FBI File: Kushner Allegedly Beat Prostitute

AUGUST 31--Is someone else about to get fired from the FBI?

In response to Freedom of Information Act requests, the bureau just inexplicably released documents showing that Charles Kushner--Jared’s dad, Ivanka Trump’s father-in-law, and the new U.S. ambassador to France--was once investigated for allegedly beating a prostitute who was left “shrieking and crying for at least 20 minutes.”

The allegation is contained in FBI files on the Kushner Companies, the New Jersey real estate firm that Charles, 71, founded in 1984 with his father Joseph. Records related to the firm have been released since companies do not have the same kind of Privacy Act protections afforded living persons.

While the source of the beating claim is not evident in the FBI memos, many of the pages contain extensive redactions. The documents were uploaded to the FBI website on August 29.

In accordance with the bureau's FOIA policy, released records are supposed to include the names of individuals widely known to be deceased--like Nixon or Elvis--or who can be shown via a death certificate or obituary to have died. However, when it comes to a living person, references to that individual are supposed to be exempt from disclosure.

For instance, when the FBI processed Maryanne Trump Barry’s file following her November 2023 death, innocuous references to her brother Donald were scrubbed from the released material (which did include the names of late family members like her father Fred and brothers Robert and Fred Jr.).

In February 2003, federal prosecutors in New Jersey launched a grand jury investigation of Kushner (seen above) focusing on tax evasion and campaign contribution violations. During the course of that probe, Kushner became aware that his sister Esther and her husband, William Schulder, were cooperating with the government.

In what a judge would later deride as the “horrific” actions of a “revengeful, hateful man,” Kushner decided to target his family members in a plot intended to give him leverage over them. Kushner hired a private investigator and explained that he wanted the PI to hire a woman to seduce Schulder and record the pair having sex. According to a criminal complaint, Kushner gave the PI $25,000 in cash, a photo of Schulder, and well as work and home addresses for his two relatives.

Kushner, the PI would later tell federal agents, “wanted to create the videotape to cause problems and personal difficulties” for his brother-in-law.

When the hired help had difficulty finding someone to participate in the seduction plot, Kushner took matters into his own hands and personally recruited a woman “known by defendant to be a call girl.” Kushner offered up to $10,000 if the prostitute would have sex with Schulder on videotape.

Court records do not reveal how Kushner appeared to have a working familiarity with the escort business.

After a couple of failed attempts, the hooker succeeded in luring Schulder to the Red Bull Motor Inn, where they had sex in a room outfitted with a hidden camera. Video of the encounter was delivered to Kushner at his office, where he screened the footage “and expressed satisfaction with it” to his PI’s assistant.

In fact, Kushner was so pleased with the gambit, he paid the PI around $10,000 to launch a similar operation targeting his former chief bookkeeper (who also was aiding prosecutors). But that effort--which involved a woman who was referred by the original escort--failed.  

In May 2004, as the federal investigation began closing in, Kushner ordered his PI to mail the motel sex video and still photos to his sister, as well as to her and Schulder’s children. Kushner directed the video to be mailed to New Jersey from Canada and he wanted the package to arrive “immediately prior to a family party which was scheduled for the following weekend.”

The PI convinced Kushner that his dirtbag direction to send the video to his young relatives was a bad idea. After the tape and photos arrived at their home, Kushner’s sister and her husband turned the material over to federal agents.

Kushner was arrested two months later and charged with promoting interstate prostitution, witness tampering, and attempting to impede a grand jury investigation. He eventually pleaded guilty to the motel sex scheme, as well as additional tax and false statement charges. Sentenced to two years in prison, Kushner spent about 14 months in custody before being released in August 2006.

Kushner received a pardon from Trump in December 2020 as the 45th president’s White House term was about to expire. In February, Kushner was nominated by Trump to be the chief U.S. government representative in France (predecessors in that post include Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe). Kushner, who has no diplomatic experience, was sworn in during a June ceremony in the Oval Office.

Now, in what may be the nefarious actions of a Deep State gremlin (or just an inadvertent screwup), the Kushner Companies records provide fresh details about the bureau’s examination of Kushner. The new documents represent the fourth installment of FBI records concerning the Kushner Companies that have been released.

The new documents are all dated after Kushner’s conviction and mainly relate to FBI probes that were continuing to target some of the businessman's associates.

But while Kushner was locked up at the time, the FBI’s Newark field office remained interested in his pre-prison activities, namely his alleged relationship with a particular female escort.

As part of that investigation, agents were dispatched to a Manhattan apartment building where they interviewed two women about a longtime female neighbor of theirs. While the women were initially “surprised by any notion of prostitution occurring,” one of them, upon reflection, recalled seeing “various men” visiting the apartment next door. The neighbor, an FBI interview report noted, felt “those men she saw could have been prostitution customers as their appearances are otherwise unexplained.”

The FBI agents showed the women--whose names are redacted from the report--a picture of Kushner, but neither recognized him or his name.

At one point during the interview, “a description of a physical altercation between Charles Kushner and an UNSUB Brazilian prostitute” was provided by the agents (UNSUB is short for "unknown subject”). Kushner, the investigators said, “allegedly beat the Brazilian prostitute and that the woman was left shrieking and crying for at least 20 minutes.”

One of the interview subjects responded that she worked from her apartment and felt strongly that, if home at the time, she would have heard such a ruckus “due to the sound properties of the walls.”

The FBI records do not indicate if the suspected prostitute was still a building resident at the time of the May 2006 interview of the two neighbors.

Other documents from that same period reference FBI attempts to track down a woman so that they could subpoena her to appear before a Newark grand jury. Another memo refers to an FBI interview of a woman who talked about a female friend who “changed her life and sold her possessions” and with whom she had recently shared a newspaper story about Kushner’s time in prison.

Kushner was not charged with any additional crimes. The FBI’s Newark case was placed in a “Pending Inactive status” in 2011 and formally closed at a later date.

It appears possible that the FBI will release additional material on the Kushner Companies. When the bureau completes processing a FOIA request, the last installment of a multi-part collection of uploaded records will indicate that it is the “Final” group of documents to be released. The most recent tranche of Kushner files does not include that designation. (6 pages)