NEW YORK — Wall Street multimillionaire Howard Rubin was arrested Friday on charges alleging he psychologically and sexually brutalized women inside luxury hotels and a Midtown “sex dungeon” with help from his assistant in a yearslong sex trafficking scheme.

The famous financier was picked up by the feds in Fairfield, Connecticut, in an early morning bust and arraigned later Friday in Brooklyn federal court on a bombshell 10-count indictment, which accuses him of sex trafficking and transporting people for prostitution, stemming from allegations by at least nine women. Rubin’s personal assistant, Jennifer Powers, 45, was arrested in Texas for allegedly facilitating “all aspects” of his abuse as his right-hand.

At his arraignment, Rubin pleaded not guilty. Brooklyn federal Judge Peggy Kuo ordered him remanded without bail, calling him a flight risk and a continued danger to the community.

“This is a very serious set of allegations. He was allegedly involved in very violent behavior and faces very serious criminal penalties,” Kuo said, also citing Rubin’s alleged attempts to intimidate his accusers, including hiring a hitman on the Dark Web, in her reasons for denying bail.

The feds say that from 2009 to 2019, the 70-year-old retired money manager and Powers lured Playboy models and other women to the city under false pretenses, to torture and leave “deformed” after bondage, discipline, dominance, submission and sadomasochism sessions, known as BDSM.

Among several distressing incidents alleged in court docs are details of Rubin raping women after they had fallen unconscious or were unable to give consent because they were “gagged and thus unable to coherently speak.”

In a letter to Judge Kuo ahead of Rubin’s appearance, the feds said the weight of their evidence was “strong” and asked that the divorced financier, who has lived alone in Connecticut since 2022, remain jailed before trial, referencing $74.4 million he has stored in a Cayman Islands account.

They said Powers, who has made millions working for Rubin, yet has never reported wages to the IRS, should be detained on a significant bail package untied to Rubin’s wealth after she’s transported to New York in the coming days.

The abuse mostly took place at luxury hotels in Manhattan before Rubin began leasing the 76th-floor penthouse on West 57th Street in 2011, where he and Powers transformed one of its two bedrooms into a “sex dungeon,” painted red, soundproofed, storing an electrocution device, and regularly stocked by Powers with other BDSM equipment, court docs say.

“I’ve put chains on the four points of your cross and four points of the Dungeon bed. On the end of each chain is a cuff,” Powers is quoted telling Rubin, a July 2012 email referenced in Friday’s filings.

“I’ve done this bc it will be VERY easy to just throw someone on the cross or on the bed and just strap them into the ‘premade’ chains and cuffs.”

A doorman at the midtown apartment building said he was surprised by the shocking news.

“He seemed like a normal guy. He’d say, ‘Hi, how you doing? Have a good night. I might need a taxi. I got a food delivery coming. Can you watch my bags? That was it,” the doorman, who asked not to be identified, said.

He said sometimes women would come to the building as visitors and Rubin would tell the doorman to send them up.

The indictment also contains allegations that Rubin used force, fraud and coercion to traffic a woman in 2018 in Las Vegas.

In a statement, Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella alleged that Rubin, with the help of Powers, employed his staggering wealth to recruit women for sex and sexual torture without their consent, traumatizing them and often inflicting lasting physical, deforming injuries. Court documents allege he spent at least $1 million to fund the sadistic abuse.

“Today’s arrests show that no one who engages in sex trafficking, in this case in luxury hotels and a penthouse apartment that featured a so-called sex ‘dungeon,’ is above the law, and that they will be brought to justice,” Nocella said.

“Human beings are not chattel to be exploited for sex and sadistically abused, and anyone who thinks otherwise can expect to find themselves in handcuffs and facing federal prosecution like these defendants.”

Rubin is also accused of bank fraud in the indictment for allegedly lying when he financed Powers’ mortgage for a Texas home for her and her husband.

A former portfolio manager for George Soros’ investment fund, whose successful career was detailed in Michael Lewis’ best-selling books “The Big Short” and “Liar’s Poker,” Rubin has faced similar allegations in civil lawsuits but not criminal charges, until Friday.

He and Powers were sued in November 2017 for sex trafficking and other claims and found not liable in spring 2022. An appeal before the 2nd Circuit is pending.

Prosecutors allege Powers facilitated Rubin’s rampant abuse by arranging for the victims’ air travel, typically via LaGuardia or Kennedy Airport, paying them, typically in installments on PayPal to avoid scrutiny, and securing their silence with aggressively enforced nondisclosure agreements.

The NDAs — blank copies of which were kept on hand in a penthouse safe — contained a $500,000 penalty, court papers say, and Rubin at one point went so far as to pursue a hitman on the dark web to silence the women who filed suit against him.

Court papers allege the NDAs “grossly misrepresented the manner and degree of violence the women would endure,” but required them to assume the risks.

Rubin knew women would be left in “a lot of pain,” and that the sessions “would make them cry, and would leave them ‘sore and bruised for probably a week,’” and stated as such in an August 2013 email, prosecutors wrote Friday.

“The abuse Rubin inflicted on victims — many of whom were gagged and restrained in the locked Dungeon during the encounters — included electrocuting their genitals; probing their genitals with pool cues and utensils; beating their breasts and bodies with closed fists; and performing violent sex acts on their bodies while they were unconscious,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath wrote in Rubin’s detention letter.

The well-connected financier allegedly brazenly detailed many of his crimes on his work email account, the feds say, and Powers often wrote back, taking pleasure in the sick details of his abuse.

At Rubin’s arraignment on Friday, McGrath alleged that Rubin had more victims — and accomplices — than those named in the case.

“There are dozens of other victims that the government is aware of who are not yet included in charges. And his network was also more expansive than just the victims. He relied on at least 10 other individuals to recruit women” and to facilitate their torment, McGrath said.

McGrath also alleged at arraignment that Rubin has been dishonest about his finances, reporting only a fraction of his wealth to investigators.

“He reported pretrial that he had wealth of $49 million… but in 2024 he had almost $75 million in one single account in the Cayman Islands,” she said, adding there was “no explanation” for the huge difference. She accused him of hiding $40 million.

Additionally, Rubin refused to tell law enforcement where his passport was, according to McGrath.

The allegations resemble those against deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein and his convicted conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, with Rubin and Powers similarly accused of operating a recruitment system and seeking out vulnerable, young, financially desperate women with a history of addiction and being sexually abused.

A grand jury indicted Rubin and Powers in Brooklyn on Sept. 17. They each face a minimum term of 15 years imprisonment, with Rubin facing a max of 30 years.

Attorneys who repped Rubin in related lawsuits could not immediately be reached for comment.

On 57th St., a nearby worker was stunned.

“That’s crazy,” he said. “You never know what people are doing inside their homes. They could be doing anything.”

(Emma Seiwell contributed.)

_____

©2025 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.