STATEMENT ON THE RECORD
Statement on Jeffrey Epstein
This page describes my relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Giuffre's accusations. The relevant court documents are linked at the bottom of the page so that anyone who wants to read the underlying record can do so directly.
My relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein provided Harvard with $200,000 to support research in my lab between 1998 and 2002. During that period, and for some years after, I had a friendly intellectual relationship with him. I contributed a short note to a privately produced birthday book in 2003 (in which I was identified in the "Science" section rather than in the "Friend" section), and I visited him in jail in 2008 after his conviction.
I did not witness or participate in any of Epstein's misconduct. I did not even know about the allegations against him until they were reported in the press.
I have been asked, fairly, why I maintained a relationship with him after his conviction in 2008. The honest answer: At that time, my understanding was that the sole illegal or immoral thing he had done was to have paid for sex with a minor. This is a serious crime, and had my understanding stopped there, I would have had nothing further to do with him. But Epstein told me that he had not intended to have sex with a minor: He was adamant that she told him she was 18 and that he had been duped. I believed him. I was not aware of the scale or the nature of what he had actually done. As the public record subsequently made clear, believing him was a serious misjudgment. I deeply regret it.
The Giuffre allegation
An early draft of Virginia Giuffre’s memoir, then titled The Billionaire’s Playboy Club, named me as someone she had been required to have sex with. I never met her and never had sex with her. The relevant facts are set out below, with the supporting documents linked at the end of the page.
1. Ms. Giuffre’s own court filings characterized the naming as a “scrivener’s error” (i.e., Ms. Giuffre wrote down the wrong name, apparently confusing me with someone else).
While Ms. Giuffre’s draft manuscript (Ex. KK, page 59, line 25) mentioned my name, she later clarified in the underlying federal case that my name was “included erroneously due to a ‘scrivener’s error.’” The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed Ms. Giuffre’s clarification, also characterizing the inclusion of my name as a “scrivener’s error.” The court orders are linked below. Brown v. Maxwell, No. 18-2868-cv, Order, Doc. 229 (2d Cir. July 17, 2019).
2. Under oath, when asked whether she had had sex with Stephen Kosslyn, Ms. Giuffre answered “No.”
In her sworn deposition on 16 January 2016 in the matter of Edwards v. Dershowitz, in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit in Broward County, Florida, Ms. Giuffre was asked directly whether she had had sex with Stephen Kosslyn. Her answer was “No.” Pages 26 and 27 of that deposition were released from the original 2016 Confidentiality Order by an order of the Broward County Circuit Court dated 14 May 2026, and are linked below. Dep. Tr. of Virginia Roberts Giuffre 25:21–27:11, Edwards v. Dershowitz, No. CACE-15-000072 (Fla. Cir. Ct. Broward Cnty. Jan. 16, 2016); Order Granting Motion to Intervene & Partially Vacating Confidentiality Order, Edwards v. Dershowitz, No. CACE-15-000072, Div. 05 (Fla. Cir. Ct. Broward Cnty. May 14, 2026) (Bidwill, J.).
3. Ms. Giuffre’s counsel wrote to an author to correct the record.
On 27 July 2020, Ms. Sigrid McCawley, a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner and counsel to Ms. Giuffre, wrote to the author Barry Levine, who was then working on a book about Jeffrey Epstein. She wrote: “My client Virginia Giuffre did not have sex with Stephen Kosslyn.” Mr. Levine confirmed in reply that the claim was not in his book. The letter is on file; publication of the email image is subject to defamation/privacy counsel advice.
4. My name was not included in the published book.
Ms. Giuffre’s memoir was published in 2025 as Nobody’s Girl. My name does not appear in it. The description of the perpetrator that had appeared in the draft was changed.
Supporting documents
Deposition of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, pages 26 and 27
Edwards v. Dershowitz, 16 January 2016, cover page plus pages 26 and 27 only. These pages were released from the 2016 Confidentiality Order by the Broward County order of 14 May 2026; the remainder of the transcript remains confidential and must not be published.