How ex-Soros fund manager and financier Howard Rubin ran ‘sex dungeon’ at Manhattan penthouse

A New York-based financier and ex-fund manager for George Soros has been accused of running a sex dungeon. Howard Rubin and his assistant Jennifer Powers have been accused of sex trafficking women.

Rubin, 70, who was also charged with bank fraud, was arrested in Connecticut on Friday. He was denied bail as the judge deemed him a flight risk. Powers, 45, has been granted bail on a bond of $850,000 (Rs 7.55 crore). However, she has been ordered to remain under house arrest and wear an ankle monitor.

Rubin and Powers, if convicted of sex trafficking, face at least 15 years in prison and a maximum of life imprisonment. Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Rubin will next be presented in court on October 20.

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But what do we know about the shocking story?

Let’s take a closer look

What we know

Rubin, also known as ‘Howie’ and ‘H’, built his fortune while working as a financier in Manhattan. His decades-long career saw Rubin work at Soros’ investment firm Soros Fund Management. Powers became his assistant around 2011. Prosecutors say Rubin, who has a wife and three children, kept a spare apartment near their Manhattan home.

The penthouse near the famed Central Park cost approximately $18,000 (Rs 15.98 lakh) per month. Powers and Rubin converted the two-bedroom penthouse apartment into a sex dungeon that was soundproofed, painted red and equipped with BDSM devices.

The room, a built-in torture chamber referred to as the “Dungeon”, comprised an X-shaped “St. Andrew’s cross” and a bed with restraints to bind, chain and gag the women. The sex dungeon also was equipped with sex toys, full-face masks with zippers, ropes, chains, metal hooks, and other devices such as a cattle prod which would shock or electrocute the women.

According to the indictment, Rubin and Powers jointly ran the operation to recruit women to engage in sexual activities with the former financier. The acts initially occurred at luxury hotels before shifting to Rubin’s Penthouse. They spent upwards of $1 million (₹8.88 crore) of Rubin’s vast fortune on the sex trafficking scheme between 2009 and 2019. They recruited dozens of women including models and former Playboy models.

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How the sex trafficking operation worked

Powers would handle the logistics of the operation – bringing in women on flights to New York via LaGuardia or John F. Kennedy International Airports before transferring them to the penthouse.

Rubin was publicly seen with a ‘revolving door’ of women at an upscale bistro near the apartment. “It seemed like he paid for their boobs, butts and faces… They were all blonde,” a server at the restaurant told the New York Post.

The women were also made to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) prior to the liaisons with Rubin. “It’s generally not a good sign when men who aren’t public figures make women sign non-disclosure agreements before going on dates,” a former Rubin associate added. The NDAs also required the women to assume the risk of any injury during the encounters with Rubin and also called for massive penalties in case they disclosed the information.

Prosecutors said the alleged victims were vulnerable and in need of money. They were usually given drugs including Valium and alcohol prior to the encounters. Prosecutors claimed that Rubin brutalised women during these encounters, causing them to fear for their safety and often leaving them with significant pain and injuries.

Indictment documents said that one of Rubin’s alleged victims claims she was tied to the cross, beaten and whipped. Another said that Rubin, while beating another woman, said she “is the baby, and Howie is the daddy. The daddy has to beat his baby”.

Rubin and Powers, after the encounters, would pay the women via PayPal or Venmo. They would also do wire transfers under the $10,000 ( Rs 8.88 lakh) limit to avoid it being reported to the authorities by the banks, which is required under the law.

The women would usually receive around $5,000 (Rs 4.44 lakh) per encounter. However, Rubin would pay less if he was unsatisfied. Rubin and Powers used the NDAs and the threat of penalties as a weapon against the women to ensure their silence. Though the indictment named 10 victims, prosecutors claimed Rubin and Powers recruited ‘dozens of women’ via their sex trafficking scheme.

‘Always out for himself’

Rubin, meanwhile, rewarded Powers by funding ‘virtually all aspects’ of her life from 2018 till 2023. This included paying for her Manhattan apartment, credit card bills, private school for her kids and down payment and mortgage on her family’s home in Texas.

This isn’t the first time Rubin and Powers have faced legal trouble. In 2017, several Florida women sued Rubin civilly over violent sexual assaults in New York. Rubin was previously sued in Brooklyn federal court in 2022. Two of the victims, Amy Moore and Mia Lytell, were identified as Playboy models. The third, Stephanie Caldwell, was described as a model and a dancer. Emma Hopper, a student and model from Atlanta, was also part of the suit.

A jury found Rubin guilty and awarded the women $3.9 million (Rs 34.62 crore) – which he is currently appealing. Powers was found not guilty at the civil trial. Rubin allegedly covered Powers’ legal bills during the lawsuit. Rubin’s wife, Mary J. Henry, filed for divorce in 2021 after the sexual assault allegations emerged.

A source who worked in senior management at Merrill Lynch alongside Rubin and his then-wife in the mid-1980s called Rubin “smart” with “an intuitive feel for the markets,” as per the New York Post. But he “was always out for himself,” the source added.

“He was kept on by the very senior people of Merrill Lynch, because Merrill Lynch was a sales-driven firm not a trader-driven firm, so they kept him on because he did large trades.”

“I would see him talking to his wife at work. They had nice homes in Manhattan and in Long Island, and they did philanthropy. But he was probably doing the same thing that he was doing with the women back then… like I said, he never had a moral compass,” the source concluded.

With inputs from agencies