After the U.S. Department of Justice released more than 3 million files related to the federal investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Jan. 30, 2026, social media users expressed alarm over a rumored connection revealed between the disgraced financier and Lifetouch, America's largest school photography company.
Allegations about Lifetouch's ties to Epstein spread on platforms such as X, TikTok and Reddit. Rumors varied from simply "Lifetouch is in the Epstein files" to detailed allegations about how the former CEO of the parent company that owns Lifetouch may have been implicated in the files.
Online petitions calling for schools to end their contracts with the photography company have received thousands of signatures. Meanwhile, Snopes readers asked whether Lifetouch's current CEO or owner is in the Epstein files, whether Epstein bought Lifetouch and whether Lifetouch has compiled school pictures for sex-trafficking purposes.
Lifetouch, as a company, was not directly implicated in the publicly available Epstein files, nor was the company's current CEO, Ken Murphy. The only mention of Lifetouch in the documents as of this writing was a single debit card purchase for $106.70, which has little meaning without additional context (see Page 41). The Department of Justice redacted the name of the account holder.
In a statement attributed to Murphy, Lifetouch called the rumors about its purported connections to Epstein a "sea of misinformation." The statement said its corporate owner, Apollo Global Management, is not involved "in the day-to-day operations of Lifetouch and therefore no one employed by Apollo has ever had access to any student images." Here's how Lifetouch addressed the privacy concerns:
When Lifetouch photographers take your student's picture, that image is safeguarded for families and schools, only, with no exceptions.
Lifetouch does not – and has never provided – images to any third party.
[…]
Lifetouch images are shared only for the purposes of school records and to allow parents or guardians to purchase them. Additionally, as part of our decades long relationship with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Lifetouch prints SmileSafe cards free of charge for each student we photograph that families can use with law enforcement if a child goes missing.
Lifetouch follows all applicable federal, state, and local data privacy laws, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). In fact, Lifetouch was the first school photography company to sign a voluntary and enforceable privacy pledge—reaffirming our deep commitment to protecting school communities.
These claims started due to a real, if tenuous, connection that Lifetouch has with Epstein: Leon Black, who once ran Apollo — an asset management firm that acquired Lifetouch's parent company — has a long-documented relationship with Epstein. Black also has been accused of sexual assaults that allegedly happened in Epstein's house.
Black's lawyer, Susan Estrich, wrote in a statement to Snopes that the law firm Apollo retained to investigate Black's relationship to Epstein "investigated and reviewed more than 60,000 documents, interviewed more than 20 people and concluded that Mr. Black paid Epstein for estate planning and tax advice and that he had no awareness of Epstein's criminal activities."
"Of the three civil lawsuits filed against Mr. Black, one has been dismissed, the other withdrawn and the other is currently facing a case terminating motion for sanctions," she said. "There is absolutely no truth to any of the allegations against Mr. Black."
The documents also show that Apollo's CEO as of this writing, Marc Rowan, planned a breakfast at Epstein's house and kept regular correspondence with him from 2013 to 2016. Several other Apollo executives also corresponded with Epstein on business matters years after Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor. Prosecutors and survivors have not investigated or accused Rowan — or any other Apollo executive aside from Black — of possible involvement in Epstein's crimes.
We reached out to Shutterfly and Apollo for more details regarding their connection to Lifetouch; Shutterfly directed us to Lifetouch. In an emailed statement, Apollo said: "As previously reported, Apollo funds did not acquire Shutterfly, Lifetouch's parent company, until September 2019 — two months after Epstein was put in jail and a month after Epstein's death."
Here's what we know:
Timeline of Lifetouch's distant ties to Epstein
Lifetouch has been around since 1936, but the corporate acquisitions that tied it to Epstein began in April 2018. That's when Shutterfly, a photography and image-sharing company, bought Lifetouch for $825 million.
At the time, Lifetouch's CEO was Michael Meek — a man not named in the publicly available Epstein files. Lifetouch's news release announcing the acquisition noted that Meek would remain president and CEO, while reporting to Christopher North, then-CEO of Shutterfly. North's name did not appear in a search of the Epstein files.
Then, in September 2019, Apollo Global Management announced its $2.7 billion acquisition of Shutterfly. At the time, Shutterfly's president and CEO was Ryan O'Hara. Lifetouch's president was Greg
During Apollo's acquisition of Shutterfly, the private equity firm was run by Black. The billionaire investor left the company in March 2021 amid scrutiny of his relationship with Epstein.
(Getty Images/Shutterfly/Snopes Illustration)
As of this writing, Shutterfly's CEO, Emily Whittaker, and Murphy, Lifetouch's CEO, also did not appear in the available Epstein files.
Google searches for Murphy's, Whittaker's, Meek's, North's, O'Hara's and Hintz's names in connection with Epstein returned no relevant results from reputable news outlets, further indicating that there's no evidence tying them to Epstein. Given the prominence of these companies, any alleged ties to Epstein these executives may have had would certainly be newsworthy.
In other words, given that Lifetouch's and Shutterfly's executive teams have not been implicated in the available Epstein files or elsewhere in relation to Epstein, there's no evidence of a widespread conspiracy between Lifetouch, Shutterfly and/or Apollo to share school photos with Epstein. It's possible other people working at Lifetouch had ties to Epstein — the company has thousands of employees — but no news outlets have published whistleblower stories or credible evidence that suggests this is the case.
Black's ties to Epstein
While no public evidence indicates that Black used his corporate connections to Lifetouch to acquire school pictures, there's plenty of evidence he had a close personal and financial relationship to Epstein.
At least two women have accused Black of raping them at Epstein's Manhattan townhouse.
Cheri Pierson accused Black of raping her in a 2022 lawsuit filed in New York, which she dropped in 2024 without explanation.
Pierson alleged that Epstein arranged the meeting, which took place on the third floor of his mansion "in a private suite that contained a massage table" She believed "she would give Black a massage and receive money that had been promised to her in exchange" that she "desperately needed to help care for her young daughter." The lawsuit said Pierson left Epstein's house in "excruciating pain" (see Page 2).
In the second instance, a woman with developmental disabilities given the moniker "Jane Doe" accused Black of raping her when she was 16, also in a massage room on the third floor of Epstein's townhouse. Her 2023 lawsuit alleged that Black raped her so violently with sex toys that she bled — and that Epstein refused to take her to a doctor (see pages 1 and 2).
Doe's lawsuit is still ongoing as of this writing.
The DOJ's Jan. 30 document release showed in a since-deleted memo that prosecutors looked into allegations from women who accused Black of sexual assault and other misconduct. The trove of files also included graphic details of Black's alleged abuse within an apparent diary with firsthand accounts and emails from attorney Jeanne Christensen, who has represented two of Black's accusers, describing allegations against Black. Those documents included multiple accusations of conduct by Black that Christensen wrote was "too abnormal to make up" (see Page 3). Some of the descriptions in the Epstein files matched details outlined in the two lawsuits.
A third lawsuit mentioned in his lawyer's statement accused Black of years of sexual abuse and defamation but did not directly link it to Epstein. Black countersued; both lawsuits were dismissed.
Financial transactions under scrutiny
Black, according to The New York Times and other reputable reports, also was Epstein's primary source of income. The late financier advised Black on everything "from taxes to his world-class art collection," the Times reported in 2025.
After the Times reported in 2020 that Black had paid Epstein at least $50 million for financial advice from 2012 to 2017, the Apollo board retained a law firm to conduct a review of Black's relationship with Epstein, by Black's request. The review, released in 2021, found that Black paid Epstein around $158 million from 2012 to 2017 for financial services.
The Senate Finance Committee also began an investigation into Black's financial ties to Epstein in 2022, made public in 2023. In March 2025, the committee's chair, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., revealed that the committee obtained evidence that payments from Black to Epstein were used to fund Epstein's operations. The committee also determined the true amount Black paid to Epstein totaled $170 million.
Wyden's letter with the committee's findings included no mention of Lifetouch, and no reputable news outlets have provided credible evidence that any of these financial transactions went through Lifetouch.
"With the benefit of hindsight — and knowing everything that has come to light about Mr. Epstein's despicable conduct more than 15 years ago — I deeply regret having had any involvement with him," Black said in a 2020 letter to Apollo's partners, according to a Bloomberg report.
The bottom line
Black has faced and continues to face real allegations of sexual assault in connection with his documented relationship to Epstein. The DOJ documents also provide plenty of evidence that executives at Apollo corresponded with Epstein well after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
However, it strains credulity to believe that Black — or any other Apollo executive — accessed Lifetouch's repository of school pictures without some sort of coordination with Lifetouch, and there's no credible evidence that Lifetouch or its direct leadership worked closely with Epstein in any capacity.
As such, any allegations that Lifetouch had a hand in trafficking children or handing over school photos to Epstein remain speculation unless evidence is released that proves otherwise.
Snopes reporter Nur Ibrahim contributed to this story.