Rival TV ads in Ohio’s US Senate race play up donors’ Epstein links. Are they legit?

The Ohio Senate campaigns of Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican Sen. Jon Husted both are running ads accusing their rival of receiving six-figure donations from people they call "associates" of disgraced financier and deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. 

Each candidate received donations from people mentioned in the Epstein files, the federal government’s investigative archive that included the public release of more than 3.5 million pages of records, 180,000 images and 2,000 videos. 

The files include the names of hundreds of people, some incidentally mentioned and others close to Epstein. Among them is Ohio billionaire and political activist Les Wexner, who hired Epstein as a financial adviser.

Brown’s ad accuses Husted of taking $116,892 from Wexner from 2001 to 2025. Husted’s spot accuses Brown of taking more than $124,000 from more than a dozen people it calls Epstein associates.

"He protected predators, not survivors," Brown’s ad said of Husted. 

"Thirty two years in DC made Sherrod Brown a liar," Husted’s ad said.

We contacted each campaign for comment, and both called on the other to donate the money.

We fact-checked the ads’ claims and found the Brown ad is missing context about how much money was directed to Husted and whether he kept it, and the Husted ad misleads about the people who donated to Brown. 

Brown: Husted accepted $116,892 from Wexner.

The Brown ad is correct that Husted received donations from Wexner, but it is missing context  on how much went to Husted individually and doesn’t mention that the campaign later donated some of the money.

Brown’s campaign says Ohio Secretary of State data shows Wexner donated $79,900 to Husted as a solo candidate and $36,992 once Husted joined the ticket as the lieutenant governor candidate in Mike DeWine’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign.

"Just last year Husted took a maximum donation from Epstein’s co-conspirator and weeks later voted to block the release of the Epstein files," Brown’s campaign manager Patrick Eisenhauer wrote in an email to PolitiFact. 

The maximum donation allowed is $3,500 in the current election cycle, according to federal rules. Wexner donated $3,500 to Husted for Senate on July 3, 2025. 

Two months after Wexner’s donation, Husted voted to table an amendment brought by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to force the release of all the Epstein files.

Schumer attached his effort to release the Epstein files to the National Defense Authorization Act. Husted campaign manager Amy Natoce told PolitiFact that Husted voted to table Schumer’s motion because it is "completely inappropriate and irresponsible to toy with military benefits."

On Nov. 18, the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed the Senate via unanimous consent, meaning there was no roll call vote.

Brown’s spokesperson referred to Wexner as an Epstein co-conspirator, citing an August 2019 FBI email that called Wexner a "co-conspirator" of Epstein’s sex trafficking crimes. Wexner, who made his money as the leader of companies including Victoria's Secret and Abercrombie & Fitch, has not been charged with any crimes related to Epstein.

Wexner has disputed the co-conspirator description. "The Assistant U.S. Attorney in charge of the Epstein investigation stated at the time that Mr. Wexner was neither a co-conspirator nor target in any respect," Wexner’s representative told Ohio television station WCMH-TV Channel 4 in December. 

Natoce said the Husted campaign donated $34,300 to Columbus-based anti-trafficking charity  Freedom a la Cart. Natoce said that was the sum "available to give to charity," and the remainder of the donations were received and spent during previous election cycles.

An FEC filing shows that the Husted campaign donated $3,500 to Freedom a la Cart on Feb. 18. Natoce said the remaining $30,800 given to the charity would appear on the Ohio Secretary of State website after the campaign files its semiannual report in July. The CEO of Freedom a la Cart confirmed to PolitiFact that the Husted campaign donated $34,300.

Many Ohio politicians have recently had to reckon with donations from Wexner — the richest person in the state, according to the 2025 Forbes 400 list.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform deposed Wexner in February. He said during his hourslong deposition that his later financial adviser "duped" him and that Epstein was a "world-class con man." He denied any wrongdoing.

Husted: Brown accepted more than $124,000 from "Epstein associates."

The ad misleads by calling the majority of the Brown donors "Epstein associates." 

Husted’s ad cites a New York Post story that says Brown took $124,000 in "Epstein-tainted cash."

The New York Post piece, in turn, cites "an analysis of campaign finance data" but does not specify who conducted the analysis or provide examples that add up to $124,000.

The Husted campaign provided PolitiFact with data it said it obtained from the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office showing $111,833 in donations to Brown’s campaign split among roughly a dozen people mentioned in the Epstein files. Natoce said the campaign arrived at more than $124,000 after including money donated by Wexner’s wife Abigail Wexner and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. 

WCMH-TV Channel 4 analyzed the donations and found that those to Brown include a total of $88,000 from "people named in the files as having interacted with Epstein socially but (who) do not have a clear tie to Epstein’s crimes."

The analysis also showed a total of $23,100 in donations from four people "who indicate possible knowledge of Epstein’s crimes in correspondences within the Epstein files." 

Those included Larry Summers, former U.S. Treasury secretary and former Harvard University president. Brown’s campaign received $10,300 from Summers in 2024 and 2025, according to FEC records. Summers was a long-time friend of Epstein, with whom he reportedly regularly communicated until the day before Epstein’s 2019 arrest on federal charges of sex trafficking minors.