“Sex dungeon” financier Howard Rubin apparently doesn’t like it when he’s the one locked up, but his pleas didn’t persuade a Brooklyn federal judge who refused to release him on bond Monday.
The 70-year-old Wall Street multimillionaire is being held in the MDC Brooklyn jail after his sex trafficking arrest. His lawyers tried to make the case that he’s a devoted granddad who set up a ball pit for his young progeny in his living room, and would never use his wealth to flee the jurisdiction.
“He is a devoted and loving grandfather who goes above and beyond to create joy for his grandchildren. He dresses up in costumes — like characters from ‘Frozen’ — just to make them smile,” wrote his daughter Annalee Rubin, who submitted 15 photographs of Rubin with his grandchildren in her letter to the court.
“He even turned the living room in his home into a tumbling mat and ball pit play area so the kids would have a special gymlike space to enjoy.”
Prosecutors paint a distinctly different picture.
In his Midtown penthouse, prosecutors say, Rubin built a soundproof “dungeon” with a bondage cross where he’d chain up his victims. Federal prosecutors said his alleged actions during the yearslong scheme, which include beating and raping trafficked women, even after they fell unconscious or used their safe word, put a lie to any claim he’s devoted to his family.
And Assistant U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath said Monday that prosecutors have no way of knowing how much money Rubin has squirreled away in Cayman Island accounts.
Rubin secretly split his time with his wife and the women he trafficked into his Midtown penthouse sex dungeon, prosecutors said, and even joked, in a 2015 email exchange, about sleeping with his alleged accomplice and personal assistant Jennifer Powers on his marital bed.
“By the time we go to the rockettes, dinner and dungeon, it will be 2am — so its easier to tell mary im away rather than come in so late,” he wrote in a Jan. 21, 2015, email to Powers, according to a filing by prosecutors Sunday.
“I probably see 5 girls the week of the 16th!! Except the 16th is holiday and my anniversary!” he wrote in another email to Powers in August 2015.
Rubin’s wife, who has filed for divorce, his daughter and other family members all wrote letters asking for his release on bail.
His wife and brother both agreed to put up their Connecticut homes to secure a $50 million bond, and Rubin agreed to relinquish control of his multimillion-dollar life insurance policy in the Cayman Islands, his lawyer Michael Gilbert said.
Gilbert added that Rubin didn’t try to duck out on a civil trial that covered many of the allegations in the case. “These are lurid, ugly allegations, but he didn’t run away from them,” he said.
McGrath pointed out that prosecutors don’t have a full picture of Rubin’s finances, noting that he didn’t tell his own accountant about the $9 million he gave to Powers and her husband. His life insurance policy tops $22 million, McGrath said, while a second policy for his wife apparently has more than $50 million in it.
“These are very much used as slush funds for this family,” the prosecutor said, arguing that if the judge sets bond, $50 million is too low.
Brooklyn Federal Magistrate Judge James Cho rejected the bail application, but said Rubin could reapply with a different bond package at a later date.
Cho added, “$50 million sounds like a lot of money to a layperson, but it may not be to this defendant or his family.”
