Newly Released Epstein Emails Expose ‘Friends’ Who Knew About His Crimes Despite Denials

The release of the Epstein Files has shown that a number of high-profile individuals shared a close relationship with the convicted child abuser. Some prominent individuals even visited his infamous island, while others checked up on him even after he was found guilty of soliciting a minor in 2008.

When asked about their association with Jeffrey Epstein, most of these individuals now have a standard response: they were not aware of his crimes and noticed nothing suspicious on his island. However, an email uncovered in the Epstein Files paints a different picture.

In February 2019, cognitive scientist and AI researcher Joscha Bach sent an email to Epstein that sheds light on how some of the financier’s friends chose to ignore his dark side. Bach had a professional relationship with Epstein that began in 2013.

Bach, originally from Germany, needed funding to take a fellowship at the MIT Media Lab. While the lab offered him $60,000 a year, he sought additional funding to relocate his family from Berlin to Boston. Epstein offered to pay his additional expenses, which continued for years.

When Epstein’s crimes were largely exposed in 2019, Bach grew concerned about the future of the funds. He exchanged several emails with Epstein, which have been declassified by the Department of Justice.

In one of these emails, Bach specifically discussed Epstein associates and how they defended their connections to a convicted trafficker. The scientist wrote, “Once people get to know you in person and are interested in you, they tend to either compartmentalize the topic (as a somehow difficult to accept aspect of an important friend), or treat it as somehow interestingly dark and edgy.”

Bach acknowledged that Epstein’s friends essentially knew what he was up to, but chose not to pay attention to it. “It seemed to never have been met with outright approval, and very rarely not been an issue at all, even when it is balanced against your sharp, original and interesting mind,” Bach further wrote.

In the email, Bach explicitly stated what none of his associates dared to say in public: that he was attracted to young women and liked to dominate them. “Your relationships to young women appear not to be on equal footing but dominant-submissive, with little apparent regard for hurt feelings,” he penned.

“While you are brutally honest and direct with men, too, you don’t come across as reveling in the power difference when interacting with men, or making an example of their intellectual and personal limitations in front of others,” he continued.

While the said email was majorly overlooked, it has come into the spotlight after journalist Anand Giridharadas wrote about it on his Substack, The Ink. Meanwhile, Bach continues to work as a cognitive scientist and is currently serving as the executive director of the California Institute for Machine Consciousness.