Ex-financier Howard Rubin’s private assistant — who allegedly helped lure dozens of ladies for him to abuse inside a Manhattan “intercourse dungeon” — lived the high-life together with her DJ husband due to her boss, who “funded nearly all points” of their existence, the feds stated.
Jennifer Powers, a 45-year-old mom of three, was set to seem in Brooklyn federal court docket Wednesday morning for the primary time since her indictment on fees she helped the famed former cash supervisor run a sex-trafficking scheme for a couple of decade.
Powers — who started working for the Wall Avenue bigwig in 2011 — was hit with recent allegations on the eve of her listening to that she did not report the greater than $9 million Rubin doled out to cowl the whole lot from her children’ personal faculty to her mortgage and bank card payments.
“Since roughly 2012, Rubin has funded nearly all points of Powers and her household’s life-style,” the feds wrote in court docket papers.
Her hubby, Steve Powers, was engulfed within the rising scandal himself late Tuesday, when he was charged alongside Jennifer for allegedly submitting false joint tax returns between 2018 and 2024 that failed to say any of the funds from Rubin.
The couple obtained married in 2012 at Miami’s Versace Mansion in “high-fashion, rock n’ roll” impressed nuptials that have been featured in Wedding ceremony Model Journal.
Steve and Jennifer, who wore a Vera Wang costume, took a month-long honeymoon afterward: a two-week journey to Botswana and one other two weeks within the Maldives, the outlet reported.
Within the years that adopted, the couple posted on-line about taking jaunts to Hawaii, Turks and Caicos, Italy and Colombia, based on posts on their Instagram accounts that are actually personal.
Different posts from over the previous decade seem to indicate the lovebirds and their children occurring a Disney Cruise and taking a non-public aircraft.
Throughout that point, the feds cost Jennifer was instrumental to find ladies and flying them to New York, the place Rubin would allegedly sexually abuse them at swanky lodges and in a soundproofed room dubbed “The Dungeon” inside an $18,000-a-month rented penthouse close to Central Park.
The BDSM sex-trafficking scheme began in 2009 and lasted till 2019, with the boss-assistant pair even exchanging stomach-churning textual content messages reveling within the abuse, prosecutors alleged.
The next 12 months, Powers and her household moved to Texas — and Rubin allegedly coated the down-payment and mortgage on their residence within the prosperous suburb of Southlake, based on the feds.
Jennifer additionally allegedly did not report back to the IRS $500,000 in bank card payments that Rubin paid for her annually between 2018 and 2023, prosecutors stated.
Jennifer is accused of not reporting any wages throughout that point span whereas Steve allegedly divulged lower than $40,000 mixed within the 2018 and 2019 tax years from his DJ enterprise and nothing since then, the feds stated.
“Their total lives are funded by Rubin,” prosecutors stated.
Rubin — a dad of three whose 30-year profession included a stint at billionaire George Soros’ funding agency — additionally allegedly paid his assistant’s authorized payments from a years-long lawsuit filed towards the pair in 2017 by Playboy Playmate fashions he allegedly abused.
Jennifer Powers till lately labored in its place trainer for the Carroll Unbiased College District in Southlake, however was faraway from that function, the district advised CBS Information Texas.
She made an preliminary court docket look in Texas federal court docket Monday, the place she was launched on $850,000 bond with a GPS monitor forward of her Brooklyn court docket listening to.
Whereas Rubin was discovered chargeable for thousands and thousands of {dollars} at a 2022 civil trial over the lawsuit, his as soon as jet-setting assistant was cleared in that case.
Felony protection lawyer Duncan Levin, an ex-federal prosecutor, stated the federal government might have uncovered extra proof because the trial over the lawsuit, or might be talking with totally different witnesses to current a stronger case than what was introduced within the civil case.
“They’ve all types of instruments at their disposal that civil litigants don’t that may not have come into the civil trial,” Levin advised The Submit.
Jennifer additionally purchased her partner a 1966 Lincoln Continental convertible as a marriage reward – which Steve would incessantly put up pictures of on his Instagram web page.
“We’re extraordinarily shut, perceive each other, and love with the whole lot now we have; now that we’re married we all know we will probably be collectively ceaselessly,” Jennifer advised Wedding ceremony Model.
Steve has had equal reward for his spouse, together with in an anniversary put up he put up on-line in 2015.
“I actually don’t know the place I might be at this time with out my rock, my accomplice in crime, my real love, my greatest pal, the mom of my baby, the one and solely @superjenpowers,” he wrote.
“You’re the neatest thing that has ever occurred to me, and am so happy with the mom you’ve turn into. This journey continues to be getting began and there’s no one else I’d quite be with! I like you!”
Rubin has pleaded not responsible to the legal fees and is being held with out bail pending his subsequent court docket date on Oct.20. It’s unclear when Steve Powers will make his first look in court docket.
