TLDR
One of Manhattan's largest private residences — the 28,000 square-foot Herbert N. Straus House at 9 East 71st Street — passed through three corporate entities over two decades, ultimately transferring offshore to a U.S. Virgin Islands shell company for zero dollars. Epstein signed for both sides of that final transaction, eliminating any pretense of a genuine, independent deal.
From Wexner to Epstein: The Corporate Chain
The story of 9 East 71st Street is a story told in corporate filings. On August 25, 1989, Nine East 71st Street Corporation was registered as a New York domestic business corporation with its principal office at 575 Lexington Avenue, Floor 4 (New York Department of State [NY DOS], 1989). Jeffrey Epstein served as CEO. The corporation was the vehicle through which Leslie Wexner originally held the 40-room mansion.
In 1998, Wexner sold Nine East 71st Street Corp. to NES LLC, a new domestic limited liability company filed on August 13, 1998 under DOS ID 2288572 (NY DOS, 1998). NES LLC is currently listed as active with the New York Department of State, with Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn as officers. The transfer moved the mansion from Wexner's orbit into Epstein's direct control.
What happened next is where the corporate architecture becomes revealing.
The $0 Offshore Transfer
In 2011, NES LLC transferred the mansion to Maple Inc. — a U.S. Virgin Islands entity — for zero dollars in recorded consideration (PAPER TRAIL Project, 2026a). Epstein signed the transaction documents for both sides: as representative of NES LLC, the seller, and as representative of Maple Inc., the buyer. There was no independent party on either end. One person, two signatures, and one of Manhattan's most valuable residential properties moved offshore without a dollar changing hands.
The $0 transfer price is not merely unusual — it is the defining feature. This was not a market transaction. It was an internal restructuring that placed the property under U.S. Virgin Islands jurisdiction while maintaining the same beneficial owner (the real person who ultimately controls and profits from an entity). The requirement for an independent, fair-market deal that normally governs real estate transfers was rendered meaningless when the same individual controlled both entities.
Address Migration
On October 16, 2013, NES LLC changed its registered address from 9 East 71st Street, New York to 6100 Red Hook Quarter, St. Thomas, USVI (NY DOS, 2013). This address change formalized what the $0 transfer had already accomplished: the legal infrastructure surrounding the mansion had moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands, joining at least seven other Epstein entities already registered at that address.
Meanwhile, Nine East 71st Street Corporation — the original Wexner-era entity — was dissolved on May 14, 2015 (NY DOS, 2015). By then, the property had been offshore for four years. The dissolution was administrative cleanup for a shell that had served its purpose.
The Property Itself
The Herbert N. Straus House is not a typical Manhattan townhouse. At approximately 28,000 square feet across 40 rooms, it is one of the largest private residences in Manhattan ("Herbert N. Straus House," n.d.). The scale of the property matched the scale of the financial architecture used to hold it. During the period of Epstein's ownership, it served as both residence and operational headquarters — the location where the activities documented in court filings and victim testimony took place.
The Estate Sale
After Epstein's death on August 10, 2019, the mansion entered the estate liquidation process. In March 2021, Michael Daffey, a Goldman Sachs partner, purchased the property for $51 million (Bockmann, 2021). The gap between the $0 transfer price in 2011 and the $51 million sale price ten years later quantifies the asset value that was moved offshore without any recorded consideration.
The sale proceeds entered the estate — the same estate administered by the same co-executors, Indyke and Kahn, who had overseen the corporate architecture that held the property for two decades.
What the Chain Reveals
The 9 East 71st Street transfer sequence follows a pattern visible across the Epstein corporate network: legitimate-seeming corporate entities hold real assets, transfers between related entities occur at artificial prices, and jurisdiction shifts move beneficial ownership records into more opaque legal frameworks. The $0 transfer to a U.S. Virgin Islands entity is not an isolated anomaly. It is the real estate expression of the same layering strategy — moving money or assets through multiple entities to obscure their origin — documented in wire transfers, corporate registrations, and tax exemption applications (PAPER TRAIL Project, 2026b).
The property records are government primary sources. The New York Department of State filings, the recorded transfer documents, and the estate sale records form a chain of evidence drawn directly from official records. Unlike many threads in the Epstein corpus that depend on degraded bank record scans or contested document interpretations, the 9 East 71st Street chain is documented in clean public records from filing to dissolution to sale.
One property. Three corporate entities. Two decades. Zero dollars.
References
Bockmann, R. (2021, March). Goldman Sachs partner Michael Daffey buys Epstein mansion for $51M. Crain's New York Business.
Herbert N. Straus House. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 10, 2026.
New York Department of State. (1989). Nine East 71st Street Corporation filing (August 25, 1989). NY DOS Business Entity Database.
New York Department of State. (1998). NES LLC filing (DOS ID 2288572, August 13, 1998). NY DOS Business Entity Database.
New York Department of State. (2013). NES LLC address change to USVI (October 16, 2013). NY DOS Business Entity Database.
New York Department of State. (2015). Nine East 71st Street Corporation dissolution (May 14, 2015). NY DOS Business Entity Database.
PAPER TRAIL Project. (2026a). NES LLC to Maple Inc. $0 transfer with Epstein dual signature [Corroboration report, Section 1.2]. CORROBORATION_REPORT.md.
PAPER TRAIL Project. (2026b). Entity ownership chain and corporate architecture [Research file]. ENTITY_OWNERSHIP.md.