Brad Karp has resigned as chairman of the powerhouse New York law firm Paul Weiss amid scrutiny over his ties to convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“Recent reporting has created a distraction and has placed a focus on me that is not in the best interests of the firm,” Karp said in a statement released by Paul Weiss late Wednesday, referencing revelations that recently released Epstein files detailed his cozy correspondence with the late pedophile.
Scott Barshay, the previous Chair of the Paul Weiss Corporate Department, has been appointed chairman effective immediately, the firm said.
Karp, who has worked his entire 40-year legal career at Paul Weiss and was appointed as Chairman of the firm in 2008, added in the statement that “leading Paul Weiss for the past 18 years has been the honor of my professional life.”
Documents released by the Department of Justice on Friday detailed a years-long relationship between Epstein and Karp, revealing that the pair had a relationship beyond Paul Weiss’s representation of Apollo co-founder Leon Black.
On March 3, 2019, emails showed that Karp helped Epstein protect his plea deal on sex trafficking charges from legal attacks just months before the pedophile financier died in jail, Bloomberg Law first reported.
Karp reviewed a 2019 draft of a court filing arguing that a decade-old plea deal should not be reopened. Epstein’s lawyers later made that argument to intervene in a suit filed in Florida by two women who alleged they were trafficked by Epstein as minors, the outlet reported.
“The draft motion is in great shape. It’s overwhelmingly persuasive. Truly,” Karp wrote an email to Epstein that was a part of the tranche of over three million documents released by the DOJ.
“I particularly liked the argument that the ‘victims’ lied in wait and sat on their rights for their strategic
advantage, knowing you were in prison, before they came forward,” Karp, a Harvard Law School alum, wrote.
Epstein later forwarded Karp’s remarks to his personal legal team, according to the outlet.
In April 2019, just three months before Epstein’s arrest on federal child sex trafficking charges, the notorious creep also enlisted former White House strategist Steve Bannon to pull strings to get Karp into the ultra-exclusive Augusta Golf Club in Georgia, the Financial Times reported Sunday.
“Need to work magic to get brad Karp admitted to augusta golf club,” Epstein texted to someone whose name was redacted in April that year. The receiver of the text was Bannon, according to the report.
Karp also arranged through the powerful pedophile’s assistant for his son and daughter to attend a small Woody Allen film screening in New York in 2014. While it’s unclear if they attended, a 2015 email also referenced a dinner with Allen and Karp.
“I can’t thank you enough for including me in an evening I’ll never forget. It was truly “once in a lifetime” in every way, though I hope to be invited again. You are an extraordinary host — and your home . . .!!!” Karp wrote the day after the scheduled dinner.
“There are many many nights of unique talents. you will be invited often,” Epstein replied, according to the files.
“You’re amazing . . . and thank you!” Karp responded.
The DOJ files showed additional plans for Karp’s son to attend Woody Allen screenings in 2016 and 2018, the report said.
Files from Oct. 2018 also revealed that Epstein sought Karp’s help in an apparent fee dispute with Black, who also resigned from Apollo Global Management in March 2021 over his ties to Epstein.
“Paul Weiss was retained by Leon Black, then the CEO of the firm’s longtime client Apollo, to negotiate a series of fee disputes with Jeffrey Epstein that spanned several years,” a Paul Weiss spokesperson previously told the Financial Times of Epstein and Karp’s relationship.
“The firm was adverse to Epstein and at no point did Paul Weiss or Brad Karp ever represent him,” the spokesperson said.
Karp already faced backlash last year after Paul Weiss reached a deal with President Trump to resolve an executive order that could have harmed the firm.
Paul Weiss did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for additional comment.
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