At the time, Epstein had implored Ruemmler through an intermediary to be part of his defense team, the source said. She was, after all, one of the nation’s top criminal and white collar defense attorneys. Ruemmler had responded that it would be impossible, noting among other things that her employer, the white-shoe law firm Latham & Watkins, wouldn’t allow it.
Epstein’s next move, again through the intermediary, was to beg her to quit her job and work for him on her own – for the $30 million flat fee, according to sources. Ruemmler said no. It was Epstein’s final oureach before he died of an apparent suicide in his jail cell in August 2019 after being arrested in the bombshell child-sex trafficking case.
Questions around Ruemmler’s past dealings with Epstein multiplied partly because of her presence at Epstein’s 2019 arraignment, which Ruemmler attended with a colleague at Latham & Watkins.
Insiders, however, say Ruemmler told her bosses at Goldman Sachs that she attended the hearing not out of friendship, but because Epstein was the gatekeeper she was charged to deal with for a major client of Latham & Watkins – in this case the Swiss bank Rothschilds. Plus, she was shocked by the arrest that could have had headline-risk implications for the bank, these people add.
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