The chairman of the Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels announced in a news release Monday that he is stepping down from this position as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels – citing his association with deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
In announcing his decision to step away as executive chairman, Tom Pritzker wrote:
“My job and responsibility is to provide good stewardship. That is important to me. Good stewardship includes ensuring a proper transition at Hyatt. Following discussions with my fellow Board members, I have decided, after serving as Executive Chairman since 2004, and with the company in a strong position, that now is the right time for me to retire from Hyatt.
“Good stewardship also means protecting Hyatt, particularly in the context of my association with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell which I deeply regret. I exercised terrible judgment in maintaining contact with them, and there is no excuse for failing to distance myself sooner. I condemn the actions and the harm caused by Epstein and Maxwell and I feel deep sorrow for the pain they inflicted on their victims.”
Pritzker’s name does appear in a trove of released documents from the Epstein files – released by the Department of Justice and published online.
The dozens of email threads reviewed by NBC 5 Investigates are mostly scheduling related, but do show he maintained close contact with Epstein and Maxwell for 10 years after Epstein’s conviction on solicitation charges in Florida in 2008.
The email exchanges that were released show they kept in contact shortly after Epstein’s case in Florida concluded all the way up to 2019 – when authorities in New York began a new sex trafficking investigation into Epstein.
In one of the earlier exchanges, sent on May 10, 2010 – Epstein writes to Tom Pritzker: “The girl from Romania that you met at my house, is currently living in london, can we see if there is a starting position in any of the hotels/”
Tom Pritzker writes back: Have her send me a resume. I can have her interviewed, no idea if they are hiring.
Epstein writes “great”
Pritzker replies – “great” refers to her or me? — the email thread appears to end there.
Epstein died while in jail in 2019 awaiting charges – his death was later ruled a suicide.
Tom Pritzker has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing.
NBC 5 Investigates did reach out to a representative of his to ask follow-up questions on the timing of this decision and why he didn’t distance himself sooner.
We are waiting to hear back. We also reached out from the office of Governor JB Pritzker – Tom’s cousin.
Tom Pritzker is still listed as a member of the University of Chicago Board of Trustees. We’ve reached out to the university as well and were still waiting on a response as of late Monday afternoon.
This story is developing.
