John Phelan, a prominent art collector and the current Secretary of the Navy, is revealed to have flown on the private plane of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2006, according to a report by CNN. Flight logs note that he flew from London to New York on March 3 of that year.
The flight came four months before Epstein was first indicted in Florida for felony solicitation of prostitution.
CNN reports that a close friend of the secretary confirmed that Phelan was on the flight, “but emphasized it was the only time Phelan interacted with Epstein and that he was invited to fly by Bear Stearns CEO Jimmy Cayne, who died in 2021.” Cayne also appears on the manifest. The manifest comes from a release of documents last year by the House Oversight Committee.
Phelan’s friend says the collector did not know until they arrived for the flight that the plane belonged to Epstein, who committed suicide in prison in New York in 2019.
A Navy spokesperson for Phelan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Phelan and his wife Amy appeared on the 2025 ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list. The Phelans’ collection is focused on contemporary art and includes works by artists such as Andreas Gursky, Jenny Holzer, Marilyn Minter, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, and Lisa Yuskavage. The couple were also previously major patrons of the Aspen Art Museum, contributing funds for it to be admission-free in 2008 and hosting WineCrush in their home, timed to the museum’s annual ArtCrush gala, until 2019.
Phelan was nominated as Secretary of the Navy in December 2024 with no previous military experience. He was a major supporter of Republican candidates including President Donald Trump. In addition to a private fundraising dinner in Aspen which raised $12 million, Phelan donated more than $1.8 million to Republican candidates, parties, and political action committees (PACs) for the 2024 election cycle, according to data released by the Federal Election Commission. Amy Phelan donated more than $1.2 million to Republican campaigns in the 2024 election cycle, including $930,000 to Trump’s joint fundraising committee and $48,800 to the Republican National Committee.
He founded Palm Beach–based private investment firm Rugger Management in 2022. He was previously a co-founder and co-managing partner of MSD Capital, a private investment firm for computer billionaire Michael S. Dell, and MSD Partners, an investment advisory.
