Jeffrey Epstein, the jet-setting financier and accused child sex trafficker, used his wealth to woo scientists and promote fringe pseudoscience.
That included dabbling in eugenics, including a proposal to impregnate twenty women at a time at his 33,000-square-foot New Mexico ranch to “seed” humanity with his DNA, according to a report from the New York Times.
For years, Epstein openly discussed his idea to impregnate women with his sperm to father dozens of children and pushed other ideas linked to eugenics, including the perfection of the human genome and the creation of superior humans.
Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard professor who defended Epstein and helped him secure a sweetheart plea deal in 2008, said that he was disturbed by Epstein’s interest in eugenics — a belief strongly associated with Nazi Germany — but continued to associate with Epstein. The bizarre businessman and convicted sex offender worked hard to associate himself with Harvard University, and he set up conferences and lunches and coffees at the university where many of these fringe ideas were discussed. At one such event, Epstein criticized endeavors to solve problems like poverty and starvation because he thought that would result in more impoverished children being born and would risk overpopulation.
Epstein used his massive wealth to make millions in donations to scientific charities and foundations and to host dinners and conferences with scientists at his homes and islands, and he managed to make inroads with a multitude of top scientists like theoretical physicist and author Stephen Hawking, evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, Nobel Prize award-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann, molecular geneticist George Church, and more to discuss and pitch his half-baked ideas. One of the scientific outings put together by Epstein even included a trip on a chartered submarine.
Epstein, currently in a New York City jail after being denied bail while awaiting trial after a judge determined him to be a danger and a flight risk, was long fascinated with transhumanism, a fringe movement which believes that human evolution beyond its current physical and mental limitations can and should be spurred on through genetic engineering, robotics, technology, and artificial intelligence. Epstein sought to extend his own life and ensure the survival of his DNA in the future, showing an interest in cryonics, the unproven pseudoscientific idea where bodies would be frozen and then somehow revived. Epstein told people that he wanted his head and penis to be frozen.
Epstein’s apparent dabbling in pseudoscience and eugenics is just one more example in a laundry list of strange behavior from the accused sexual predator. Epstein, who used his fleet of planes to travel the globe with celebrities and politicians such as former President Bill Clinton over the years, used to brag to friends in the 1980s that he was an international bounty hunter working for the government or foreign dictators. And Epstein has claimed that he only took on billionaire clients, although only one — Victoria’s Secret founder Les Wexner — is known to actually exist. Epstein’s friendships and connections also include President Trump — though the president insists they haven’t spoken for over fifteen years — as well as the U.K.’s Prince Andrew and Israeli prime minister candidate Ehud Barak.
The 14-page indictment against Epstein unsealed last month alleges that Epstein “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations” between 2002 and 2005 and perhaps beyond. Epstein also has homes in the U.S. Virgin Islands and an apartment in Paris.
Prosecutors claim that Epstein enticed and recruited minor girls to engage in sex acts with him andwould then give the victims hundreds of dollars as payment. Some of the victims were as young as 14 at the time the alleged crimes occurred.
His home in New York City, reportedly filled with nude and other disturbing artwork, was raided by law enforcement following his arrest, and investigators found nude photographs of underage girls, thousands of dollars in cash, dozens of loose diamonds, and a foreign passport from the 1980s with Epstein’s picture and a false name.
The judge presiding over the case said Wednesday that Epstein’s trial likely won’t begin until June 2020 at the earliest.
