Goldman Sachs Banker Arrested on Hamptons Rape Charges
Goldman Sachs banker Jason Lee was arrested earlier this week after a 20 year old woman accused him of raping her at a rental house in East Hampton, Long Island. According to the New York Times, several East Hampton Town Police officers discovered the victim while responding to an unspecified disturbance at the house Lee was renting with his wife. Lee, speaking through his lawyer, denies everything.
It is unclear how Mr. Lee knew the woman he is accused of assaulting. The police declined to discuss who else was present at the home.
Edward Burke Jr., a lawyer for Mr. Lee, said his client “adamantly denies the allegations levied against him.”
“We look forward to clearing his name in a court of law,” Mr. Burke said.
An online Milken Institute biography from 2009 identifies a Goldman Sachs employee named Jason Lee as a managing director at the bank’s private equity division, where “he has led many of the firm's most complicated financing and risk-management transactions for corporate clients.” (The Times says the Jason Lee arrested in East Hampton is also a managing director in private equity; however, a Goldman receptionist told a local reporter on Wednesday that two employees named Jason Lee work at the bank.)
In court, Lee and his lawyer deliberately avoided discussing Lee’s employer, the East Hampton Star notes:
“He adamantly denies these allegations,” Edward Burke Jr., his attorney, told Justice Cahill. Mr. Burke did not identify the defendant’s employer, saying only that he worked “at 200 West Street” in Manhattan. That address is better known as the Goldman Sachs Tower.
Lee’s bail, set at $25,000, was paid immediately. He is scheduled to appear in East Hampton Justice Court on September 19.
Lee isn’t the first Goldman Sachs employee to be accused of a sex offense: In 2009, Todd Genger, a Goldman attorney, was arrested for soliciting an undercover cop he allegedly believed to be a 15-year-old girl.
(Gawker has filed a request for the police report pertaining to Lee’s arrest, and will update when we receive it.)
[Image via AP]