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1.03 beta now available on Steam
Welcome Bosses, Chicagoans and all! Today we bring you great news, crew. See here, we have decided to let the public in on the operation: we are now doing public betas of new patches! This means that if you play Empire of Sin on Steam, you can now choose to opt into playing the latest stable beta build of the game. Here is how to do it:
Open Steam.
Go to the Library and right-click on Empire of Sin > Manage > Betas.
Choose the beta branch available in the drop down menu.
You should then be able to download the beta build. No password needed!
And that’s it, you’re good to go, boss! Of course, we would love to hear your feedback on the beta patch. Feel free to let us know in the comments below, in the Empire of Sin Discord or in the Empire of Sin Beta sub-forum. Discord: https://discord.gg/qX2PTYK Forum: http://pdxint.at/3tflvQ6 See below for a full list of Patch Notes for Beta Branch 1.03.
Update Notes - Beta Branch 1.03
Please Remember:
Back up your game save folder to ensure any issues during this test do not affect your main game saves
When reporting issues, please include the build version number in the report. You can find the version number on the main menu, or by dropping down the developer console.
You may be asked to attach a game save or log to a report. You can find your save games at C:Users[username]AppDataLocalLowRomeroGamesEmpireOfSinGameSaves
Player logs can be found at C:Users[username]AppDataLocalLowRomeroGamesEmpireOfSin.... Look for the folder that matches the time the game crashed
If a build update happens while you are playing the game you will need to restart Steam to get the update
Known Issues:
We're aware of an issue where you can receive notifications & loot regarding Big Jims Stash incorrectly. The team is working on a fix for this.
We're aware of some stability issues around the tutorial. The team is working on a fix.
We're aware of rare issue where buildings in the world can occasionally disappear. If you encounter this issue any additional Information you can provide would be very helpful.
Changelog
The Highlights
Safehouses are now hidden
Combat AI has been improved and provides more challenge
An option to avoid nuisance combat demands has been added, a new system will be implemented in the next update (1.04)
Fast travel has been limited
You can no longer attack an Enemy Faction you’re not at War with
General Changes
AI ignores temporary alliances when deciding to break an alliance
Loot crates are now rebalanced
Adjusted racket income filter list to take the prosperity modifier into account
Added separate notoriety gains for raze, ransack, and smash up
Prevented Personality Traits from reapplying every time you save/load
Removed time-free teleporting
Fix disappearing gangsters
UI polish
Locale polish
Prevented alcohol resource errors when ransacking that could lead to inventory corruption
Fixed instances of disappearing actors when upgrading ambience
Fixed severe issues when a game is loaded where "master hotelier" is in effect
Fixed an issue where actors could be sent to the void if two buildings changed their racket type at the same time
Added more building and colour variety in the neighbourhoods
Player cannot scroll the claim list without using virtual cursor mode when using a controller
Gangster Talents need to be unlocked
Fix boss ability items inheriting incorrect modifiers through weapon stats
Add a wait to the flee action so players can see the characters leave the area
Character model improvements
When editing a building name, if player adds a space or lowercase letters, the building name will not be displayed correctly
Adding more building variety throughout the neighbourhoods
Better telegraphing and delay for Hotels Disbanding
Better notifications for players when hotels are disbanded
Fixed a softlock when assigning Lieutenants
Fixed issue where if a character has more than 9 Status Effects on them, the UI will start to overlap. If they receive 28 or more, the icons will start to go off screen
Empire screen filter lists scroll resets on repopulating
The missing synergy icon has been found and returned to its rightful slot
The Crew screen and Black Market now have no whitespace issues when viewed in 4:3
The issue when switching to Asian languages and switching back would cause text to disappear in the tutorial is now resolved
We have updated the hiring costs for the starting gangsters
An issue with Safehouse discovery resetting on load has now been laid to rest
The awkward silences in sitdowns have now been filled with conversation. We Cleared the truce/end war sitdowns when war is removed
Missing translations in the Settings window from the Title screen have been replaced
Increased the difficulty of the difficulty levels
Change Threaten Option in sitdown pop up
Fixed alcohol resource being released twice
Save upgrader to fix older saves not loading from alcohol issue
Saltis issue with rackets being locked fixed
DMJ issue for Thompson not on map in Blues fixed
Capone softlock when talking to Guard fixed
When skipping to Ronnie’s phone call in the tutorial, we didn't have a valid reference to the brewery
Increased the tiers for racket guards for all major factions
The issue with gangster talents not needed to be unlocked has been whacked
Multiple tooltips were missing in the Empire Overview, Finances and Alcohol info screen. We found them
The name of the neighborhood is now added to the surrender dialog options
Various UI fixes
Fixed an issue where sitdown and mission icons stayed fixed on screen if the player pressed 'f' to transition to another neighbourhood
Made sure that the tutorial safehouse doesn't spawn exterior guards while the tutorial is active
Addednew advertisements, see if you can spot them all
Fixed Safehouse Discovered Softlock in Tutorial
Friend In Need mission fix for not completing after killing lodge members
Jaqcues Attacks mission fix for not completing if you upgrade all rackets at once
Fixed crate positions
Increased the sitdown timeout from 5 minutes to 15 minutes
Unknown characters will no longer reveal the faction name if we start pre-combat near them
Mark Target will now work in pre-combat and start combat immediately when activated
Resolved an issue where the AI could initiate combat while a sitdown was beginning. This would result in a soft lock in some cases
Added recruiting time to AI squads
Removed war-free attacks, you want a fight, start a war
Raul is placed so close to a building that his arm was in it
Genna fix for Round The World mission not completing
When the player refuses the police request for cash, their rating with the police is reduced depending on their notoriety. If they pay up, their rating with the police is increased
Fixed a cursor issue when cancelling a load game request
Nicknames should display how you got them in pop up
Fixed issue where all tutorial attacks by player were asking for confirmation
Fixed Issue with safehouse storages being nil
Prevented Moles from being added to selection
Non-tutorial AI Factions now start with a safehouse security level of 2 instead of 1
Fixed bookshelf collisions in bars
Created a Sal's Tips update for 1.03 to advise players in-game as to what the updates are
Updated Large Casino interiors
Different colors for the Explore and the Exterminate Agenda icon outline on the minimap and street view. This change also fixes colors of agenda icons not updating when you encounter a squad from an unknown faction
Fixed Status bar icons overlap with combat status UI
Police now resume patrolling correctly after TurningABlindEye is over in a location
Made all loot in crates uncommon
OBanion's mission POI not updating if racket becomes invalid is now fixed
Duarte's mission racket showing 0 cost for buildings after takeover, CMA mission not continuing
Injured Gangsters are now correctly disappearing after taking over a racket when they become injured
Fix for Word on The Street mission not continuing because combat was starting during a conversation
Various save game fixes
Made prosperity only update on weekly events
Fixed issue where character entered into a t-pose if they travel while paused
Fixed issue where players could end up not being able to move long distances
Combat Fixes/Changes
Issues with the AI not using grenades if they have to step out from cover have been fixed.
Dead combatants can no longer panic during combat
Allowed the boss to gain notoriety if anyone in their faction performs an execution
Ensure AI squads that are about to attack a building are not used by other tactics before they have attacked
Reduce the OW Angle for Dart Gun from 180 to 130 degrees and reduced the OW Angle for LP08 Pistol from 180 to 150 degrees
Suppressed Fire shot does not deal damage to targets
Ensured combat can't start during conversations
Fixed issue where player is able to equip regular rounds on dart gun
Tweaked Last Rites as it can deal more damage than it is supposed to: All attacks with more than one shot would always deal crit damage after the first crit shot
Fixed issue where certain conversations couldn't start combat
Stop heal over time effects being applied when their item is equipped
Fixed a softlock in combat when moving characters who had been revived from bleeding out as the result of an overwatch shot
Fixed Ability & Melee descriptions being truncated during combat
Fixed issue where Gun panel would stay up with no gun icon
Fixed an issue where entering combat during the war tutorial softlocks the game
Remove the drunk animation while in combat to fix characters teleporting across the map
Ensured errors in AI tactics don't block AI behaviour
Fixed softlock related to a primary faction being eliminated in a war
Fixed softlock when a revenge reaction turn was triggered after shooting
Fixed softlock when using batter up on a character that doesn't die
Weapon Balance: Reduced the effectiveness of a number of weapons. Critical hit damage has been reduced across the board. Removed the instant kill modifier from the Funeral Arranger Shotgun and the Deceiver Rifle. Added Knockback and Bleed to the Deceiver
Fixed for knife attack anim freezing
Fixed save games with broken melee weapons after using a batter up reaction attack
Fixed an issue where Knocking Out a character with an overwatch shot would softlock the game
Fixed issue where character can be stuck in the knocked out pose after combat ends
Last Rites ability has limited range, which was not implied by the game in any way
Fixed issue with Remedy not appearing on action bar
Fixed issue with Hair Trigger ability activation popup showing even when character is knocked down
Fixed an issue where certain combat reactions were using stale position / vision data. Could cause an issue where a character would "step out" to an old position several meters away
Time Bomb will disrupt overwatch when thrown
Characters no longer get up after they have been executed if they were put in the BleedingOut state by a critical hit
Fixed issue where Last Rites doesn't indicate that DMJ's Mauser has 10 shots leading people to believe it is bugged
Characters no longer get stuck in the overwatch pose at the end of combat
Characters rotate back to their overwatch direction after getting attacked
Run Away option is displayed in surrender dialogue if gangster is under attack outside
If a gangster or boss will be affected by the exterior combat, the dialogue offering surrender now shows their name
The camera will no longer move after the player abandons exterior combat when the attackers are attacking the outside of a building
AI attacking building exteriors will now attack between 8-15 metres from the building door instead of between 0 - 5 meters
Fixed issue where corpses would block player moving to tiles
Vicekings boss Donovan leaned on us for getting his name wrong in German
The camera will no longer move after the player abandons exterior combat when the attackers are attacking the outside of a building
If a gangster or boss will be affected by the exterior combat, the dialogue offering surrender now shows their name
We have ensured the Run Away option is displayed in surrender dialogue if the character is under attack outside
Added even more variety in the buildings
Made sure characters cant get stuck in the overwatch pose at the end of combat
Characters now rotate back to their overwatch direction after getting attacked
Increased the duration before an AI will declare war without an antagonizing incident
Adjusted weapon ranges and stats
Smooth out the curves for weapon ranges to reduce a number of sharp drop offs.
Lowered a number of critical damage multiplier values for numerous weapon types.
Removed critical hit chance from a number of explosives weapons.
Removed armor damage from rifles
Fixed an issue where the AI would get close to the player
Added new movement parameters that allow the AI to want to move towards the effective range of their weapon
Improved the performance for moving towards enemies and grouping with allies
Fixed an issue with all tiers of Saltis melee racket guard being equipped with Brass Knuckles. Now each tier of Salltis melee racket guard is equipped with appropriate tiers of melee weapon
Wandering thugs and thugs near loot crates will no longer attack the player on sight. They will attack if the player opens a loot crate near them
Guards of major and minor factions will now only attack the player faction characters on sight if they are at war
Melee attacks now trigger the correct animation if the target bleeds out
That combatant who started a battle while in sitting pose, will no longer stay in that pose for the whole fight
Guards in rackets will no longer sit in chairs
Resolved a UI Overlap in combat with large text settings
Further updates to the combat AI to help them move when no targets are visible and stay put when they can do actions from their current position
Made sure bleeding out targets are prioritised correctly in the chance to hit order
Friendly fire no longer removes non-aggression types of pacts (ceasefires/defense agreements..etc)
Fixed issue where Unleash Fury could fail to activate
Reduce the movement debuff from exhaustion from -2 to -1
Fixed an issue where clicking the "Exit Ambush" button did nothing in combat
Character speed returns to normal if Drunk status wears off during combat
Only play Gut Shot sfx when someone
Mission Fixes/Changes
Auto focusing missions that come from quest givers and boss missions
Fixed failing Ryley mission when Alfred dies
Fixed Helen being placed in Dyer mission when placement invalidated
Removed repeated objectives failing missions
Fixed alcohol production being stopped forever in CMA mission and Burned Bozze and Ruined Barley event
Fixed unclickable option for DMJ's mission
Added placement invalidated to RPC missions so they stop failing when a building is upgraded
Moved Kicking the Habit mission to mid game to stop both maria missions spawning together
CMA fixes - Stopping All Good Things on Alt time auto-completing, fix for Jaques Attack and They're on to Us
Boss mission fixes - Stopping NPCs from spawning on band stand, buildings taken over by killing boss now count as conquering and progress mission, fix for DMJ mission Down Hearted Blues
Fixed missions not completing in groups
CMA fixes, Auto accepting mission rewards instead of relying on resolution pop up
Persisting mission npcs that are going to be resurrected to stop them from disappearing, misc boss mission fixes
CMA fixes, body bag removal fix, removing persistent POI over Maria's head, adding do not revive tag to mission npcs to stop them getting up after combat
Moved any mission npcs standing on stages in bars off them
Fixed an issue where interior guards could duplicate themselves after winning a defensive fight
Union mission, family business mission and npc approaching player to talk fixed
Thug Variants
You should now see 13 different thugs
The appearance is randomly selected
Racket Guard Changes
Any old saves that were made before these changes were introduced will keep their previous racket guards until that racket is upgraded or sold and purchased again. Once upgraded or purchased the racket will start using the new guard configs.
With each level of security upgrade the guards will now become much tougher
A new tier of racket guard has been introduced at security upgrade levels 4 and 5
These changes only attribute based. The number of guards has not changed and there has been no changes made to the guard inventories
Fixed issue with racket guards not being replenished
Faction Changes
Allowing the boss to gain notoriety if anyone in their faction performs an execution
Fixing Spiffing Brit minor faction exploit
Faction AI no longer attacks buildings outside of war. Existing attacks outside of war in older saves are cancelled.
The diplomacy option for retribution demands has been removed
Safehouse Changes
Gameplay change to safehouses hiding has been pushed.
Safehouses start out as hidden (white buildings you can't interact with)
Discovery chance increases by 1% a week from meeting a faction
Once a month a safehouse discovery chance checked and the safehouse is revealed if the check passes
Diplomacy screen shows your current discovery chance
Taking over that faction's rackets further increases the discovery chance and checks (dynamic percentage based on faction rackets remaining)
Event fires on safehouse being discovered
Guards don't show up outside the safehouse until the safehouse is discovered by the player
Ensuring taking over safehouses correctly assigns lieutenants
Fixed issue with gangsters flagged as “away” being able to be assigned to a safehouse
Just finished watching The Weekly (it’s kind of a Vice rip-off by the NYT) on Hulu where they went into detail about their story published this week about a « hacker » named Patrick Kessler who claimed to have tens of thousands of hours of Epstein’s private videos. Turns out, Patrick did not released the videos and there is a lot of questions with his credibility, nonetheless, he clearly exposed two lawyers (Bois and Pottinger) for attempting to profit by offering to reach large settlements in which they would take 40%. The article is here: Jeffrey Epstein, Blackmail, and a Lucrative Hotlist Even though it sounds like this guy Kessler is full of shit, I REALLY wish that he wasn’t and at some point these troves of photos and videos get released and a bunch of rich and powerful people get what they deserve for abusing these women. For those who need access to NYT- it is a long article, but here’s the full text: By Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Emily Steel, Jacob Bernstein and David Enrich Nov. 30, 2019 Soon after the sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein died in August, a mysterious man met with two prominent lawyers. Towering, barrel-chested and wild-bearded, he was a prodigious drinker and often wore flip-flops. He went by a pseudonym, Patrick Kessler — a necessity, he said, given the shadowy, dangerous world that he inhabited. He told the lawyers he had something incendiary: a vast archive of Mr. Epstein’s data, stored on encrypted servers overseas. He said he had years of the financier’s communications and financial records — as well as thousands of hours of footage from hidden cameras in the bedrooms of Mr. Epstein’s properties. The videos, Kessler said, captured some of the world’s richest, most powerful men in compromising sexual situations — even in the act of rape. Kessler said he wanted to expose these men. If he was telling the truth, his trove could answer one of the Epstein saga’s most baffling questions: How did a college dropout and high school math teacher amass a purported nine-figure fortune? One persistent but unproven theory was that he ran a sprawling blackmail operation. That would explain why moguls, scientists, political leaders and a royal stayed loyal to him, in some cases even after he first went to jail. Kessler’s tale was enough to hook the two lawyers, the famed litigator David Boies and his friend John Stanley Pottinger. If Kessler was authentic, his videos would arm them with immense leverage over some very important people. Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger discussed a plan. They could use the supposed footage in litigation or to try to reach deals with men who appeared in it, with money flowing into a charitable foundation. In encrypted chats with Kessler, Mr. Pottinger referred to a roster of potential targets as the “hot list.” He described hypothetical plans in which the lawyers would pocket up to 40 percent of the settlements and could extract money from wealthy men by flipping from representing victims to representing their alleged abusers. The possibilities were tantalizing — and extended beyond vindicating victims. Mr. Pottinger saw a chance to supercharge his law practice. For Mr. Boies, there was a shot at redemption, after years of criticism for his work on behalf of Theranos and Harvey Weinstein. In the end, there would be no damning videos, no funds pouring into a new foundation. Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger would go from toasting Kessler as their “whistle-blower” and “informant” to torching him as a “fraudster” and a “spy.” Kessler was a liar, and he wouldn’t expose any sexual abuse. But he would reveal something else: The extraordinary, at times deceitful measures elite lawyers deployed in an effort to get evidence that could be used to win lucrative settlements — and keep misconduct hidden, allowing perpetrators to abuse again. Mr. Boies has publicly decried such secret deals as “rich man’s justice,” a way that powerful men buy their way out of legal and reputational jeopardy. This is how it works. 7 men and a headless parrot The man who called himself Kessler first contacted a Florida lawyer, Bradley J. Edwards, who was in the news for representing women with claims against Mr. Epstein. It was late August, about two weeks after the financier killed himself in a jail cell while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges. Mr. Edwards, who did not respond to interview requests, had a law firm called Edwards Pottinger, and he soon referred Kessler to his New York partner. Silver-haired and 79, Mr. Pottinger had been a senior civil-rights official in the Nixon and Ford administrations, but he also dabbled in investment banking and wrote best-selling medical thrillers. He was perhaps best known for having dated Gloria Steinem and Kathie Lee Gifford. Mr. Pottinger recalled that Mr. Edwards warned him about Kessler, saying that he was “endearing,” “spooky” and “loves to drink like a fish.” After an initial discussion with Kessler in Washington, Mr. Pottinger briefed Mr. Boies — whose firm was also active in representing accusers in the Epstein case — about the sensational claims. He then invited Kessler to his Manhattan apartment. Kessler admired a wall-mounted frame containing a headless stuffed parrot; on TV, the Philadelphia Eagles were mounting a comeback against the Washington Redskins. Mr. Pottinger poured Kessler a glass of WhistlePig whiskey, and the informant began to talk. In his conversations with Mr. Pottinger and, later, Mr. Boies, Kessler said his videos featured numerous powerful men who were already linked to Mr. Epstein: Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister; Alan Dershowitz, a constitutional lawyer; Prince Andrew; three billionaires; and a prominent chief executive. All seven men, or their representatives, told The New York Times they never engaged in sexual activity on Mr. Epstein’s properties. The Times has no reason to believe Kessler’s supposed video footage is real. In his apartment, Mr. Pottinger presented Kessler with a signed copy of “The Boss,” his 2005 novel. “One minute you’re bending the rules,” blares the cover of the paperback version. “The next minute you’re breaking the law.” On the title page, Mr. Pottinger wrote: “Here’s to the great work you are to do. Happy to be part of it.” Mr. Pottinger also gave Kessler a draft contract to bring him on as a client, allowing him to use a fake name. “For reasons revealed to you, I prefer to proceed with this engagement under the name Patrick Kessler,” the agreement said. Despite the enormities of the Epstein scandal, few of his accusers have gotten a sense of justice or resolution. Mr. Pottinger thought Kessler’s files could change everything. This strange man was theatrical and liked his alcohol, but if there was even a chance his claims were true, they were worth pursuing. “Our clients are said to be liars and prostitutes,” Mr. Pottinger later said in an interview with The Times, “and we now have someone who says, ‘I can give you secret photographic proof of abuse that will completely change the entire fabric of your practice and get justice for these girls.’ And you think that we wouldn’t try to get that?” A victim becomes a hacker Mr. Pottinger and Mr. Boies have known each other for years, a friendship forged on bike trips in France and Italy. In legal circles, Mr. Boies was royalty: He was the one who fought for presidential candidate Al Gore before the Supreme Court, took on Microsoft in a landmark antitrust case, and helped obtain the right for gays and lesbians to get married in California. But then Mr. Boies got involved with the blood-testing start-up Theranos. As the company was being revealed as a fraud, he tried to bully whistle-blowers into not speaking to a Wall Street Journal reporter, and he was criticized for possible conflicts of interest when he joined the company’s board in 2015. Two years later, Mr. Boies helped his longtime client Harvey Weinstein hire private investigators who intimidated sources and trailed reporters for The Times and The New Yorker — even though Mr. Boies’s firm had worked for The Times on other matters. (The Times fired his firm.) By 2019, Mr. Boies, 78, was representing a number of Mr. Epstein’s alleged victims. They got his services pro bono, and he got the chance to burnish his legacy. When Mr. Pottinger contacted him about Kessler, he was intrigued. On Sept. 9, Mr. Boies greeted Kessler at the offices of his law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, in a gleaming new skyscraper at Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s West Side. Kessler unfurled a fantastic story, one he would embroider and alter in later weeks, that began with him growing up somewhere within a three-hour radius of Washington. Kessler said he had been molested as a boy by a Bible school teacher and sought solace on the internet, where he fell in with a group of victims turned hackers, who used their skills to combat pedophilia. Kessler claimed that a technology executive had introduced him to Mr. Epstein, who in 2012 hired Kessler to set up encrypted servers to preserve his extensive digital archives. With Mr. Epstein dead, Kessler boasted to the lawyers, he had unfettered access to the material. He said the volume of videos was overwhelming: more than a decade of round-the-clock footage from dozens of cameras. Kessler displayed some pixelated video stills on his phone. In one, a bearded man with his mouth open appears to be having sex with a naked woman. Kessler said the man was Mr. Barak. In another, a man with black-framed glasses is seen shirtless with a woman on his lap, her breasts exposed. Kessler said it was Mr. Dershowitz. He also said that some of the supposed videos appeared to have been edited and cataloged for the purpose of blackmail. “This was explosive information if true, for lots and lots of people,” Mr. Boies said in an interview. Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger had decades of legal experience and considered themselves experts at assessing witnesses’ credibility. While they couldn’t be sure, they thought Kessler was probably legit. A chance to sway the Israeli election Within hours of the Hudson Yards meeting, Mr. Pottinger sent Kessler a series of texts over the encrypted messaging app Signal. According to excerpts viewed by The Times, Mr. Pottinger and Kessler discussed a plan to disseminate some of the informant’s materials — starting with the supposed footage of Mr. Barak. The Israeli election was barely a week away, and Mr. Barak was challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The purported images of Mr. Barak might be able to sway the election — and fetch a high price. (“Total lie with no basis in reality,” Mr. Barak said when asked about the existence of such videos.) “Can you review your visual evidence to be sure some or all is indisputably him? If so, we can make it work,” Mr. Pottinger wrote. Kessler said he would do so. Mr. Pottinger sent a yellow smiley-face emoji with its tongue sticking out. “Can you share your contact that would be purchasing,” Kessler asked. “Sheldon Adelson,” Mr. Pottinger answered. Mr. Adelson, a billionaire casino magnate in Las Vegas, had founded one of Israel’s largest newspapers, and it was an enthusiastic booster of Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Pottinger wrote that he and Mr. Boies hoped to fly to Nevada to meet with Mr. Adelson to discuss the images. “Do you believe that adelson has the pull to insure this will hurt his bid for election?” Kessler asked the next morning. Mr. Pottinger reassured him. “There is no question that Adelson has the capacity to air the truth about EB if he wants to,” he said, using Mr. Barak’s initials. He said he planned to discuss the matter with Mr. Boies that evening. Mr. Boies confirmed that they discussed sharing the photo with Mr. Adelson but said the plan was never executed. Boaz Bismuth, the editor in chief of the newspaper, Israel Hayom, said its journalists were approached by an Israeli source who pitched them supposed images of Mr. Barak, but that “we were not interested.” ‘These are wealthy wrongdoers’ The men whom Kessler claimed to have on tape were together worth many billions. Some of their public relations teams had spent months trying to tamp down media coverage of their connections to Mr. Epstein. Imagine how much they might pay to make incriminating videos vanish. You might think that lawyers representing abuse victims would want to publicly expose such information to bolster their clients’ claims. But that is not how the legal industry always works. Often, keeping things quiet is good business. One of the revelations of the #MeToo era has been that victims’ lawyers often brokered secret deals in which alleged abusers paid to keep their accusers quiet and the allegations out of the public sphere. Lawyers can pocket at least a third of such settlements, profiting off a system that masks misconduct and allows men to abuse again. Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger said in interviews that they were looking into creating a charity to help victims of sexual abuse. It would be bankrolled by private legal settlements with the men on the videos. Mr. Boies acknowledged that Kessler might get paid. “If we were able to use this to help our victims recover money, we would treat him generously,” he said in September. He said that his firm would not get a cut of any settlements. Such agreements would have made it less likely that videos involving the men became public. “Generally what settlements are about is getting peace,” Mr. Boies said. Mr. Pottinger told Kessler that the charity he was setting up would be called the Astria Foundation — a name he later said his girlfriend came up with, in a nod to Astraea, the Greek goddess of innocence and justice. “We need to get it funded by abusers,” Mr. Pottinger texted, noting in another message that “these are wealthy wrongdoers.” Mr. Pottinger asked Kessler to start compiling incriminating materials on a specific group of men. “I’m way ahead of you,” Kessler responded. He said he had asked his team of fellow hackers to search the files for the three billionaires, the C.E.O. and Prince Andrew. “Yes, that’s exactly how to do this,” Mr. Pottinger said. “Videos for sure, but email traffic, too.” “I call it our hot list,” he added. Image The Grand Sichuan restaurant in Manhattan. The Grand Sichuan restaurant in Manhattan.Credit...Stephanie Diani for The New York Times A quiet table at the back of Grand Sichuan In mid-September, Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger invited reporters from The Times to the Boies Schiller offices to meet Kessler. The threat of a major news organization writing about the videos — and confirming the existence of an extensive surveillance apparatus — could greatly enhance the lawyers’ leverage over the wealthy men. Before the session, Mr. Pottinger encouraged Kessler to focus on certain men, like Mr. Barak, while avoiding others. Referring to the reporters, he added, “Let them drink from a fountain instead of a water hose. They and the readers will follow that better.” The meeting took place on a cloudy Saturday morning. After agreeing to leave their phones and laptops outside, the reporters entered a 20th-floor conference room. Kessler was huge: more than 6 feet tall, pushing 300 pounds, balding, his temples speckled with gray. He told his story and presented images that he said were of Mr. Epstein, Mr. Barak and Mr. Dershowitz having sex with women. Barely an hour after the session ended, the Times reporters received an email from Kessler: “Are you free?” He said he wanted to meet — alone. “Tell no one else.” That afternoon, they met at Grand Sichuan, an iconic Chinese restaurant in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. The lunch rush was over, and the trio sat at a quiet table in the back. A small group of women huddled nearby, speaking Mandarin and snipping the ends off string beans. Kessler complained that Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger were more interested in making money than in exposing wrongdoers. He pulled out his phone, warned the reporters not to touch it, and showed more of what he had. There was a color photo of a bare-chested, gray-haired man with a slight smile. Kessler said it was a billionaire. He also showed blurry, black-and-white images of a dark-haired man receiving oral sex. He said it was a prominent C.E.O. Soup dumplings and Gui Zhou chicken arrived, and Kessler kept talking. He said he had found financial ledgers on Mr. Epstein’s servers that showed he had vast amounts of Bitcoin and cash in the Middle East and Bangkok, and hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of gold, silver and diamonds. He presented no proof. But it is common for whistle-blowers to be erratic and slow to produce their evidence, and The Times thought it was worth investigating Kessler’s claims. The conversation continued in a conference room at a Washington hotel five days later, after a text exchange in which Kessler noted his enthusiasm for Japanese whiskey. Both parties brought bottles to the hotel, and Kessler spent nearly eight hours downing glass after glass. He veered from telling tales about the dark web to professing love for “Little House on the Prairie.” He asserted that he had evidence Mr. Epstein had derived his wealth through illicit means. At one point, he showed what he said were classified C.I.A. documents. Kessler said he had no idea who the women in the videos were or how the lawyers might go about identifying them to act on their behalf. From his perspective, he said, it seemed like Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger were plotting to use his footage to demand huge sums from billionaires. He said it looked like blackmail — and that he could prove it. ‘We keep it. We keep everything’ Was Kessler’s story plausible? Did America’s best-connected sexual predator accumulate incriminating videos of powerful men? Two women who spent time in Mr. Epstein’s homes said the answer was yes. In an unpublished memoir, Virginia Giuffre, who accused Mr. Epstein of making her a “sex slave,” wrote that she discovered a room in his New York mansion where monitors displayed real-time surveillance footage. And Maria Farmer, an artist who accused Mr. Epstein of sexually assaulting her when she worked for him in the 1990s, said that Mr. Epstein once walked her through the mansion, pointing out pin-sized cameras that he said were in every room. “I said, ‘Are you recording all this?’” Ms. Farmer said in an interview. “He said, ‘Yes. We keep it. We keep everything.’” During a 2005 search of Mr. Epstein’s Palm Beach, Fla., estate, the police found two cameras hidden in clocks — one in the garage and the other next to his desk, according to police reports. But no other cameras were found. Kessler claimed to have been an early investor in a North Carolina coffee company, whose sticker was affixed to his laptop. But its founder said no one matching Kessler’s description had ever been affiliated with the company. Kessler insisted that he invested in 2009, but the company wasn’t founded until 2011. The contents of Kessler’s supposed C.I.A. documents turned out to be easily findable using Google. At one point, Kessler said that one of his associates had been missing and was found dead; later, Kessler said the man was alive and in the southern United States. He said that his mother had died when he was young — and that he had recently given her a hug. A photo he sent from what he said was a Washington-area hospital featured a distinctive blanket, but when The Times called local hospitals, they didn’t recognize the pattern. After months of effort, The Times could not learn Kessler’s identity or confirm any element of his back story. “I am very often being purposefully inconsistent,” Kessler said, when pressed. A Weinstein cameo On the last Friday in September, Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger sat on a blue leather couch in the corner of a members-only dining room at the Harvard Club in Midtown Manhattan. Antlered animal heads and oil paintings hung from the dark wooden walls. The lawyers were there to make a deal with The Times. Tired of waiting for Kessler’s motherlode, Mr. Pottinger said they planned to send a team overseas to download the material from his servers. He said he had alerted the F.B.I. and a prosecutor in the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan. Mr. Boies told an editor for The Times that they would be willing to share everything, on one condition: They would have discretion over which men could be written about, and when. He explained that if compromising videos about particular men became public, that could torpedo litigation or attempts to negotiate settlements. The Times editor didn’t commit. Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger later said those plans had hinged on verifying the videos’ authenticity and on having clients with legitimate legal claims against the men. Otherwise, legal experts said, it might have crossed the line into extortion. The meeting was briefly interrupted when Bob Weinstein, the brother of Harvey Weinstein, bounded up to the table and plopped onto the couch next to Mr. Boies. The two men spent several minutes talking, laughing and slapping each other on the back. While Mr. Boies and Mr. Weinstein chatted, Mr. Pottinger furtively displayed the black-and-white shot of a man in glasses having sex. Both lawyers said it looked like Mr. Dershowitz. ‘You don’t keep your glasses on when you’re doing that’ One day in late September, Mr. Dershowitz’s secretary relayed a message: Someone named Patrick Kessler wanted to speak to him about Mr. Boies. “The problem is that they don’t want to move forward with any of these people legally,” Kessler said. “They’re just interested in trying to settle and take a cut.” “Who are these people that you have on videotape?” Mr. Dershowitz asked. “There’s a lot of people,” Kessler said, naming a few powerful men. He added, “There’s a long list of people that they want me to have that I don’t have.” “Who?” Mr. Dershowitz asked. “Did they ask about me?” “Of course they asked about you. You know that, sir.” “And you don’t have anything on me, right?” “I do not, no,” Kessler said. “Because I never, I never had sex with anybody,” Mr. Dershowitz said. Later in the call, he added, “I am completely clean. I was at Jeffrey’s house. I stayed there. But I didn’t have any sex with anybody.” What was the purpose of Kessler’s phone call? Why did he tell Mr. Dershowitz that he wasn’t on the supposed surveillance tapes, contradicting what he had said and showed to Mr. Boies, Mr. Pottinger and The Times? Did the call sound a little rehearsed? Mr. Dershowitz said that he didn’t know why Kessler contacted him, and that the phone call was the only time the two men ever spoke. When The Times showed him one of Kessler’s photos, in which a bespectacled man resembling Mr. Dershowitz appears to be having sex, Mr. Dershowitz laughed and said the man wasn’t him. His wife, Carolyn Cohen, peeked at the photo, too. “You don’t keep your glasses on when you’re doing that,” she said. Data set (supposedly) to self-destruct In early October, Kessler said he was ready to produce the Epstein files. He told The Times that he had created duplicate versions of Mr. Epstein’s servers. He laid out detailed logistical plans for them to be shipped by boat to the United States and for one of his associates — a very short Icelandic man named Steven — to deliver them to The Times headquarters at 11 a.m. on Oct. 3. Kessler warned that he was erecting a maze of security systems. First, a Times employee would need to use a special thumb drive to access a proprietary communications system. Then Kessler’s colleague would transmit a code to decrypt the files. If his instructions weren’t followed precisely, Kessler said, the information would self-destruct. Specialists at The Times set up a number of “air-gapped” laptops — disconnected from the internet — in a windowless, padlocked meeting room. Reporters cleared their schedules to sift through thousands of hours of surveillance footage. On the morning of the scheduled delivery, Kessler sent a series of frantic texts. Disaster had struck. A fire was burning. The duplicate servers were destroyed. One of his team members was missing. He was fleeing to Kyiv. Two hours later, Kessler was in touch with Mr. Pottinger and didn’t mention any emergency. Kessler said he hoped that the footage would help pry $1 billion in settlements out of their targets, and asked him to detail how the lawyers could extract the money. “Could you put together a hypothetical situation,” Kessler wrote, not something “set in stone but close to what your thinking.” In one, which he called a “standard model” for legal settlements, Mr. Pottinger said the money would be split among his clients, the Astria Foundation, Kessler and the lawyers, who would get up to 40 percent. In the second hypothetical, Mr. Pottinger wrote, the lawyers would approach the videotaped men. The men would then hire the lawyers, ensuring that they would not get sued, and “make a contribution to a nonprofit as part of the retainer.” “No client is actually involved in this structure,” Mr. Pottinger said, noting that the arrangement would have to be “consistent with and subject to rules of ethics.” “Thank you very much,” Kessler responded. Mr. Pottinger later said that the scenario would have involved him representing a victim, settling a case and then representing the victim’s alleged abuser. He said it was within legal boundaries. (He also said he had meant to type “No client lawsuit is actually involved.”) Such legal arrangements are not unheard-of. Lawyers representing a former Fox News producer who had accused Bill O’Reilly of sexual harassment reached a settlement in which her lawyers agreed to work for Mr. O’Reilly after the dispute. But legal experts generally consider such setups to be unethical because they can create conflicts between the interests of the lawyers and their original clients. ‘I just pulled it out of my behind’ The lawyers held out hope of getting Kessler’s materials. But weeks passed, and nothing arrived. At one point, Mr. Pottinger volunteered to meet Kessler anywhere — including Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. “I still believe he is what he purported to be,” Mr. Boies wrote in an email on Nov. 7. “I have to evaluate people for my day job, and he seemed too genuine to be a fake, and I very much want him to be real.” He added, “I am not unconscious of the danger of wanting to believe something too much.” Ten days later, Mr. Boies arrived at The Times for an on-camera interview. It was a bright, chilly Sunday, and Mr. Boies had just flown in from Ecuador, where he said he was doing work for the finance ministry. Reporters wanted to ask him plainly if his and Mr. Pottinger’s conduct with Kessler crossed ethical lines. Would they have brokered secret settlements that buried evidence of wrongdoing? Did the notion of extracting huge sums from men in exchange for keeping sex tapes hidden meet the definition of extortion? Mr. Boies said the answer to both questions was no. He said he and Mr. Pottinger operated well within the law. They only intended to pursue legal action on behalf of their clients — in other words, that they were a long way from extortion. In any case, he said, he and Mr. Pottinger had never authenticated any of the imagery or identified any of the supposed victims, much less contacted any of the men on the “hot list.” Then The Times showed Mr. Boies some of the text exchanges between Mr. Pottinger and Kessler. Mr. Boies showed a flash of anger and said it was the first time he was seeing them. By the end of the nearly four-hour interview, Mr. Boies had concluded that Kessler was probably a con man: “I think that he was a fraudster who was just trying to set things up.” And he argued that Kessler had baited Mr. Pottinger into writing things that looked more nefarious than they really were. He acknowledged that Mr. Pottinger had used “loose language” in some of his messages that risked creating the impression that the lawyers were plotting to monetize evidence of abuse. Several days later, Mr. Boies returned for another interview and was more critical of Mr. Pottinger, especially the hypothetical plans that he had described to Kessler. “Having looked at all that stuff in context, I would not have said that,” he said. How did Mr. Boies feel about Mr. Pottinger invoking his name in messages to Kessler? “I don’t like it,” he said. But Mr. Boies stopped short of blaming Mr. Pottinger for the whole mess. “I’m being cautious not to throw him under the bus more than I believe is accurate,” he said. His longtime P.R. adviser, Dawn Schneider, who had been pushing for a more forceful denunciation, dropped her pen, threw up her arms and buried her head in her hands. In a separate interview, The Times asked Mr. Pottinger about his correspondence with Kessler. The lawyer said that his messages shouldn’t be taken at face value because, in reality, he had been deceiving Kessler all along — “misleading him deliberately in order to get the servers.” The draft retention agreement that Mr. Pottinger had given to Kessler in September was unsigned and never meant to be honored, Mr. Pottinger said. And he never intended to sell photos of Mr. Barak to Mr. Adelson. “I just pulled it out of my behind,” he said, describing it as an act to impress Kessler. As for the two hypotheticals about how to get money out of the men on the list, Mr. Pottinger said, he never planned to do what he carefully articulated. “I didn’t owe Patrick honesty about this,” he said. Mr. Pottinger said that he had only one regret — that “we did not get the information that this liar said he had.” He added, “I’m building legal cases here. I’m trying not to engage too much in shenanigans. I wish I didn’t, but this guy was very unusual.”
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