NEW YORK (NYTIMES) - In May 1997, Alicia Arden, a model in California, was introduced to a man who identified himself as a talent scout for Victoria's Secret.

He invited her to his Santa Monica hotel room to audition for the brand's catalog. When she arrived, Arden said, the man grabbed her, tried to undress her and said he wanted to "manhandle" her. Arden, then 27, fled in tears.

It was the type of crisis that should not have come as a complete surprise to leaders at L Brands, the parent company of Victoria's Secret.

In the mid-1990s, two senior executives had discovered that the same man, a close adviser to the company's chief executive, Leslie H. Wexner, was trying to pitch himself as a recruiter for Victoria's Secret models. Wexner was alerted, according to the two executives.

It is unclear what if any action Wexner took in response. But the man - Jeffrey E. Epstein, a New York financier - had developed an unusually strong hold on Wexner.

Within years of meeting Epstein, Wexner handed him sweeping powers over his finances, philanthropy and private life, according to interviews, court documents and financial records.

Wexner authorised him to borrow money on his behalf, to sign his tax returns, to hire people and to make acquisitions. Over the years, Epstein obtained a New York mansion, a private plane and a luxury estate in Ohio - today valued at roughly $100 million altogether - previously owned by Wexner or his companies. At the same time, he drove a wedge between Wexner and longtime associates and friends.

Virtually from the moment in the 1980s that Epstein arrived in Columbus, Ohio, where L Brands was based, Wexner's friends were mystified as to why a renowned businessman would place such trust in an outsider with a thin résumé and scant financial experience.

It is a mystery that has taken on new importance in the weeks since federal prosecutors in New York charged Epstein, 66, with sex trafficking involving girls as young as 14.

And it is posing a potentially grave problem for L Brands, a publicly traded company whose brands include Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works.

What is clear is that during the period in which he worked closely with Wexner, Epstein became extraordinarily rich.

Representatives of Wexner and L Brands refused to share even basic details of the work that Epstein performed for Wexner.

"While Mr Epstein served as Mr Wexner's personal money manager for a period that ended nearly 12 years ago, we do not believe he was ever employed by nor served as an authorized representative of the company," said Tammy Roberts Myers, a company spokeswoman.

Through a spokesman, Wexner, 81, declined repeated requests for an interview. In a letter this month to L Brands employees, he said he was "NEVER aware of the illegal activity charged in the indictment".

"I would never have guessed that a person I employed more than a decade ago could have caused such pain to so many people," he wrote.

Epstein pleaded not guilty to charges that he and his employees paid dozens of underage girls to engage in sex acts. He is being held without bail as he awaits trial. His lawyer, Martin G. Weinberg, declined to comment.

Wexner grew up in Ohio and started The Limited in a Columbus shopping mall in 1963.

Wexner, who would go on to buy Abercrombie & Fitch and launch Bath & Body Works, made his most important acquisition in 1982: an obscure company called Victoria's Secret.

In the mid-to-late-1980s, Wexner and Epstein were introduced by a mutual acquaintance, an insurance executive named Robert Meister.

Epstein, a 30-something Coney Island native, didn't fit the mold of financial adviser to the superwealthy. A college dropout, he had briefly taught math at the Dalton School in Manhattan and then worked at Bear Stearns, the investment bank.

After Meister's introduction, Epstein started spending more and more time around Wexner, leaving longtime colleagues puzzled about why he was embracing this newcomer.

Robert Morosky, the former vice chairman of The Limited who resigned in 1987, looked into Epstein's background and was not impressed. "I tried to find out how did he get from a high school math teacher to a private investment adviser," Morosky said. "There was just nothing there."

Epstein's formal role was to help manage Wexner's fortune and to provide him with financial advice. It isn't clear that there was any official agreement detailing Epstein's role or compensation.

Longtime colleagues and friends of Wexner soon found themselves getting iced out of his life.

Jim Duberstein for decades attended Ohio State University football games and dinner parties with Wexner. Duberstein and Epstein had a disagreement and Wexner cut Duberstein out of his life.

"His allegiance apparently went to Epstein," Duberstein said. "Les Wexner, until the time he quit talking to me, was probably the finest person I ever met in my life. I have nothing but praise for him - until he just cut his umbilical cord."

The clearest sign of Wexner's nearly limitless comfort with Epstein came in July 1991. Wexner signed a three-page legal document, known as a power of attorney, that enabled Epstein to hire people, sign checks, buy and sell properties and borrow money - all on Wexner's behalf.

For the next 16 years, that document gave Epstein unmatched authority over Wexner's financial affairs - and it corresponded to a period in which Epstein came to control or own valuable assets that previously belonged to Wexner or his companies.

Soon, Epstein's name appeared on numerous Securities and Exchange Commission filings, listing him as a trustee for several entities as well as trusts for Wexner's children. Epstein had voting power over those interests, which came to own millions of dollars' worth of Limited shares.

In the early 1990s, as Epstein was getting more involved in Wexner's charitable pursuits, a dispute arose on a Wexner family foundation over the composition of the board of trustees. The foundation, with Epstein as a trustee, ended up suing Wexner's mother, Bella, who had been temporarily replaced as a trustee while she was ill. Bella Wexner died in 2001.

As Epstein managed Wexner's fortune, parts of that fortune ended up in Epstein's hands.

Epstein became deeply involved in Wexner's upscale real-estate development in New Albany, Ohio. He set up shop in the same downtown Columbus skyscraper as Jack Kessler, the co-founder of the New Albany Co. and one of Wexner's close friends. Kessler declined to comment.

Inside the New Albany development, a 23-room, 10,600-square-foot mansion with a pool and bathhouse was being built for Kessler and his wife, property records show. But Wexner legally controlled the property, and in 1992, Epstein acquired it for US$3.5 million.

In 1998, another entity linked to Wexner bought the property back from Epstein for US$8 million, more than doubling his investment.

Around the same time, Epstein, through a separate company, spent US$7.95 million to buy Little St. James Island in the US Virgin Islands.

Epstein in 1998 also took sole possession of Wexner's stone mansion on East 71st Street in New York. A person with knowledge of Wexner's finances said that Epstein paid $20 million.

About two years later, a business controlled by Epstein obtained a Boeing 727 previously owned by The Limited. A person with knowledge of Wexner's finances said Epstein paid US$10 million.

Through his proximity to Wexner, Epstein gained unique access to young women.

In the summer of 1996, Maria Farmer was working on an art project for Epstein in Wexner's Ohio mansion. While she was there, Epstein sexually assaulted her, according to an affidavit Farmer filed earlier this year in federal court in Manhattan.

That was around the time that executives at L Brands learned that Epstein was trying to involve himself in the recruitment of lingerie models for the Victoria's Secret catalog.

Less than a year after the alleged assault of Farmer, Arden visited Epstein in his Santa Monica hotel room. She said she went to the police the day after Epstein attacked her. A week later, when she could not stop thinking about what had happened, she returned to the police station to put her report on the record.

That police report, reviewed by The Times, is one of the earliest known police records of an allegation of sexual misconduct against Epstein.

Nearly a decade later, in early 2006, Florida authorities charged Epstein with multiple counts of molestation and unlawful sexual activity with a minor.

It wasn't until 18 months later that Wexner cut ties with Epstein.

In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges of solicitation of prostitution from a minor and was required to register as a sex offender.

Since Epstein's arrest, Arden said she has wondered whether his connections to Wexner allowed him to get away with the crimes he is now charged with.

"Why would someone that powerful and successful befriend someone like Jeffrey Epstein?" Arden said. "I don't get it."