Mega Edition: The Lawyer, The New York Times And The Mysterious Man (9/14/26)

The Boies-Kessler-New York Times episode began when a mysterious man using the name Patrick Kessler approached lawyers David Boies and John Stanley Pottinger claiming he possessed a vast archive of Jeffrey Epstein material, including communications, financial records and thousands of hours of secretly recorded video showing powerful men in compromising sexual situations. Kessler presented blurry still images and said the footage included figures such as Prince Andrew, Alan Dershowitz and Ehud Barak. Boies and Pottinger took the claims seriously enough to explore whether the material could be used in litigation on behalf of Epstein survivors, and Boies eventually introduced Kessler to reporters from The New York Times. Pottinger separately texted Kessler about a “hot list” of wealthy men who might be targeted for settlements and floated scenarios in which lawyers could receive large contingency fees. Those messages later became central to the Times’ investigation.The situation then turned on Boies and Pottinger when Kessler met privately with Times reporters and accused the lawyers themselves of planning to use his supposed evidence to pressure wealthy men for money. In November 2019, the Times published a major investigation portraying the episode as an example of how elite lawyers could use explosive sexual-misconduct allegations as leverage for lucrative settlements. But the story later came under significant criticism because Kessler himself appeared to be a fraud or fabulist who never produced the promised evidence and then disappeared. NPR later reported that earlier journalists had already questioned his credibility, that Boies had expressed doubts about him in emails, and that some of the most damaging “hot list” communications came from Pottinger without Boies being copied. The episode therefore became a story within the larger Epstein scandal: a supposed whistleblower with potentially historic evidence drew in powerful lawyers and one of the country’s biggest newspapers, only for his credibility to collapse and leave behind a fight over whether the lawyers had been exposing Epstein’s network, exploiting it, or themselves been manipulated by a con man.to contact me;[email protected]