Thomas Pritzker retires as Hyatt executive chairman over Epstein ties
Story by Rachel Dobkin
• 14h
The Independent
Top Goldman Sachs lawyer who called Epstein ‘older brother’ in emails resigns
Billionaire Thomas Pritzker, 75, has stepped down as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels over his ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein
Pritzker, cousin to Democratic Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, is the latest notable figure to face consequences after the Department of Justice was compelled to release millions of documents relating to Epstein, who died in his New York City jail cell in 2019 while facing federal sex trafficking charges.
Hyatt Hotels Corporation announced Pritzker’s retirement from his prominent role on the Board of Directors on Monday. Pritzker had served as executive chairman since 2004.
Pritzker, who is married to Margot Pritzker, said in a statement, “My job and responsibility is to provide good stewardship,” which he said means “protecting Hyatt, particularly in the context of my association with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell which I deeply regret.
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The Epstein files revealed that Pritzker kept in contact with the disgraced financier long after he pleaded guilty in Florida to soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008.
In an email exchange from 2018, reported by several outlets, Epstein asked Pritzker to help arrange a trip to Asia for Karyna Shuliak, who was reportedly his girlfriend.
When Pritzker asked what she was going to do there, Shuliak responded, “Going to try to find a new girlfriend for Jeffrey.” Pritzker said, “May the Force be with you,” along with a smiley-face emoji.
Karyna Shuliak, a 36-year-old dentist, was arguably Jeffrey Epstein’s closest confidante at the time of his death.
Karyna Shuliak was from Belarus and more details are in an earlier blog about East European trafficked young women and girls.
Andrew Lownie (author of book ‘Entitled) wrote that in Dec 2000:
In December 2000, Epstein, Ghislaine, Tom Pritzker, a woman called Kelly Spamm and an unnamed ‘female’ landed at RAF Marham for a two-day shooting party at Sandringham – Epstein in L.L.Bean hunting boots and thousand-dollar leather parka – where Andrew threw a surprise thirty-ninth birthday party for Ghislaine.
The arrangement to allow the plane to land at the base was described as ‘unusual’ by civil aviation sources, as Marham is the RAF’s biggest frontline base and home to four Tornado squadrons. The Ministry of Defence insisted, however, that Epstein had been given no special treatment, and that civil aircraft were ‘routinely’ allowed to land there.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
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