this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
176 points (98.4% liked)

Today I Learned

28593 readers
906 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)

Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**

Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.

Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.

Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.

Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.

Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.

Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.

Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.

Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.

Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Rooki@lemmy.world
_MoveSwiftly@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
DriftingDeep@lemmy.world
ericisshort@lemmy.world
Decoy321@lemmy.world
176
TIL Jeffrey Epstein may have held powerful influence over the nation's largest sex offender database via his ties to Leon Black (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works to c/til@lemmy.world
8 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

In the most recent episode of her podcast New Orleans Unsolved, independent investigator Anna Christie provides details regarding contracts between U.S. cities and the world's largest sex offender database OffenderWatch (parent company Watch Systems LLC).

According to Christie, a contract between Lansing, MI and Offender Watch/Watch Systems LLC, written prior to 2020 specifies that all sex offender data will be stored by a data management company called Rackspace in San Antonio, Texas.

This seemingly minor detail that Christie has uncovered, could actually be extremely significant, given that Rackspace was acquired by Leon Black's Apollo Global Management in August of 2016. (Interesting side note, this was the same month that a Rackspace employee was sentenced to 12 months in federal prison for child pornography):

•Aug 2016: Apollo Global Management Acquires Rackspace, Pins Hopes on Struggling Cloud Provider

•Aug 2016: Rackspace fired Jason Maurice Kirby, 39, from his $75,000-a-year job in November 2014 after an audit turned up the inappropriate activity, and an FBI forensic examination of his work and home computers located nearly 3,400 child porn images. Agents also found he used software to “wipe” his activity and try to cover his tracks, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Thompson.

Leon Black previously stepped down from his position as CEO of Apollo, due to controversy regarding his ties to Epstein. After his departure, a new CEO, Marc Rowen, was appointed to the company. However, as Christie also points out, recently released Epstein Files indicate meetings and communications between Rowen and Epstein continued, including an email from Epstein to Rowan regarding Rothschild funding.

•In February 2016 Epstein and Rowan traded emails about a potential Apollo corporate inversion, a tax maneuver designed to lower a company’s tax rate by reincorporating in a lower-tax country. The two discussed tapping banking firm Rothschild for the potential inversion. “i can join the call if you think appropriate,” Epstein emailed Rowan. “using rothschild for the inversion allows interesting structures.” Rowan replied: “Agreed.”

This past Monday, March 2nd, 2026, a class action lawsuit was brought against Apollo regarding these Epstein ties.

•Legal: Class action accuses Apollo of hiding Epstein ties in SEC filings

The suit, filed March 2 in the Southern District of New York, targets the alternative asset giant alongside CEO Marc Rowan and co-founder Leon Black. At its core, the case claims that what Apollo told investors and regulators — that the firm never did business with Epstein — was false.

The documented business transactions between Rowan, Black, and Epstein, which were previously denied, are disturbing to say the least. It's hard to dismiss the possibility that Epstein (or any of the powerful individuals in his network), could have used this influence to their advantage.

I'm currently searching for a copy of the Lansing, MI contract, and will add a link here once I find it, but I was able to find another OffenderWatch contract mentioned in the episode.

Oddly, as Christie also points out in the episode, an OffenderWatch/Watch System LLC contract with the city of Fort Worth, TX, contains an odd but potentially related paragraph regarding vendors who boycott Israel:

•https://publicdocuments.fortworthtexas.gov/CSODOCS/DocView.aspx?id=221086&dbid=0&repo=city-secretary&cr=1

If you're unfamiliar with the podcast and wondering what any of this has to do with an unsolved murder in New Orleans, it turns out that the OffenderWatch database was created by St. Tammany Louisiana native Lou Luzynski along with former St. Tammany Sheriff, Jack Strain.

Former St. Tammany Sheriff Jack Strain guilty on all sex crime charges

While Christie's podcast began as an attempt to investigate the unsolved 1982 murder of a young boy in New Orleans named Eddie Wells, it soon turned into an investigation of several seemingly related murders in Orleans and St. Tammany parishes, that all involved a former New Orleans police officer and lead detective for the NOPD pedophile unit, Stanley Burkhardt.

Former NOPD detective, convicted sex offender, back in jail facing new charges

Early in her investigation, Christie noticed Wells' death certificate listed an incorrect address in St. Tammany parish rather than his mother's address in Orleans, and she suspected this information may have been intentionally falsified by Burkhardt.

As Christie explains in this episode, the address incorrectly listed on Wells' death certificate, 516 Rutland Avenue in Covington Louisiana, is also the current address of OffenderWatch parent company, Watch Systems LLC.

By reviewing old public records, Christie was able to confirm that at the time of Wells' death and the other unsolved murders, the property listed on his death certificate, was owned by Lou Luzynski, creator of the largest sex offender database, OffenderWatch.

In October 2025, OffenderWatch announced the company had received a large investment from STG Allegro to expand its reach.

Through this strategic partnership, OffenderWatch® and STG will use the capital to enhance the Company's product offerings, accelerate innovation, and expand its reach to deliver even greater value to law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve.

top 8 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] couldhavebeenyou@lemmy.zip 25 points 2 days ago

TIL the 'worlds largest sex offender database' is privately owned

[–] AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 days ago

And in other odd coincidences that totally aren't odd coincidences, and you're weird for thinking there's anything weird about it, Rackspace announced they were teaming up with Palantir 2 weeks ago:

https://www.rackspace.com/newsroom/strategic-partnership-palantir

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Excellent post. But be aware that as weird as it is, the pro-Israel contract clause is standard in Texas now, and has been since 2017.

I remember that thing: it was stupid then and stupid now, performative bullshit undertaken by Texas against pro-Palestinians boycotting Israel in 2017, Trump's first term, as part of a larger national swathe of anti-BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) laws. "Anti-Israel is anti-Texas!" So Texas put it in the state code that all businesses doing deals with Texas must also swear they're not boycotting Israel and won't even think about such a thing as long as they're getting Texas cash. Then Texas got sued on 1st Amendment grounds and had to add in a bare minimum so as to not overburden small business, and they did. Then they got sued again, and thereafter just exempted the specific businesses that sued, while allowing the law to stand for everyone else.

Aged like milk, lol. But by law it's still included in all Texas govt contracts.

[–] AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

Wow that's ridiculous but at least makes sense re: why Fort Worth, TX would have a clause about Israel.

[–] thesmokingman@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago

This is exactly like the whole Lifetouch story. It beggars belief.

Rackspace is, and has been, ISO 27001 certified. Part of that means they can’t directly access customer data. You didn’t link any documents covering the contract that “requires” Rackspace hosting; my base assumption is they’re normal contracts that define hosting for regulatory purposes. None of the documents you’ve linked show Apollo had access to Rackspace infrastructure much less encrypted customer data on Rackspace doesn’t have keys for. The pedo employee had CSAM which does not provide Apollo access to Rackspace infrastructure much less encrypted customer data Rackspace doesn’t have keys for.

Just like with Lifetouch, if you can show that somehow the equity owners Apollo had direct access to the infrastructure of their investments and somehow managed to either hide or justify it during multiple security audits spanning a decade and somehow got access to customer encryption keys, it’s a possibility. I’m not even using Occam’s razor here; there’s genuinely nothing to even consider hanging a hat on here.

On the other hand, if Leon Black had direct access to the company running the database, all bets are off. Law enforcement shit gets to sidestep audit shit in dumb ways. But if that were the case, we wouldn’t need Rackspace as the incredibly tenuous connection because he would have had direct access.

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Is there a tldr?

[–] AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Jeffrey Epstein was funneling money and tax dodging advice to the company that stored data for the biggest sex offender database (and might explain why certain data seems to go missing/get changed/delayed to benefit certain pedophiles)

Also for some reason Fort Worth's contract with the database stipulates contractors can't boycott Israel.