Epstein Files Shed Light on Friendship With Tommy Mottola

T
ommy Mottola wanted Jeffrey Epstein to pick up his phone. 

“I’m calling you, can you take my call,” Mottola texted Epstein. 

It was June 2019, and the man now considered one of history’s most notorious sex traffickers needed a referral to a private investigative firm.

While Mottola, the well-connected former head of Sony Music, maintains he did not know why Epstein might have needed a P.I., and adamantly denies any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, he wanted to be helpful.

The music executive  — who launched the glittering career of his ex-wife Mariah Carey and nurtured superstars like Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez, and Destiny’s Child — sent Epstein contact information for Dan Nardello, founder of Nardello & Co., a firm whose work The Guardian once described as “corporate spies for hire.”

Epstein was already familiar with the company, having engaged in brief talks with Nardello in late 2007. It was around the time the FBI first began building a case against Epstein, following his 2006 arrest for felony solicitation of prostitution. Epstein paid Nardello’s company a $150,000 invoice for what was labeled a “Confidential Investigation,” but within a month, the bulk of the payment was returned after the company grew “uncomfortable” and terminated the agreement, a Nardello & Co. spokesperson says.  

Whether Mottola was aware of Epstein’s loose connection to Nardello or not, he helped connect the two. “Text him tomorrow morning for a time to talk,” Mottola instructed.  

“Thx,” Epstein responded.

“You never have to say that,” Mottola responded, adding two thumbs-up emojis.

A month later, on July 6, Epstein was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges. He died by suicide around five weeks later.

The unearthed exchange between Mottola and Epstein marks the tail end of the nearly 1,000 times that Mottola’s name surfaces in the Department of Justice’s release of the Epstein files, a trove of more than 3 million documents on the late predator that offers a deeper window into the scope of Epstein’s abuse of teenage girls and young women, as well as his vast network of friends and associates. The unprecedented release has forced numerous public figures to resign from high-powered positions and explain their ties to Epstein, including some who maintained relationships with him even after his 2008 sweetheart plea deal for soliciting prostitution from a minor. Many of the people who relinquished high-profile positions or public roles have maintained they had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.

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Top talent agent Casey Wasserman stepped down from his eponymous firm after documents showed he had flown on Epstein’s private plane in 2002 and, one year later, exchanged flirtatious messages with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator convicted on sex-trafficking charges in 2021. Kathryn Ruemmler, former White House counsel to President Obama, resigned from her senior role at Goldman Sachs after emails revealed a longstanding friendship with Epstein, who gifted her designer Hermès items. 

Yet Mottola, 77, has largely escaped the kind of scrutiny around his relationship with Epstein that has engulfed others. He either declined to comment or did not respond to questions from outlets including The Hollywood Reporter and the New York Post’s Page Six Hollywood after a brief overview of his communications with Epstein surfaced in January and a joint pasta-sauce venture with Jimmy Fallon was subsequently scrapped. 

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Several emails between Mottola and Epstein drew attention, including a December 2017 exchange in which Mottola, caught up in a conflict with employees at a Palm Beach hotel, leaned on his friend for guidance. “I don’t have to do anything, just shut up and lay low[?]” he asked. “You are safe,” Epstein reassured him. 

Mottola has not been accused of any crime and none of the victims associated with Epstein have accused him of inappropriate behavior. Attorneys for Mottola tell Rolling Stone that he was only an acquaintance of Epstein’s and that the men were “not friends.”

“Mr. Mottola is one of many people who came into contact with Epstein but who had no knowledge about, let alone involvement in, Epstein’s illicit criminal activities,” Mottola’s attorneys, Thomas Clare and Mitchell Langberg of Clare Locke, tell Rolling Stone. They add that “nothing in the Epstein files and nothing in any court record has ever suggested that Mr. Mottola had any involvement in Epstein’s wrongdoing … Mr. Mottola never committed any crime, and he knew nothing about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.

“To Mr. Mottola’s recollection, he never attended any of Epstein’s parties; never flew on Epstein’s plane; and never visited Epstein’s island or ranch,” Mottola’s attorneys go on to say. “There is not a single email in which Mr. Mottola discusses, references, or in any way indicates awareness of Epstein’s criminal conduct.”

Mottola has previously acknowledged an association with Epstein but drastically downplayed the depth of their relationship. “Mr. Epstein and I shared some mutual acquaintances, and he called me several times to request concert tickets, as many people do,” Mottola told The Daily Beast in 2023. When Bloomberg reported last December that Epstein was offered an opportunity to invest in a Donna Summer Broadway show that Mottola was producing, Joanne Oriti, a senior executive at Mottola’s company, dismissed any suggestion of impropriety. The pitch materials were “sent to dozens and dozens of people,” Oriti said, noting that “Epstein did not invest.”

What Oriti didn’t disclose is she helped arrange for Epstein and four guests later described as his assistants — a term Epstein used to describe the women he was accused of grooming and abusing — to attend a matinee showing of the musical two days after it opened in April 2018. (Oriti did not respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment. There is no indication that Oriti was aware of who Epstein was bringing or any impropriety regarding the tickets.)

In a review of nearly 1,000 DOJ documents, which include court records, an FBI report, text and email correspondence between Epstein and Mottola, and emails where Epstein, his associates, and alleged victims mention Mottola, Rolling Stone found that Mottola’s interactions with Epstein went well beyond fielding sporadic, unsolicited requests from a casual acquaintance.

“It’s way too long overdue that we see each other”

Mottola in a 2015 email to Epstein

Their relationship, dating back to at least 2004, spanned the entirety of the prolific predator’s legal troubles. It overlapped with Epstein’s July 2006 indictment for solicitation in Palm Beach, Florida, where he was accused of prowling local high schools in search of teenage girls to abuse. And their ties apparently remained solid throughout the 2010s, following Epstein’s registration as a sex offender and lasting until his final days, with Mottola passing along Nardello’s information a month before Epstein’s final arrest in July 2019. 

Mottola’s attorneys say Epstein’s request for that referral “did not seem suspicious” to Mottola, who, the attorneys stress, “had no knowledge of why Epstein was asking” for Nardello’s contact information. Mottola also had “no knowledge of any impending investigation or arrest,” according to his attorneys. (A spokesperson for Nardello & Co. tells Rolling Stone that “unbeknownst to Mr. Nardello, a firm client recommended that Epstein contact [Nardello] about providing assistance with anticipated civil litigation. Mr. Nardello declined to help Epstein, and they had no further contact.”)

Emails and corresponding court records show Mottola crossed paths with at least three women believed to be among Epstein’s victims, including a foreign model who told the FBI that Mottola was one of Epstein’s “frequent” visitors while he served a lenient 13-month jail sentence that included work-release privileges. Mottola’s attorneys did not dispute that their client visited with Epstein during this period, but rejected the characterization of Mottola as a frequent visitor and said Mottola “never visited Epstein in any custodial setting.”

THROUGHOUT THE EIGHTIES, Nineties and early aughts, fewer names in the music industry were bigger or more intimidating than Mottola. He served as the manager for Hall & Oates, Carly Simon, and John Mellencamp before taking the helm of Sony Music Entertainment in 1988. Under his stewardship, Mottola expanded Sony’s global reach in more than 60 countries, tripled the company’s revenue, and signed Shakira, New Kids on the Block, the Dixie Chicks, Ricky Martin, and Marc Anthony, among many others, to the company’s labels. Known for being flashy and a workaholic, he was rewarded handsomely for his efforts, earning multimillion yearly bonuses on top of eight-figure contracts.  

Yet, some of the methods Mottola used to achieve that success were questionable. Industry associates whispered to Vanity Fair in 1996 about Mottola adopting shady mobster tactics in his running of Sony, demanding loyalty and allegedly keeping a gun in his briefcase. He made an enemy out of his former mentor and boss, Walter Yetnikoff, who called him “Scumola.” Michael Jackson once called him “a devil.” (Mottola largely brushed off his critics and defended his business practices.) And Mottola’s high-profile marriage to Carey, 20 years his junior, was marred by his explosive temper and abusive and controlling behavior, leading to their divorce in 1998. Mottola later apologized to Carey in his 2013 memoir, Hitmaker: The Man and His Music, acknowledging the relationship was “absolutely wrong” and that he had been “obsessive.” Still, he rationalized that his intensity “was also part of the reason for her success” and chalked up their issues to him being “the chairman of Sony and her husband at the same time.”  

In 2003, he resigned from Sony after nearly 15 years to launch his own venture, the Mottola Media Group, which currently serves as an artist-management company and production arm for live-theater performances (Summer: The Donna Summer Musical and Jersey Boys) and television shows. He is also the co-founder of Ntertain, a Latin-focused entertainment and multimedia company.

It’s not clear how Epstein and Mottola became acquainted, though both had connections to Hollywood publicist Peggy Siegal and were friends with Eva Andersson-Dubin, a former Swedish model who dated Epstein in the Eighties and remained one of his closest confidantes. (A representative for the Dubin family declined to comment.) Mottola and his current wife, Thalía, the Mexican singer and actress whom he married in 2000, were listed as members of the benefit committees tied to fundraisers for the Dubin Breast Center, the esteemed medical facility that Andersson-Dubin founded at New York’s Tisch Cancer Center.

However they first connected, by November 2004, the lines between the men were open. Phone records show that Epstein was placing calls to two phone numbers listed in Mottola’s email signature — an office and personal line — during that time period. Between late 2004 and 2006, Epstein made calls to Mottola’s numbers more than 80 times, according to phone records. 

Mottola’s name first surfaced in the emails in spring 2009 — a few months before Epstein completed his lax jail sentence — when it appeared the two had a meeting at Epstein’s office in a Palm Beach high-rise. As part of his plea deal, Epstein was allowed to spend the majority of his incarceration working out of the plush personal office, returning to the county jail each night. Emails over the years show that Epstein and Mottola regularly exchanged scheduled phone calls, with Epstein’s long-term executive assistant, Lesley Groff, flagging for her boss whenever he had missed one of the music executive’s calls. 

According to emails between them, the tenor of the men’s relationship over the years appears friendly and casual. Mottola picked Epstein’s brain on home-renovation plans, possible business deals, and board role offers. He asked Epstein for recommendations on people he should meet while visiting South Africa in 2011. In return, Mottola sent Epstein gift baskets of Bridgewater chocolate and Italian bread and offered to let Epstein use his discount at the pricey furniture store Restoration Hardware.

“Yes, [I’m building] houses. And an extra massage room for you, in bulletproof glass”

Epstein in a 2017 email to Mottola

Epstein invited Mottola to visit him for business meetings and parties, records indicate. “Tommy Mottola coming to party!” Epstein’s chief assistant emailed her boss in September 2010. (Records show Epstein was hosting a Yom Kippur dinner at his New York City townhouse at the time.) “Tommy and his wife changed their plans and will be in town to attend the party on Saturday night,” Epstein’s assistant added. 

Mottola’s attorneys say the records show that “only ten meetings” were ever “contemplated” between the pair and that Mottola doesn’t recall whether all those meetings took place. “Regardless, by any reasonable measure, the documents show that there were not ‘frequent’ visits,” the attorneys add. “The relevant scheduling documents reflect the kinds of meetings that would be expected of high-net-worth acquaintances who maintained an intermittent relationship primarily based on networking.” 

Emails show that Epstein would curry favor within his circle of close friends by name-dropping Mottola. In April 2009, Epstein wanted the late French model scout Jean-Luc Brunel and former Colombian president Andrés Pastrana Arango to meet Mottola. (Brunel was accused of transporting foreign teenage girls and young women to Epstein. He was arrested on charges of sexual assault, rape of a minor, and human trafficking in 2020 and died by suicide in 2022. Pastrana has not been accused of any wrongdoing.) “[Mottola] used to be married to Mariah Carey,” Epstein emailed Brunel. “Tell Pastrana that Tommy is going to attempt to be the entertainment czar of Cuba. He, you and Tommy should meet.” (It doesn’t appear that any meeting took place.) 

That July, Epstein told then-Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson that he had run one of her business ideas by Mottola. The music executive “loved the idea,” Epstein claimed, and was “working on the goals of how it lasts and generates a long-lasting stream of revenue.”

Epstein worked to bring Mottola closer into his orbit by trying to carve out a role for Mottola in his business dealings. While considering making a sizable investment in the now-defunct music company, EMI, Epstein told an associate in February 2010 that his “friend” Mottola should be brought on board to “fix” the struggling British music company. 

The power broker also tried to facilitate working relationships between Mottola and his longtime friends. In 2010, Mottola considered working in some capacity with Next Model Management, which was owned by Epstein associate Faith Kates. While Mottola did appear on an Advertising Week panel discussion with Kates in 2013, an attorney for Kates tells Rolling Stone the two never went into business together. (“They would’ve been fortunate to be in business with someone as talented and successful as Mr. Mottola,” Kates’ attorney adds.)

In August 2011, Mottola enthusiastically lobbied for an executive role within one of billionaire Leon Black’s companies after Epstein relayed enticing information to Mottola about Black’s recent entertainment acquisitions. “There would be no one better qualified in this space in the universe than myself to run the whole operation day-to-day or to be involved on the Apollo side, as their man inside the operation,” Mottola wrote to Epstein.

(Black — who hired Epstein as his financial planner — is currently facing a civil lawsuit from a woman who claimed Black raped her at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse in 2002. At least three women Epstein introduced to Black have made claims of rape or sexual assault against Black, according to The New York Times. In response to a request for comment, Black denied all allegations of sexual assault and vehemently denied having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.)  

Epstein and Mottola’s relationship seems to have hit a lull after 2011, with only a handful of emails exchanged between them over the next four years. But, there was a noticeable uptick in their correspondence following a December 2015 email from Mottola to Epstein: “It’s way too long overdue that we see each other,” Mottola wrote. 

The men resumed their routine correspondence by phone and email, and Epstein asked Mottola’s opinion on the best Italian restaurants in Palm Beach and sought guidance on replacing his aging household staff. The men also discussed whether Mottola should buy the rights to a book about Epstein that the late investigative journalist John Connolly was trying to sell.

“No one wants it, should you approach him [and] tell him you wanted to buy the rights for my birthday,” Epstein asked Mottola in January 2016. “Got to think about it,” Mottola responded. “This guys [sic] dangerous … Bad Guy.” (It does not appear that Epstein and Mottola discussed Connolly’s book again by email. The book, Filthy Rich: The Jeffrey Epstein Story, which Connolly would go on to co-author, was published in 2017.)

WHILE MOTTOLA MIGHT HAVE sometimes leaned on Epstein for general advice and business contacts, Epstein’s motive for cultivating a friendship with the powerful music executive seems clear: dangling Mottola’s name as an incentive to young women, more than one of whom he’d later be accused of grooming and abusing. 

Some of those women were eager to break into the entertainment industry. A French woman sent Epstein a desperate plea about feeling stuck in her current job and begged for his help, according to emails obtained by Drop Site News. “Am I crazy to think that it’s possible and I finally will achieve my goal and set up in a record company or management company or tour agent company in the States,” the woman asked in June 2008. “Do you think you could pass [my resume] onto your connections (Tommy Motolla [sic])?” (The woman, whose name Rolling Stone is choosing to withhold, declined to speak on the record for this article, but alleges she was a victim of Epstein’s.)

A source close to the family of Paula Heil Fisher, a former Miss Indianapolis beauty queen who dated Epstein in the early Eighties, recalls Mottola being a frequent topic of conversation among Heil Fisher and her two aspiring-singer daughters, who were in their early twenties, after Epstein routinely flexed his relationship with Mottola to the family. “It was like Waiting for Godot — ‘You’re gonna meet Tommy,’” the associate tells Rolling Stone, who says the family spoke about Mottola and their hopes he’d bolster the young women’s careers. “It was an obsession.” 

In a series of emails from April 2009, Epstein instructed Heil Fisher to bring her daughters to his office so they could bump into Mottola, who he said was stopping by. “Put [one of the daughters] in a sexy outfit and meet Tommy,” Epstein instructed Heil Fisher. “Put [her in] a white button down shirt with white bra if [she] has it.” (There is no indication that Heil Fisher complied with Epstein’s wardrobe suggestions nor that the daughters ended up meeting Mottola. Attorneys for Mottola say he has “no memory of Ms. Fisher or her daughter[s]” and “this was not a meeting Mr. Mottola arranged, anticipated, or had any role in organizing.” They add that “the instructions in these emails reflect Epstein’s conduct, not Mr. Mottola’s.”)

As Epstein continued to play benefactor to one of Heil Fisher’s daughters, he also claimed that Mottola would help the young woman get onstage at the Bitter End, a live-music venue in New York’s Greenwich Village. “Call me. re paris. bitter end. tommy motolla,” Epstein messaged the young woman in July 2010. “I don’t think you should spend money on [going to] Paris. Tommy agreed. He will get you a session at open mike at the bitter end. He said thats where the record cos go.” (Mottola ultimately never played a role in either young woman’s career, the source close to the family says. Neither Heil Fisher nor her daughters have made allegations against Epstein or Mottola. They did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

At least three women among the hundreds of Epstein’s alleged victims seem to have met Mottola directly. Emails show that Mottola was scheduled to visit Epstein in the first week of January 2010. That same week, in an email dated Jan. 4, 2010, an unnamed woman expressed her frustration at Epstein’s demands of her, listing the tasks she had completed that week at his behest. She was expected to wait on Epstein hand and foot, and even offered to watch a “sex DVD” with him. “I got up at 5am to serve you breakfast, after rubbing your head and scratching your back to sleep, at 10am I went to buy groceries while you were busy, offered you and Tommy snacks,” she wrote. 

Epstein scolded a different woman, a model, in November 2013, rattling off a laundry list of things he believed he had done to benefit her life and potential career, including “introduc[ing] you to Tommy Mottola.” (The woman declined to speak for this article but has previously been identified as a victim of Epstein’s.)

And in an eight-page FBI report detailing an agent’s interview with another unnamed victim from October 2019, the woman listed Mottola, along with Brunel and Epstein’s personal trainer, as a frequent visitor of Epstein’s in 2008 and 2009 while he was serving his jail sentence with work-release privileges in Palm Beach. (It is unclear from the documents where the woman alleged the visits took place. Mottola denies being a frequent visitor of Epstein’s.) 

Mottola’s name also briefly surfaced in early litigation surrounding Epstein. Attorneys associated with litigation against Epstein sought to subpoena and take Mottola’s deposition in 2009, according to Epstein’s calendar reminders and a court case he pursued against Brad Edwards, a prominent Epstein-victim attorney. Epstein’s legal team accused Edwards and other attorneys of trying to “harass and intimidate” some of Epstein’s “friends and acquaintances” by seeking information related to the victims’ cases. (Edwards did not respond to Rolling Stone’s multiple requests for comment.)

Attorneys for Mottola say the music executive was never subpoenaed or deposed. They point to an affidavit given by Edwards in 2010, where Edwards stated his team had found “no information” that Mottola had “spoken to Mr. Epstein about [a Jane Doe victim] or any of the other specific victims of Mr. Epstein’s molestation.”

AS THE HOLIDAYS APPROACHED in December 2017, an incident at a high-end Florida hotel sent Mottola into a tailspin, allowing Epstein to position himself as a savior. It began around  Dec. 23, when Mottola was informed that he and his wife were no longer welcome at the hotel’s spa following their treatments with a licensed massage therapist for what Mottola’s attorneys described as “chronic neck and back pain.” It’s unclear what exactly led to the hotel’s decision to ban Mottola and his wife from the spa. (There is no indication there were any allegations of misconduct.) Confused, Mottola reached out to Epstein for help. “Call me,” Epstein instructed Mottola the next day. 

Documents do not illuminate what the men discussed, but according to Mottola’s attorneys, Epstein seized on a simple “misunderstanding” between Mottola and hotel employees and used it to his advantage. Epstein “inject[ed] pure speculation into the situation,” the attorneys say, whipping up a “phantom problem” that he could swoop in and solve for Mottola.

The two appear to have spoken by phone in the immediate aftermath, with Epstein seemingly having offered some comfort or counsel. “Thank you, I love you man!!” Mottola later texted, adding that he’d been so on edge, he “felt like I was gonna have to go back into the hospital…. That’s how high my BP went.” 

Later that night, Epstein seemingly raised the issue again and told Mottola to call him. Mottola canceled his Christmas Eve plans with Eva Andersson-Dubin, and as the night bled into the early hours of Christmas morning, emailed Epstein a string of anxious-sounding questions. “I don’t have to do anything, just shut up and lay low [?]” he wrote at one point.

“You are safe,” Epstein reassured him twice. 

An attorney for Mottola says his concern about the situation was “practical and reputational” and “not knowing what was being said about him, he risked embarrassment” and therefore “thought Epstein could be a resource to help set the record straight (whatever it was).” 

The hotel situation seemed to quickly dissipate, and by Dec. 27, Epstein and Mottola were discussing renovation plans for Epstein’s private island, Little St. James. “Do you need to build a new house on the island as well?” Mottola asked. Epstein replied, “Yes, houses. And an extra massage room for you, in bulletproof glass.” 

In what would be the final two years of their friendship, Mottola sent Epstein press roundups of the Donna Summer Broadway show, checked whether Epstein wanted to buy a new Bentley Mulsanne from him, and discussed construction plans for their respective homes. Mottola was helping Epstein with a renovation project on Little St. James, sending architects and project managers his way. 

They gossiped about former CBS CEO Les Moonves, who was accused of sexual harassment and intimidation in July 2018. “TOAST,” Mottola wrote to Epstein. When more women came forward with similar accusations against Moonves that September — including massage therapists who made allegations of sexual misconduct — Epstein flagged the piece to Mottola.

“Did you see the massage section in the monves piece?” Epstein wrote. “We should thank our lucky stars.”

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