Montreal is mentioned in the Epstein files hundreds of times. Here’s what we know

Located just a short flight away from one of his vacation homes in New York City, Montreal was often on the late American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s radar.

Though it’s unclear whether Epstein visited Quebec after he was convicted in 2008 for soliciting sex from a minor, among other prostitution charges, and was registered as a sex offender, the disgraced financier didn’t shy away from planning trips to its biggest city.

Epstein’s assistant twice reserved a room for him at the Ritz-Carlton in July 2014 when he tried to catch the Nasty Show at Montreal’s Just for Laughs Festival, before ultimately cancelling, according to emails released by the U.S. Department of Justice last month.

Many of the hundreds of times Montreal and Quebec are mentioned in the so-called Epstein files are largely insignificant.

One person writes to Epstein saying they’re in Montreal to learn French and hope they “don’t pick up the Quebecois accent.” In another email exchange, Epstein qualifies Montreal as the second best place to learn French and enjoy singledom, after Saint-Barthélemy in the Caribbean.  

Since the release of the files, prominent people – from the Clintons to university professors – have faced scrutiny over —  and have had to defend —  their association with Epstein, be it personal or business, especially after his 2008 guilty plea.

Here are some Quebecers who have found themselves in that position.

Montreal crypto entrepreneur and angel investor Austin Hill notably reached out to and met with Epstein several times over four years, including at the multimillionaire’s private island, Little St. James, in April 2014. According to emails, Hill and his group stayed at an off-island hotel during that visit.

The two men first met a month prior at the Fairmount Pacific Rim in Vancouver, after which Epstein invested $50,000 in Hill’s cryptocurrency then-startup Blockstream through a venture fund.

Over the next few years, according to the files, Hill reached out seeking Epstein’s advice and connections. In January 2015, as news of then-prince Andrew’s friendship with Epstein began circulating, Hill wrote Epstein apologizing for “interrupting in what I’m sure is a crazy media storm for you & your team” to ask for his advice and counsel on “a few things both business, Bitcoin, personal & esoteric mind games that we play.”

The previous month, Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s accusers who has since died by suicide, alleged in a Florida court that she was trafficked and forced to have sex with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor when she was 17.

On Thursday, Mountbatten-Windson was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office for his connection to Epstein. He was released from custody the same day under investigation, police said, meaning he has neither been charged nor exonerated. He has previously denied all wrongdoing.

Hill and Epstein’s correspondence, at least as far as the Epstein files go, ends in 2018 when Hill suggests they set up “some secure communication.” At that point in time, they were in serious discussions to create a “[S]haria compliant coin” for Muslim clients.

Hill could not be reached by CBC News for comment, but he told the Montreal Gazette earlier this month that he condemned Epstein’s crimes and regretted “any association” with him.