Howard Rubin, cash supervisor, charged with intercourse trafficking

Famed cash supervisor Howard Rubin and his former private assistant had been arrested Friday morning on expenses of intercourse trafficking and transporting girls throughout state strains for industrial intercourse acts over the course of a decade.

Prosecutors alleged a litany of stomach-churning, abusive acts in opposition to girls by the 70-year-old Rubin, who first gained infamy within the Nineteen Eighties with an unauthorized commerce that value his then-firm tens of hundreds of thousands in losses.

A federal Justice of the Peace choose in Brooklyn, New York, ordered Rubin detained with out bail, for now, after prosecutors argued the previous Salomon Brothers bond dealer was a flight danger and that he had mentioned hiring a “hit man to focus on girls who had filed a civil go well with in opposition to him.”

Prosecutors additionally cited the retired Wall Streeter’s alleged prior makes an attempt at witness intimidation and stated that the victims within the case are “universally” afraid of him, earlier than Justice of the Peace Decide Peggy Kuo rejected Rubin’s bid to be launched on a $25 million bond.

Rubin is alleged in a 10-count indictment to have participated in intercourse acts with the ladies in luxurious resorts in New York, and later rented a two-bedroom penthouse condo in Manhattan that was transformed right into a so-called “intercourse dungeon” outfitted with bondage, self-discipline, dominance, submission and sadomasochism tools, in addition to soundproofing.

The tools allegedly included a tool to “shock or electrocute girls,” prosecutors stated.

“Throughout many such encounters, Rubin engaged in conduct past the scope of the ladies’s consent,” the indictment in U.S. District Court docket in Brooklyn, New York, alleges.

“Throughout many of those encounters, Rubin brutalized girls’s our bodies, inflicting them to worry for his or her security and/or leading to vital ache or accidents, which at instances required girls to hunt medical consideration,” the indictment expenses.

The previous Soros Fund Administration financier and his ex-personal assistant, Jennifer Powers, 45, spent a minimum of $1 million of Rubin’s cash “working and sustaining the trafficking community,” which lasted from a minimum of 2009 by means of 2019, the indictment stated.

Rubin was arrested by FBI brokers at his house in Fairfield, Connecticut.

He pleaded not responsible throughout his look Friday afternoon in Brooklyn court docket, which was delayed by a medical incident that led to him being evaluated at a hospital.

Prosecutors in a letter to Kuo requested that Rubin be held with out bail, “as a result of no situation or mixture of situations can fairly safe Rubin’s look in court docket as required or the protection of the neighborhood.” The letter famous that he had “extraordinary wealth, a few of which is held in accounts abroad.” In 2024, Rubin had greater than $74 million in a Cayman Islands account, the letter stated.

Prosecutors stated that there have been a minimum of 10 different individuals who helped Rubin facilitate his alleged crimes, and cited tax paperwork that they argued indicated his monetary crimes continued till his arrest.

They stated Rubin was discovered with eight cell telephones and three BlackBerry gadgets. He wouldn’t reveal the place his passport was, and didn’t give up it when arrested.

Rubin’s lawyer argued he was not a flight danger as a result of two of his grownup kids and his grandchildren dwell close to him.

The lawyer additionally cited Rubin’s well being situation, saying he had a stroke in July.

Kuo rejected that argument, however Rubin’s protection crew might make a brand new bail software. He’s subsequent scheduled to be in court docket on Oct. 20.

Powers was arrested at her house in Soutlake, Texas, and is scheduled to look in U.S. District Court docket for the Northern District of Texas subsequent week. She can be charged with financial institution fraud in reference to alleged misrepresentations she made to a financial institution whereas financing the mortgage for her and her husband’s house in Southlake, Texas, authorities stated.

Prosecutors need a “substantial bail bundle” for Powers.

If convicted of intercourse trafficking, Rubin and Powers every face a most attainable sentence of life in jail and a compulsory minimal sentence of 15 years in jail.

Rubin was sued in November 2017 by two self-identified Playboy fashions and one other mannequin from Florida, who claimed they had been overwhelmed, sexually abused and raped by Rubin in a number of incidents in New York Metropolis in 2016.

In April 2022, a civil jury in Brooklyn federal court docket discovered Rubin chargeable for intercourse trafficking six girls who had sued him and Powers, and ordered him to pay them a complete of $3.85 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Powers was not discovered liable by that jury.

Rubin is at the moment interesting the civil judgment.

A spokesman for the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace in Brooklyn had no remark when requested why there was a lag of practically eight years between the submitting of the civil lawsuit in opposition to Rubin and the workplace acquiring a legal indictment in opposition to him. On the time the lawsuit was filed, a lawyer for girls who sued Rubin instructed CNBC that the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace had reached out to him about probably investigating the financier.

The detention letter by prosecutors says that after Rubin was sued, he instructed a girl whom he had seen for industrial intercourse from 20014 by means of to 2019, “that pursuant to his preparations, a hitman was contacted on the darkish internet to focus on girls who had filed a civil go well with in opposition to him, however he didn’t finally retain the hitman.”

Rubin, after working as a bond dealer at Salomon Brothers, additionally did stints at Bear, Stearns and Merrill Lynch.

He first gained public notoriety in 1987 for making unauthorized trades at Merrill Lynch, which the agency on the time stated contributed to an enormous $250 million loss from mortgage securities. Rubin’s motion at Merrill, which led to his termination, is detailed in Michael Lewis’ Wall Avenue memoir “Liar’s Poker.”

Powers is accused within the indictment of facilitating Rubin’s industrial sexual encounters from a minimum of 2011 by means of 2019, allegedly recruiting girls to journey to New York and be paid for his or her acts with Rubin, in addition to managing “the fallout from girls’s complaints” stemming from these acts.

CNBC requested remark from Rubin’s legal professional, Michael Gilbert, and from Powers’ lawyer.

The indictment alleges the intercourse trafficking of six girls, a few of whom had been additionally recognized as girls who had been transported throughout state strains with the intent to have interaction in prostitution, in violation of the Mann Act.

“Rubin and Powers required the ladies to signal non-disclosure agreements … which presupposed to require the ladies to imagine the chance of the hazards and harm of the BDSM encounters with Rubin, prohibit the disclosure of details about the BDSM intercourse with Rubin and require the cost of damages within the occasion of a breach,” the Brooklyn U.S. Attonrney’s Workplace stated in an announcement.

“Rubin used the NDAs to threaten the ladies with authorized penalties and public shaming in the event that they sought authorized recourse,” the workplace stated.

Prosecutors of their letter to the choose stated that “Rubin and Powers saved a stash of clean NDAs in a protected within the Penthouse, which they required girls to signal.”

“Girls weren’t supplied with a replica of the NDAs earlier than being required to signal,” prosecutors wrote. “Girls had been required to attest that they weren’t beneath the affect of medicine or alcohol on the time of signing, when at instances they’d been supplied with alcohol and/or medicine by Rubin, Powers or their co-conspirators earlier than being offered the NDA.”

The workplace additionally stated that after Rubin’s alleged sexual encounters with girls, “Rubin and/or Powers used Rubin’s cash to pay the ladies by wire switch or a cost service equivalent to PayPal or Venmo.”

“At instances, Powers structured the funds to keep away from sending a single transaction of $10,000 or extra, to keep away from triggering reporting obligations by the financial institution,” the workplace stated. “The indictment alleges the defendants spent a minimum of $1 million of Rubin’s cash working and sustaining the trafficking community.”

“As alleged, the defendants used Rubin’s wealth to mislead and recruit girls to have interaction in industrial intercourse acts, the place Rubin then tortured girls past their consent, inflicting lasting bodily and/or psychological ache, and in some circumstances bodily accidents,” Brooklyn U.S. Legal professional Joseph Nocella stated in an announcement.

“As we speak’s arrests present that nobody who engages in intercourse trafficking, on this case in luxurious resorts and a penthouse condo that featured a so-called intercourse ‘dungeon,’ is above the legislation, and that they are going to be delivered to justice,” Nocella stated.

“Human beings are usually not chattel to be exploited for intercourse and sadistically abused, and anybody who thinks in any other case can look forward to finding themselves in handcuffs and dealing with federal prosecution like these defendants,” he stated.

— CNBC’s Mallory Leonard and Jim Forkin contributed to this story