Congress, campuses, and campaigns are racing to erase Les Wexner’s name and money after newly-released FBI files label the Victoria’s Secret billionaire an Epstein co-conspirator, threatening the civic empire he forged in Columbus and the model suburb of New Albany.
Les Wexner spent four decades turning cornfields into castles. The founder of L Brands—parent of Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works and Abercrombie & Fitch—bankrolled hospitals, university labs and entire subdivisions around Columbus. His money elected governors, forged a bipartisan CEO coalition and erected the New Albany exurb that today lures Intel and Meta campuses.
Now the same dollars are radioactive. A 2019 FBI document released last week lists Wexner among three people “once called Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirators,” igniting a stampede by Ohio politicians to jettison more than $4.3 million in campaign contributions tied to the billionaire. The House Oversight Committee deposed Wexner Wednesday in New Albany, the town he seeded, fed and branded with his name.
The $18 Million Interchange That Built an Empire
It started with a $100,000 check in 1990. Wexner wanted Republican George Voinovich in the governor’s mansion and Columbus business elites knew the donation opened doors. Voinovich’s administration fast-tracked a $235 million highway interchange that still funnels traffic to Easton Town Center, the luxury mall Wexner co-developed to showcase his retail chains. State records show Wexner’s company contributed $18 million in land and cash for the project, cementing his reputation as the indispensable civic partner.
Flush with access, Wexner cloned the Cleveland Tomorrow model to launch the Columbus Partnership in 2002, a CEO club credited with steering Intel’s $20 billion chip plant, Amazon data centers and Hollywood film shoots to central Ohio. His philanthropy flowed to the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State, the Wexner Center for the Arts and a $100 million gift to the university’s academic endowment.
New Albany: A Billionaire’s Sandbox
While Easton grabbed headlines, Wexner quietly scooped up farmland in Plain Township. Using his development vehicle—The New Albany Company, where Epstein once held a senior role—he built an ersatz New England village of Georgian estates, white picket fences and a $50 million gated estate that anchors the community. Population jumped from roughly 1,000 to 11,000 residents, property values soared and Abercrombie & Fitch still keeps its global headquarters there.
Current Mayor Sloan Spalding defends the billionaire’s blueprint, crediting Wexner’s “leadership and resources” for the city’s “careful planning” and growth. But the carefully curated image is cracking: Epstein owned property here and, according to a Justice Department interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, “ran New Albany.”
The Paper Trail Turns Toxic
Wexner insists he was “conned” and severed Epstein in 2007 after Florida prosecutors charged the financier with soliciting minors. Yet an FBI email from 2019 again floated him as a **possible co-conspirator**, and last week’s document dump keeps his name in the frame. Survivor Maria Farmer alleged in 2020 litigation she was assaulted at an Ohio property “owned and secured” by the Wexners—a claim the billionaire denies.
Congressional investigators are now poring over five million pages of unredacted Epstein material. The Oversight panel subpoenaed Wexner’s personal archives and wants testimony from his foundation’s executors, raising the prospect of sworn public hearings that could drag Ohio’s A-list into the muck for months.
Bloodletting in the Donor Class
Ohio candidates are racing to inoculate themselves:
- Rep. Joyce Beatty redirected all Wexner donations to anti-trafficking charities.
- State Treasurer Robert Sprague gave away $23,000 to a housing nonprofit.
- Sen. Jon Husted, sitting on $6 million in campaign cash, ordered his team to donate July’s $3,500 Wexner contribution to charity after rival Sherrod Brown hammered him for voting—once—against releasing the Epstein files.
Even local offices feel the heat: Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin publicly pledged to purge Wexner dollars, while Ohio State University faces fresh demands to strip his name from its football training complex and medical center.
From Kingmaker to ‘Wizard of Oz’
Inside GOP circles, younger consultants speak of a billionaire they have “never even seen.” One operative branded him a “Wizard of Oz” figure—powerful but invisible. The comparison stings because Wexner once hosted presidents, funded both parties and bankrolled ballot initiatives that rewrote Ohio tax codes.
Wexner quit the L Brands CEO suite in 2020, walked away from the Columbus Partnership chairmanship in 2021, and hasn’t written a major campaign check since 2018—the year he publicly left the GOP to protest Donald Trump. Those exits insulated some 2024 hopefuls, yet the historical cash trail keeps his fingerprints on nearly every statewide Republican who rose over three decades.
The civic dilemma now facing Columbus: how to honor roads, hospitals and scholarships bankrolled by Wexner without endorsing a benefactor under federal scrutiny. Community leaders privately dread another trove of Epstein files surfacing before November’s Senate showdown, fearful that each revelation further cements the state’s image as the stage where a predator and his patron operated with impunity.
Bottom line: Ohio’s political economy was literally engineered around Wexner’s checkbook. As investigators dig deeper, every interchange, arena and endowed chair he financed risks becoming a daily reminder that today’s monuments can become tomorrow’s millstones.
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