New finance scandal in NY: former trader of Soros and other bigwigs arrested for abuse and sex trafficking

After Jeffrey Esptein and the collaborator-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwelle a new scandal shakes New York. Former financier Howard Rubin, 70, was arrested on charges of trafficking and sexual assault. This was reported by the American media. According to court documents, Rubin harassed women in a soundproof room in his luxury Manhattan flat, described as The Dungeon, painted red and equipped for bondage practices. During a 30-year career, Rubin, a former bond trader at Salomon Brothers, has also worked at several financial firms, including Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and Soros Fund Management.

Rubin's former personal assistant, Jennifer Powers, has also been indicted in the case. According to the indictment, Rubin and Powers abused dozens of women between 2009 and 2019, after flying them to New York. The two targeted, in particular, women who had been sexually abused, were in financial difficulty or suffered from addiction. Once they arrived in New York, they were encouraged to use drugs or alcohol to prepare for sexual intercourse, which was often violent enough to require hospitalisation of the victims. Rubin and Powers allegedly weighed more than $1 million to recruit the unfortunate women.

 In 2022, Rubin was ordered to pay $3.85 million to a group of women who had sued him, claiming that they had been lured to his Manhattan penthouse for rough sex. At the time, Rubin's lawyers argued that the women had signed agreements and consented to the relationships. The Brooklyn state jury ultimately found Rubin liable for sex trafficking and sexual assault.

According to the criminal indictment, Rubin and Powers recruited several women between 2009 and 2019 to travel to New York City and engage in paid sex with the financier. Rubin was also charged with bank fraud for allegedly falsely misrepresenting to a bank that he was not involved in litigation in connection with the granting of a mortgage for Powers' Texas home, which he financed, prosecutors said.

Rubin helped create the mortgage-backed bond market while working at Salomon Brothers Inc. in the early 1980s. In Michael Lewis's Wall Street book, Liar's Poker, he was described as a young trader who studied behavioural research on which homeowners were likely to prepay their mortgages. According to the book, he left Salomon for a $1 million a year package at Merrill Lynch & Co.