The man accused of sex trafficking and abusing dozens of women while running a sex dungeon in a New York City penthouse will remain behind bars as his case proceeds, a federal judge ruled Wednesday in denying him bail for the fifth time.
U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan said his decision “not … an easy one” but that he didn’t trust that former Wall Street financier Howard Rubin would abide by the conditions of the $75 million package, regardless of Rubin’s promise all of his assets would be out of his reach and proposals to be subject to house arrest, equip his home with 24/7 private security, be placed under electronic monitoring, subject all his communications to surveillance and surrender his passport.
Rubin is charged with sex trafficking and bank fraud along with his personal assistant Jennifer Powers, who’s alleged to have helped facilitate and cover up Rubin’s conduct. Rubin, a former investment adviser to financier George Soros, was found liable for raping and brutalizing women and ordered to pay almost $4 million to victims in a 2022 civil case. He was arrested in 2025 on criminal charges.
Women have said Rubin convinced them to travel to New York to participate in BDSM sex, something some of them initially desired. However, upon beginning to engage in sex with Rubin, he’d physically abuse them beyond the bounds of BDSM after they asked him to stop in a soundproof “sex dungeon” – In one instance, he tied a woman up and hit her breasts for over an hour, leaving her with such severe scar tissue that surgeons couldn’t operate on her to repair the damage for weeks, government prosecutors said in court Wednesday.
Rubin’s attorney, Michael Gilbert, said the proposed bail package was “so comprehensive” it would make it “hard to fathom” Rubin, now 71, would be able to escape house arrest, emphasizing it was the government’s burden to prove it was “more likely than not” that he would flee.
“It is not correct to conclude … he would flee. Quite frankly, he has nowhere to go,” Gilbert said. “We firmly believe electronic monitoring is more than sufficient given that he is a 71-year-old man with health issues.”
But Cogan said that, in said that in situations like this, it was important to consider the “circumstances for not trusting the defendant.” He agreed with the government’s arguments that there was no way to be certain Rubin wouldn’t be able to flee the country despite the proposed security measures, nor could he be sure Rubin didn’t have a secret stash of money – or a friend he’d be able to convince to help him – that he’d be able to use to do so.
“Frankly, having gotten to know Mr. Rubin pretty well, I don’t trust him to disclose those things,” said Cogan, who presided over Rubin’s 2022 civil trial that dealt largely with the same sex trafficking and sex abuse conduct. “He is not a person whose representations to the court can be trusted.”
He referenced Rubin’s “shifting” account of how much money he has over the course of the five bail hearings, him convincing people to bribe guards at the Metropolitan Detention Center for preferential treatment and him allowing lawyers to lie on his behalf about why he had a large collection of phones in making his decision.
Cogan said Rubin was “not a person who goes by the rules” and held a “master of the world mentality” that allowed him to “get anyone to do anything.” He pointed to Rubin’s representation of his conduct as being simply part of “a BDSM subculture,” and his “ability” to both convince lawyers to view his conduct in the same light he did and his soon-to-be ex-wife, Mary Henry, to sign his bail package.
“I’d call it a BDSM subculture to the 22nd degree removed,” Cogan said. “There is no culture where women end up hurt like this.”
Cogan also agreed with Assistant District Attorney Raffaela Belizaire’s argument that Rubin would be a danger to the community and that there was a chance Rubin would attempt to intimidate or harm witnesses, despite Gilbert’s assertion that it would be “impossible.” Belizaire said women who plan to testify at his criminal trial told the government they’d fear for their lives if he was released.
Rubin is set to return to court on June 22.
A date for his trial has not been set yet. He faces life in prison if convicted.
