Aide accused of helping Howard Rubin ‘traffic’ women to NYC sex dungeon lived high life - and hid millions he paid her: feds

The longtime assistant to Howard Rubin, a wealthy New York financier and former money manager for billionaire philanthropist George Soros, arrested on sex trafficking charges last week, hid millions of dollars Rubin paid her from the government while living a lavish lifestyle, prosecutors allege.

Jennifer Powers, who is charged with sex trafficking alongside Rubin, had “virtually all aspects” of her life paid for by Rubin between 2018 and 2023, according to the recently unsealed September indictment against the pair.

The approximately $8 million in payments to Powers went towards rent on a Manhattan apartment, private school tuition for Powers’s children, legal fees associated with a civil suit over the allegations, a down payment on a home in Texas, and mortgage payments, the government alleges.

At the same time, Powers was allegedly helping Rubin preside over a more than $1 million sex trafficking operation, where the financier and his aides would arrange for women to meet Rubin in luxury hotels or a Manhattan penthouse apartment, sign NDAs, and then be paid for taking part in violent sex acts, including in a soundproof BDSM “sex dungeon” room Powers allegedly helped outfit.

Both Powers and Rubin have pleaded not guilty. A civil suit over related allegations found Rubin liable and cleared Powers, though the decision is being appealed.

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During the civil suit, Powers testified she earned $10,000 to $15,000 per month from Rubin between 2011 and 2017, though prosecutors alleged in a letter on Monday that “Rubin sent Powers millions of dollars during that period, far more than she claimed.”

Rubin allegedly paid the credit card bill of Powers and her husband between 2018 and 2023, which often topped $500,000 per year.

Between 2014 and the present, Rubin did not report “any of the money Rubin has provided to Powers and her family on their fax filings with the Internal Revenue Service, which they had an obligation to do,” the letter claims.

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Prosecutors say assistance went beyond payments, with Powers allegedly listing Rubin as an “uncle” on a mortgage application, with the financier later attesting he wasn’t party to litigation even though he was at the time.

During her employment with Rubin, Powers was married at Miami’s opulent Versace Mansion, followed by a month-long honeymoon in Botswana and the Maldives.

The Independent has contacted Powers’s attorneys for comment.