Jeffrey Epstein was furious. For years, he had relied on billionaire Leon Black as his primary source of income, advising him on everything from taxes to his world-class art collection. But by 2016, Black seemed to be reluctant to keep paying him tens of millions of dollars a year.

So Epstein threw a tantrum.

One of Black’s other financial advisers had created “a really dangerous mess,” Epstein wrote in an email to Black. Another was “a waste of money and space.” He even attacked Black’s children as “retarded” for supposedly making a mess of his estate.

The typo-strewn tirade was one of dozens of previously unreported emails reviewed by The New York Times in which Epstein hectored Black, at times demanding tens of millions of dollars beyond the $150 million he had already been paid.

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