- Jeffrey Epstein was invited to editorial meetings at Scientific American.
- Email records show two meetings with the magazine on his schedule in September 2014.
- Mariette DiChristina, the magazine’s editor-in-chief at the time, told Insider he didn’t attend.
Jeffrey Epstein was invited to editorial meetings with Mariette DiChristina when she was the top editor of Scientific American magazine, according to scheduling emails obtained by Insider.
The emails between Epstein and one of his employees, Lesley Groff, show her arranging the now-dead pedophile financier’s schedule for the month of September 2014. Epstein had the opportunity to attend editorial meetings on September 22 and 29.
“10:30-11:30am Mariette DiChristina to hold her Editorial Meeting to discuss story ideas (DO YOU WANT TO ATTEND? She will be at this meeting),” Groff wrote in one such email.
DiChristina, now the dean of the College of Communication at Boston University, told Insider in an email that Epstein “never attended an editorial meeting at Scientific American.”
She said Epstein was interested in learning about how the magazine identified scientific research for potential coverage, thinking he may be able to use the same strategies to discover new research for funding.
“During my tenure at Scientific American, it was not unusual for educators, students, investors, policy leaders, editors and publishers, and others to express interest in the magazine’s editorial process and we would host visitors from time to time,” she said.
A representative for Scientific American didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The emails between Groff and Epstein show different versions of his schedule for the month of September 2014.
Some versions of his September 22, 2014 schedule show a packed day following the 10:30 a.m. editorial meeting, including getting lunch afterward with then-Harvard University psychology department chairperson Stephen Kosslyn, talking with former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers in the afternoon, and watching the Denzel Washington thriller “The Equalizer” in the evening.
At different points in time, Epstein was scheduled to be at his homes in New York, Paris, or his private island Little Saint James in the US Virgin Islands on the day of the September 29 editorial meeting, also scheduled for 10:30 a.m.
At 11:30 a.m. that day, he was scheduled to be at a luncheon for the Dubin Breast Center of the Tisch Cancer Institute in Midtown Manhattan, which was founded by his close friend Eva Andersson-Dubin. Epstein bought 50 seats at the luncheon, according to Groff’s emails.
Insider obtained the scheduling emails through an information request to the office of the Attorney General of the US Virgin Islands. The office settled a civil sex-trafficking case with Epstein’s estate in December and is currently involved in a separate lawsuit, playing out in Manhattan federal court, against JP Morgan Chase over the bank’s ties with Epstein.
Epstein died in 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial for criminal charges alleging he trafficked girls for sex. His victims and other witnesses at the trial of Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell frequently referenced Groff as a woman who scheduled flights to his residences for women he raped, as well as appointments between them in Epstein’s “massage” rooms. In a 2005 New York Times story about personal assistants, Groff described herself as an extension of Epstein’s brain.
After a jury convicted Maxwell of trafficking girls to Epstein for sex, in December 2021, Groff’s attorneys told Insider that prosecutors said they would not bring charges against her. Groff, through an attorney, declined to comment for this story.
Epstein’s connection to Scientific American demonstrates his deep ties to science and technology research while he was alive. DiChristina led the magazine as editor-in-chief for a decade before moving to her current role at Boston University in August of 2019, the same month Epstein died.
Following Epstein’s death, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology both conducted internal investigations into his donations and ties to professors at the universities.
Epstein sought meetings with technology entrepreneurs and high-profile research scientists.
He told associates he wanted to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women, a plan that appeared consistent with his transhumanist philosophy.
This story has been updated with additional comments from DiChristina.
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