A Florida retiree known online as “Palm Beach Pete” is pushing back after a highway sighting of him in a convertible ignited a fresh wave of conspiracy theories claiming Jeffrey Epstein is still alive. The viral clip, captured on I-95 in South Florida, shows a gray-haired man wearing a reversed white baseball cap and dark sunglasses at the wheel as someone off-camera shouts, “Epstein is alive!”
The video accumulated millions of views within hours and spurred speculation that the man was the disgraced financier in hiding or post-surgery. Pete said his phone “was blowing up” with messages. He launched social media accounts under the name “Not Epstein” and “Not.Epstein,” and recorded a guest appearance on The Nicky Gordo Show on YouTube to explain the confusion.
“Not the guy”
“I could be the guy, but I’m not the guy,” said Pete, a former Division 1 tennis player, gold medallist, fashion entrepreneur, and former real estate executive. “I’m so not Jeffrey Epstein, I’m just me being me,” he added. Epstein “is a very bad person… and he is dead. And I’m alive,” the former athlete said. “Palm Beach Pete is Palm Beach, not West Palm Beach. Big difference,” he noted.
As the video ricocheted across platforms, Pete said he had attended some events in the past where Epstein was present, but he maintained he had never met or spoken with him. He described Epstein as a “mysterious figure whose source of wealth was unknown to many people.”
Some online commenters suggested Epstein had undergone plastic surgery and a rebrand. Separate posts criticized Pete’s offhand remarks about partying as tone-deaf and out of step with the gravity of the underlying crimes, according to TMZ.
Epstein, who was convicted in 2008 for soliciting prostitution of a minor and arrested again in July 2019 on suspicion of sex crimes, died by suicide in his Manhattan jail cell on August 10, 2019, while awaiting trial. The US Department of Justice released the latest batch of files with more than 3 million pages tied to Epstein’s network on January 30. It included over 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, with references spanning the US, Norway, France, and the UK.