Warning: This article contains sexual imagery.
Lyndon Lea, a British private equity tycoon and recent Montecito resident, is facing pointed questions over his relationship with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein after Lea’s name surfaced in the latest batch of investigative files released by the U.S. Department of Justice.
A search by the Santa Barbara Independent of the more than three million pages of documents revealed Lea and Epstein were introduced in 2009, shortly after Epstein completed his prison sentence for soliciting a child for prostitution. Lea had recently hosted a lavish housewarming party at his newly built $38 million estate on Channel Drive, where Cirque du Soleil dancers performed and sushi was served on the bodies of near-naked women.
Epstein asked to meet Lea because they “shared the same interests,” email exchanges show. Their contact appears to have been arranged by David Stern, an Epstein associate and former aide to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
At the time, Lea was a cofounding partner of London-based Lion Capital LLC and a die-hard polo enthusiast who had also purchased 200 acres of El Capitan Ranch for his polo team, Zacara. Named after Lea’s children, Zacara would go on to win the Bombardier Pacific Coast Open, the most prestigious annual tournament hosted by the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club.
In 2010, the emails show that Lea attended a party arranged by Epstein associate Jean-Luc Brunel, a former model agent who died in prison in 2022 while being held on suspicion of rape and trafficking minors. Epstein emailed Brunel to say: “It would be nice and i thinnk [sic] beneficial for you to have a dinner for lyndon lea.” Brunel replied: “Done … I am inviting also 10 models.”
Later that year, the disclosures indicate, Lea arranged to find work for a Romanian model as a favor to Epstein. The woman, Epstein said, was “serious, not a toy,” but that “toys are also available.” Lea soon confirmed he had “organized a job” for her. “She’ll need to do a couple of interviews to feel like she’s earned it but it’s already sorted unless she does something bizarre,” he wrote. In the following months, the woman wrote to Epstein that she was “a bit afraid” of Lea.
The two men maintained regular correspondence through 2016 and frequently talked business. Lea asked Epstein’s advice about private jets and whether to invest in a British restaurant chain. In 2011, Lea was appointed to the board of a U.S. anti-trafficking charity, Not for Sale, a position he still holds. The organization is working to end the sexual exploitation of children and adults across the globe, including the “coercion for the purpose of labor or commercial sex,” it states.
Calls and emails to Lion Capital and Not for Sale for comment were not returned.
It is not clear what knowledge, if any, Lea had of Epstein’s criminal activity throughout their relationship. Defense attorneys for other individuals named in the Epstein files have stressed their inclusion is not indicative of wrongdoing.
The files do not show if Epstein ever visited Lea at his Channel Drive estate. Travel records do reveal, however, that Epstein’s longtime confidant and fixer, Ghislaine Maxwell, stayed more than once at the nearby Four Seasons Resort during this period.
Lea sold the 8,000-square-foot Balinese-inspired home in 2021 and is now believed to be living in the Bahamas. While in town, he invested in an eco-conscious swimwear company called Happy Endingz, which was founded by a UCSB graduate who shared his love of horses. The company is no longer in business.
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