Who was Jeffrey Epstein?

High-flying American hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein had been in the headlines for weeks, dragging along powerful names such as Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew, when he died in prison in New York in August.

Already a convicted paedophile – he served a 13-month prison sentence 10 years ago – the multimillionaire was arrested in early July for the suspected sex trafficking of dozens of minors in New York and Florida.

Even after his death, which was deemed suicide, Epstein continues to generate controversy.

Why? Who was he? How did he end up in jail?

Who was Epstein?

Born to Jewish parents in 1953, Epstein grew up on Coney Island in New York and was described by the Miami Herald as "poor, smart and desperate to be rich".

An apparent maths whiz, he skipped two grades in high school and studied at a division of New York University but he did not gain a degree.

Despite this, he went on to teach calculus and physics at an Ivy League preparatory college for the children of New York's elite before becoming an options trader.

Next he became a top fund manager to the rich and powerful, despite not being a registered investment professional, Bloomberg reported. None of his clients reportedly had portfolios smaller than $US1 billion. They included Leslie Wexner, owner of lingerie behemoth Victoria's Secret.

Officially, he was worth more than half a billion dollars in cash, investments and six properties – a New Mexico ranch, a Florida villa, a Paris apartment, two Virgin Island islands and a New York mansion. His wealth may have also extended to diamonds and art.

He gave a lot of money to research institutions, schools and sports programs, some involving children. One of his better known philanthropic acts was a $US6.5 million gift to Harvard University to fund research into the mathematical principles that guide evolution.

Of particular interest to him were eugenics (a discredited science of controlling populations by breeding practices) and cryogenics (deep-freezing bodies with a view to one day reviving them). Reports emerged that he hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women at his vast New Mexico ranch, and that he had hosted dinner parties and "science salons" with a number of prominent scientists.

What was he accused of?

Epstein was arrested in July on federal sex-trafficking and conspiracy charges connected to the sexual abuse of dozens of girls at his homes in Florida and New York between 2002 and 2005.

His lawyers claimed the charges were similar to ones he faced in Florida in 2008, which resulted in a controversial plea deal, but it was an investigation into that secret deal by the Miami Herald in 2018 that prompted the new investigation in New York. Prosecutors called for, and interviewed, new victims and conducted property searches during which they found images of nude, underage girls.

In court documents, prosecutors said Epstein "enticed and recruited, and caused to be enticed and recruited, minor girls to visit" his homes "to engage in sex acts with him, after which he would give the victims hundreds of dollars in cash". They said that "to maintain and increase his supply of victims, Epstein also paid certain of his victims to recruit additional girls to be similarly abused by him."

He was arrested by the joint FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force at New Jersey's airport after landing on his private plane from Paris. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Who are his alleged victims?

The Florida case for which Epstein cut a plea deal involved up to 40 under-age girls but, since the new investigation was announced, some reports have estimated the number of potential victims at 80.

Young and vulnerable, some were runaways looking for work and recruited by Epstein's staff with promises of networking and jobs in modelling. Many said they were employed to give Epstein massages and to attend exclusive parties at his addresses, where they were abused. Some allege he "lent" them to his friends for sex.

One accuser, make-up artist Jennifer Araoz, told NBC's Today show that Epstein raped her in New York when she was 15. "She was a child – a child on welfare with no father, who was groomed, recruited and preyed upon," said Araoz's lawyer.

What did Donald Trump have to do with it?

One alleged Epstein victim, Katie Johnson, filed two lawsuits in 2016 claiming she was told to perform sexual acts on Donald Trump during Epstein's "orgy parties" decades ago, when she was 13.

Before he became US President, Trump called Epstein a "terrific guy". In 2002, he told New York magazine Epstein was "a lot of fun to be with". "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life," he was quoted as saying.

But Trump said they were no longer friends and he had barred Epstein from his Florida resort a decade ago after a disagreement – believed to be related to Epstein hiring a young Mar-a-Lago staffer as a "masseuse".

Because we don't like Trump, we jump to conclusion that we'll be able to somehow tie Trump to Epstein …

What about Bill Clinton and others?

The former US president was listed many times on the flight manifestos of Epstein's plane – known as the Lolita Express. Flight logs obtained by Fox News showed Clinton took at least 26 trips on the Boeing 727 from 2001 to 2003.

But Clinton's spokesman, Angel Urena, told The New York Times Clinton took just four trips on the plane, including "stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation", and that staff and secret service detail travelled with him on "every leg of every trip".

In Britain, the Epstein scandal gripped Prince Andrewwho featured in snaps from 2001 partying with women on Epstein's yacht in Phuket, and in the photo above with Virginia Roberts Giuffre, then 17, in the London flat of Epstein's former personal assistant Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell.

Roberts Giuffre, who now lives in Australia, had run away from home to be a model when, she says, Maxwell recruited her to work as a masseuse. She had been employed at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort as a spa attendant. She claims to have been a sex slave to Epstein who "lent her" to Andrew and others.

Andrew has denied any involvement with Roberts Giuffre, as has Buckingham Palace. He gave an interview to the BBC in November which did not have the intended benign public relations effect.

He has since had to scale back his royal duties and resign from his pet project Pitch@Palace after a number of partners and charities abandoned him.

What happened in the end?

There has been no end, so far. Epstein was being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in New Yorkwhen more accusations against him surfaced.He faced up to 45 years in prison if convicted on the sex-trafficking charges. His trial had been set tentatively for mid-2020.

On August 10, some time after he was taken off suicide watch, he was found in his cell suffering a cardiac arrest and was rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

US Attorney-General William Barr was "appalled" to learn of Epstein's death while in federal custody.

Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote to Barr that "heads must roll".

"Every single person in the Justice Department – from your Main Justice headquarters staff all the way to the night-shift jailer – knew that this man was a suicide risk, and that his dark secrets couldn't be allowed to die with him," Sasse wrote.

The New York City chief medical examiner found that Epstein's death was caused by hanging and he had ended his own life.

But conspiracy theories abound.

The medical examiner publicly reiterated her finding in late October, after a noted forensic pathologist hired by Epstein's brother Mark to oversee the autopsy said the millionaire's injuries were more consistent with strangulation than suicide. He called upon law enforcement authorities to dig deeper into how the millionaire died.

Nearly a year later, the FBI arrested Maxwell in a quiet country property in Bradford, New Hampshire, US. She has been charged on charges she lured underage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse.

With agencies