserve influence, move money, and maintain access to elite networks. That context does not eliminate the need to distinguish evidence of financial service from evidence of criminal knowledge or assistance.

Barrett has said through legal filings that he did nothing inappropriate involving Epstein or Epstein’s accounts and was unaware of illicit activity. Citi’s employment decision, the denial of Barrett’s arbitration claims, and Senator Wyden’s request for further investigation do not substitute for a criminal charge or finding of liability.

The EFTA collection contains duplicates, partial threads, scanned records, and documents created by different parties. Dates, senders, recipients, attachments, and surrounding threads should be checked in the original files before drawing conclusions from isolated excerpts.

Related EpsteinWiki Pages

  • Jeffrey Epstein
  • JPMorgan Chase
  • Citigroup
  • Deutsche Bank
  • Leon Black
  • Justin Nelson
  • Jes Staley
  • Mary Erdoes
  • Darren Indyke
  • Richard Kahn
  • Southern Trust Company
  • Southern Financial
  • Alpha Group Capital
  • Osborne Lane Capital

Questions for Investigators

  1. What did Barrett disclose to JPMorgan about his meetings and communications with Epstein after the bank ended Epstein’s client relationship?
  2. Which JPMorgan supervisors, compliance officers, and senior executives approved or knew about efforts to use Epstein as an introduction to Leon Black and other prospects?
  3. What services did Barrett or JPMorgan provide in connection with the August 2014 transfer discussed with Epstein, and what due diligence was performed?
  4. Why did Epstein tell Black’s family office that Barrett would follow his direction, and how did Barrett understand his role?
  5. What were the final executed terms of Alpha Group’s arrangement with Southern Trust Company, and were all fees, loans, and potential conflicts disclosed to regulators and other clients?
  6. What were the two loans associated with Osborne Lane Capital, who funded them, and were they repaid or forgiven?
  7. Did the trust provision concerning Barrett or Osborne Lane obligations ever take effect?
  8. Which Epstein accounts granted Barrett trading authority or power of attorney, and what transactions did he execute in each account?
  9. What compliance reviews did Deutsche Bank perform when an outside manager traded for Epstein entities across multiple asset classes?
  10. What did Alpha Group’s other clients know about Epstein’s importance to the firm, and did his role create concentration or reputational risks?
  11. What did Citi personnel know about Barrett’s work for Epstein during recruitment, onboarding, and later internal reviews?
  12. Did Barrett preserve and produce all responsive communications to regulators, congressional investigators, the FINRA panel, and courts?
  13. Did any transaction managed or recommended by Barrett involve payments to alleged victims, recruiters, employees, or entities implicated in Epstein’s trafficking operation?
  14. Have federal prosecutors or financial regulators examined the conduct identified in Senator Wyden’s report, and what conclusions did they reach?

Sources

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