Jeffrey Epstein, a rare cello and an enduring mystery

Written James B. Stewart
When Jeffrey Epstein died in prison in 2019, he took many secrets with him. One was how a sexual predator and college dropout managed to forge bonds with an astonishing number of the world’s richest and most powerful men, like Britain’s Prince Andrew and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
Another was why Epstein owned a rare Italian cello. It was the only nonfinancial asset led on his foundation’s annual tax forms, described simply as “cello” and carried on the books at a value of $165,676.
Epstein had never played the cello or shown any interest in musical instruments as an investment.
The first mystery is large, and it is still being untangled lawyers, victims and journals. The second is seemingly small, contained to the rarefied world of fine string instruments. But the two mysteries are connected. And the cello’s strange journey into and out of Epstein’s possession offers a window into the notorious criminal’s life and legacy.
Epstein’s Manhattan mansion was filled with curiosities. There was a portrait of Bill Clinton in a blue dress, a stuffed giraffe, prosthetic breasts in the master bathroom.
But more than objects, Epstein collected people. Over the years he cultivated leaders in the fields of business, finance, politics, science, mathematics, academia, music, even yoga. He often cemented the relationships with introductions to others in his orbit, donations to causes they supported or other gifts and favors.
That is where the cello came in.
False Claims and Accordion Lessons
As a child growing up in Brooklyn, Epstein and his younger brother, Mark, showed an aptitude for music. Both began lessons on the saxophone, then switched to more difficult double-reed instruments. Jeffrey played the bassoon, Mark the oboe, both in high demand in orchestras and other ensembles. It was as a bassoon that Jeffrey earned a scholarship in 1967 to Interlochen, the prestigious summer music camp nestled in the woods of northern Michigan. When his mother visited him that summer, he asked her to bring bagels.
As an adult, Jeffrey Epstein falsely claimed to have had a budding career as a concert pian. And he claimed to have begun piano lessons at age 5, which Mark Epstein said in an interview was not true. (He took lessons on the accordion as a young boy.) Epstein later took piano lessons, but he never achieved more than a high-school level of proficiency.
It was the cello that became a recurring motif in Epstein’s self-told life story, starting after he and a friend backpacked in Europe in the early 1970s. Among the stories Epstein later recounted was playing the piano for Jacqueline du Pré, the British cello virtuoso. In Epstein’s telling, he met du Pré in 1971 while visiting London. Du Pré enjoyed the patronage of Queen Elizabeth II, and it was through the cell that Epstein said he’d gained access to members of the British royal family, forging an especially close friendship with Prince Andrew.
The tale was not entirely implausible. Du Pré, who died in 1987, was still performing at the time Epstein visited London, where he bought a full-length fur coat that he wore for years afterward. But du Pré hardly needed Epstein as an accompan, since, among the world’s countless other professional musicians, she was married to celebrated pian Daniel Barenboim.
At Interlochen, to which Epstein became a significant donor and regular visitor, he met and befriended a 14-year-old cell, Melissa Solomon, in 1997. According to her account in a 2019 podcast, he insed she apply to Juilliard and agreed to pay her tuition there. She said he never attempted to have sex with her (he did get her to massage his feet), but after she declined to attend a party with Prince Andrew, Epstein cut ties and stopped paying her tuition.
Another Interlochen student, identified only as Jane, testified in the recent trial of Epstein’s closest associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Jane said that Epstein and Maxwell began grooming her when she was a 13-year-old student at the camp and that Epstein subsequently raped her, all while promising to advance her career.
Thanksgiving at the Ranch
In the mid-1990s, Epstein showed up backstage at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, after a performance cell William DeRosa, a young prodigy who’d made his concert debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at age 11. the time Epstein saw him, DeRosa was regarded as one of the world’s best cells, performing at Carnegie Hall, on television and with leading symphony orchestras.
Epstein’s and DeRosa’s paths didn’t cross again until around 2004, when DeRosa began dating a blond model named Kersti Ferguson.
Originally from Savannah, Georgia, Ferguson said in an interview that she met Epstein through a mutual friend when she was 18. Ferguson and Epstein spent time at his Palm Beach estate, where she met Maxwell. Epstein invited Ferguson to his Virgin Islands estate while she was in college, and after she broke up with a boyfriend, Epstein flew her and her mother to his New Mexico ranch for Thanksgiving. He sometimes called her four times a day. He showed her photos of himself with what he said were his powerful friends, among them former President Bill Clinton, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Israeli Prime Miner Ehud Barak and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.
After she began dating DeRosa, Epstein insed on checking him out. “Be nice,” DeRosa recalled Epstein warning him. He seemed fascinated DeRosa’s musical talents. He once suggested they play together, but DeRosa brushed him off. He said he had never heard Epstein play the piano.
In 2006, Epstein was arrested in Florida after investigators found evidence that he’d been sexually involved with girls. Ferguson said Epstein never suggested having sex with her or asked her to recruit other young women. On the contrary, when Ferguson attempted to hug him, he’d “shrivel up,” she said, as if afraid of catching a disease. And she thought he and Maxwell were in love, even though Epstein confided in Ferguson that he had no intention of marrying.
Rich and Powerful
For a time after his arrest, Ferguson didn’t hear from him. Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting an underage prostitute and was sentenced to 13 months in jail, though he was allowed to serve much of that time at home.
Then, in 2010, as Epstein was trying to reconstitute his orbit of the rich and powerful, he called her. “I need to buy a cello,” Epstein said abruptly, asking if she would enl DeRosa in the search. When Epstein next spoke to DeRosa, he explained that he was buying a cello for a young Israeli cell. “Go find one,” he ordered, then hung up.
Soon after, DeRosa was visiting his mother in Los Angeles when he learned of a cello being sold there a musician who recorded soundtracks for Hollywood studios. (Before that, the cello had been played a member of the Indianapolis symphony orchestra.)
While not a Stradivarius or a Montagnana, this cello had a dinguished pedigree, and was manufactured Ettore Soffritti, who worked in the string instrument center of Ferrara, Italy, from the late 1800s until his death in 1928. Benning Violins, the Los Angeles dealer, described the cello’s sound as “rich and powerful” and said the instrument was “suitable for the finest of cells.”
DeRosa tried the cello. He was smitten. He said he considered it “one of the greatest modern cellos in exence.” ( “modern” he meant any produced after the Italian Renaissance.) With an asking price of $185,000, he also considered it a bargain.
Epstein seemed pleased when DeRosa told him he’d found something. He said the cello’s intended recipient — a young Israeli man named Yoed Nir — had to test the instrument first. DeRosa knew nearly every up-and-coming cell, but he had never heard of Nir.
DeRosa had the cello on a trial basis, and Nir tested the instrument on a visit to DeRosa’s mother’s house in Los Angeles. Nir, who was about 30 years old and had dark, shoulder-length hair, which he tossed theatrically while playing, played some of Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites. He had clearly had musical training (he was a graduate of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance), but DeRosa considered his playing unexceptional his exacting standards. He could think of many young cells more deserving of such an instrument. “I thought it incredibly odd that Jeffrey had chosen this guy,” DeRosa recalled.
Nir approved of the instrument, and Epstein had his accountant, Richard Kahn, step in to negotiate the purchase from Benning Violins. Kahn obtained an appraisal, then bargained down the price to $165,000. (DeRosa, who felt like his reputation was on the line since he’d initiated the transaction, found this insulting.)
‘You Can’t Treat Someone Like That’
Weeks later, when DeRosa was back in New York, Epstein’s assant called and said DeRosa should be at his house the next morning at exactly 7:30 a.m. There, Epstein gestured toward a large unopened cardboard box. DeRosa said he opened the package and verified that it was same cello he’d located in Los Angeles.
“Did you make any money on the transaction?” Epstein asked.
“No,” DeRosa answered, furious at the insinuation that he’d taken a cut.
Epstein walked out without further comment. “He showed no interest in the cello,” DeRosa recalled.
Ferguson was upset when she heard about the meeting. She called Epstein and chastised him. “You can’t treat someone like that,” she said. He was unapologetic.
The money to buy the cello came from Epstein’s foundation, and the purchase was reflected on its 2011 tax return. Kahn drew up an agreement in which the cello would be lent to Nir at no cost, according to a person familiar with the arrangement.
Not long after, singer Judy Collins performed at the Café Carlyle. A positive review in The New York Times mentioned in passing that Collins had “added a new element, a cell, Yoed Nir.”
Epstein and Ferguson subsequently papered over their disagreement, and she urged DeRosa to forgive him. When a valuable Stradivarius cello came on the market, Epstein offered to buy it for DeRosa’s use. DeRosa had a unique connection to the instrument, since a foundation had previously owned it and lent it to him early in his career.
So confident was the seller that a deal would come together that DeRosa took possession of the instrument. But Epstein balked at the asking price of $14 million, refusing to pay more than $10 million, according to DeRosa. The deal unraveled, and DeRosa returned the cello. It later sold for more than the asking price, DeRosa said.
DeRosa Has Regrets
DeRosa and Ferguson were shocked in 2019 when Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking. Ferguson couldn’t reconcile the allegations with the man she thought she knew. Given his wealth and connections to powerful people, she figured he’d somehow get off the hook. She wrote him a letter in prison offering to visit and bring food. She never got a reply. On Aug. 10, Epstein died suicide.
Several months later, DeRosa emailed Nir to find out what had happened to the Soffritti cello. Nir said only that he’d returned it. At the Epstein foundation’s request, Nir had delivered the cello to a New York law firm in October 2019. Its case was broken, and the cello itself had suffered some damage, according to DeRosa. (Nir said the case wasn’t broken when he returned it and that the instrument was “in very good playing condition.”) The foundation asked Benning Violins to again market and sell it, and Benning agreed to supply a new case.
Wittingly or not, Epstein had made a sound investment. This time the price was $220,000 — or 33% more than what Epstein had paid eight years earlier. With the backing of a financial partner whom DeRosa wouldn’t identify, he took possession of the cello in early 2020, just before the coronavirus pandemic brought an end to live performances.
Like many people in Epstein’s orbit, DeRosa now regrets ever getting tangled up with him and wishes he had kept the cello for himself. “I wish I’d never let Jeffrey buy the cello,” DeRosa said. “I’m not a dealer. I’m a concert cell. I was always angry at myself that I let it go.”
A Clue at the Cafe
The mystery perss: Why had Epstein bought the cello in the first place? What was his connection to Nir?
An important clue emerged at the 2011 Judy Collins concert at the Café Carlyle. Collins’ longtime musical arranger and pian, Russell Walden, recalled that one thing about the evening stuck in his memory. At the cafe, he met Nir’s wife, Anat. Nir mentioned that she was the daughter of Barak, the former Israeli prime miner.
There are hardly any public references to Barak’s children. Reached recently in Tel Aviv, he confirmed that Yoed and Anat Nir are his son-in-law and daughter.
Barak — who was prime miner from 1999 to 2001 and later served in other high-ranking government jobs — said that another former prime miner, Shimon Peres, introduced him to Epstein in 2003. Barak has said that he and Epstein met dozens of times but he “never took part in any party or event with women or anything like that.”
Over the years Epstein wooed Barak , among other things, investing $1 million in a limited partnership established Barak in 2015.
He said he introduced Epstein to Nir in 2010 or 2011, though he didn’t know that Epstein subsequently lent Nir the cello. Therefore, Barak said, it “could not be true” that Epstein used the cello loan to curry favor. A more likely explanation, he said, “is that Mr. Epstein did it based on the reputation of Yoed as an extremely gifted cell.” (Asked if he’d ever told his father-in-law about the loan, Nir declined to answer.)
Nonetheless, the loan of a $165,000 cello was the kind of favor that Epstein might only have made known when he wanted something in return. After all, not just anybody had the resources and connections to source an extraordinary cello for the relative of a powerful political leader — just the type of person that Epstein had a knack for keeping close.