How convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein embedded himself in the scientific world

Late US financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein maintained far deeper and more extensive ties with the scientific community than previously known, according to a report published by the journal Nature.

Citing newly released documents from the US Department of Justice, the report said Epstein invested millions of dollars in scientific research and kept close contact with nearly 30 prominent scientists. The files show that some researchers consulted Epstein on academic publications, visa issues and public relations matters, and in certain cases allowed him significant involvement in their research work.

The documents reveal that Epstein’s influence persisted even after his 2008 conviction for sex crimes, with some scientists continuing to associate with him and accept his funding. One high-profile example involved donations totalling $800,000 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a relationship that later resulted in the resignation of two scientists and disciplinary action against another.

While the presence of researchers’ names in the files does not necessarily imply criminal wrongdoing or involvement in Epstein’s abuse, the report said the disclosures illustrate how deeply embedded he was in the scientific fields he supported.

Among the newly revealed interactions, the documents show that Epstein advised physicist Lawrence Krauss to respond with “no comment” to media queries during a sexual misconduct investigation that later led to Krauss’s removal from Arizona State University. Epstein had previously donated $250,000 to Krauss’s science outreach organisation.

The files also reveal that Harvard physicist Lisa Randall visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island in 2014 and later exchanged emails with him that included jokes about his house arrest.

In another instance, Nathan Wolfe, then a virologist at Stanford University, proposed in 2013 that Epstein fund a study on undergraduate sexual behaviour, referring in correspondence to testing a so-called “horny virus hypothesis”.

One of Epstein’s closest academic collaborators was mathematical biologist Martin Nowak, who founded Harvard University’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics in 2003 with $6.5 million from Epstein. The financier was not only a donor but played an active role in the centre’s work, which used mathematics to model evolution. Harvard shut down the programme in 2021 and imposed sanctions on Nowak, which were lifted in 2023.

Emails also show that Corina Tarnita, now a professor at Princeton University, remained in contact with Epstein months after his conviction. As a doctoral student under Nowak, she sent Epstein birthday messages in 2010 and 2011 and thanked him for assistance with visa matters.

The documents further indicate that Epstein regularly discussed scientific ideas with researchers, suggesting topics such as “commercial evolution” and “prelife”. In one case, Nowak shared page proofs of a paper accepted by Nature with Epstein before publication and sought his advice on responding to criticism.

The revelations have raised alarm within academic circles. Jesse Kass, a mathematician at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told Nature that it was “unheard of” for a private funder to be so deeply involved in active research.

“There should be serious discussion about what went wrong and how to prevent this from happening again,” Kass said, referring to partnerships between researchers and private donors.

The Justice Department began releasing the latest batch of Epstein-related files on January 30. More than three million documents have been made public so far, marking the largest disclosure since Congress passed the Epstein Transparency Act late last year.