September 7, 2017. Nine years after conviction. Eight years on the sex offender registry.
May Huang, Chief Administrative Officer of Harvard's Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, sends an email:
"hi Mini! i wanted to let you know that the access card reader system was recently changed at Martin Nowak's institute at 1 Brattle SQ FL 6. could you tell me an address where i may send a new access card for Jeffrey? his old card(s) can be thrown out to avoid confusion. in case Jeffrey visits before receiving the new card, just let me know such that we can be sure to get him into the building!"1
The new card was mailed to 9 East 71st Street, New York. Epstein's townhouse.
Not a visitor badge. Not a one-day pass. A permanent building access credential — proactively replaced by Harvard staff for a man whose name was on every sex offender registry in the country.
How did we get here?
The Shopping List
April 2009. Cognitive scientist Roger Schank forwards Epstein a list he'd been compiling: "FSF candidates." Twenty-eight names. The top of American science.2
George Church. Genetics. Harvard Medical School. Martin Nowak. Evolutionary Dynamics. Harvard. Steve Pinker. Psychology. Harvard. Geoff Hinton. Computer Science. Toronto. Danny Kahnemann. Psychology. Princeton. Eric Lander. Genomics. MIT.
A recruitment pipeline. Schank had gathered the list "last summer" at Epstein's request. Every name a Nobel laureate, a field-founder, or on their way to becoming one. Hinton would win the Nobel Prize in Physics. Kahnemann already had his in Economics. Lander would become Biden's science advisor.
Every one of them being evaluated — by a convicted sex offender — for suitability.
The Geneticist
George Church was the crown jewel.
Harvard's leading geneticist. Co-founder of the Human Genome Project. Pioneer of CRISPR gene editing. Epstein funded Church's research from 2005 to 2007 — before the conviction. After the conviction, nothing changed.
Church held 2% equity in Androcyte LLC, a company pitching Epstein on CRISPR longevity edits.3 Epstein gave Church's team skin cell samples at Massachusetts General Hospital for personal genomics work. His staff followed up: "did we check on my genome?"4
In December 2014, Epstein laid out his annual science budget in a single email:
"5m commitment to MIT 4 now 1 in 2015... same for harvard PED... 2 for george church harvard 1 now 1 2015... 2 krauss 1 now 1 2015."5
Two million dollars. Direct to Church's Harvard lab. In the same email: $5 million to MIT, $5 million to Nowak's program. Total: $14.5 million deployed across elite science institutions by a registered sex offender in a single budget cycle.
The scheduling continued through at least November 2018 — eight months before arrest. Eighty-seven documents show ongoing coordination between Epstein's assistant Lesley Groff and Church's admin at Harvard Medical School, Department of Genetics, NRB Room 238D.6
Church's name appeared on one more list. Six days before arrest — June 30, 2019 — Epstein compiled names "for bannon steve": "set lloyd, martin novak... george church... gates, thiel, hoffman."7 The science network, still in the Rolodex until the very end.
The Dinosaur Hunter
Jack Horner wasn't on the FSF list. He came to the ranch for a different reason.
The world's most famous paleontologist. Real-life inspiration for Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. His TED talk on "Building a Dinosaur from a Chicken" had gone viral. Specialty: reverse-engineering extinct species from living DNA.
Summer 2012. Epstein brought Horner to Zorro Ranch for a geological survey of the Galisteo Basin.
"make sure that jack horner has a geological map of the ranch, coordinate with brice and give jack our exact location in the galisteo basin"8
First-class travel from Bozeman, Montana to Albuquerque. Charged to Epstein's American Express Centurion card. The trip was scheduled for July 26–28. Horner didn't leave until August 5. An extended stay.
Lesley Groff's September 2012 master schedule held two reminders side by side: "Would you like to visit a dinosaur site w/Jack Horner in Sept?" And: "Have Martin Nowak invite Ed Boyden from MIT to Harvard in Sept?"9
De-extinction and evolutionary dynamics. Dinosaurs and gene editing. The same man managing both tracks from a 10,000-acre compound in the New Mexico desert.
The Harvard Anchor
Martin Nowak made it all work.
The Austrian mathematical biologist who directed Harvard's Program for Evolutionary Dynamics was the central node. His office at 1 Brattle Square, Suite 6 became Epstein's de facto Cambridge headquarters — the venue for elite dinners, the meeting point for visiting scientists, and the address where Epstein held court.
Their intellectual collaboration was real. September 2009, Nowak emails Epstein about evolutionary strategy:
"what about including: 'molecular self deception' as a defense strategy (but let us not give away that idea)"10
Let us not give away that idea. Nowak treated Epstein as a peer — a genuine intellectual collaborator whose ideas were worth protecting.
Epstein replied with enthusiasm:
"its not simply what the gene codes for, but what message it is sending... deception in the code"11
A registered sex offender and a Harvard professor trading theories about deception as evolutionary strategy. Write the metaphor yourself.
The money followed. Epstein didn't just fund Nowak — he used Nowak as a conduit. In September 2011, Epstein's staff contacted Apollo Global Management about a pledge from Leon Black:
"Jeffrey requested I follow up on the 2 million dollar donation to Harvard Leon was to make... I sent you a sample letter from Martin Nowak a few weeks back."12
Two million became nine. By December 2014, Black had signed $4 million in irrevocable pledges directly to PED, plus $5 million from the Leon Black Family Foundation.13 All flowing through Nowak's institute. All brokered by Epstein.
As late as October 2018 — nine months before arrest — Epstein's staff told Larry Summers' assistant: "Jeffrey would actually prefer Larry come meet him at Martin's office... he will be set up there."14
Set up there. At Harvard. A registered sex offender with his own operating base inside one of the world's most prestigious universities.
The Island Conference
October 2010. Little St. James Island.
Someone emailed photos afterward:
"These are from JE's island from a science conference he held there. The first photo is of George Church, not sure who the second one is, the man in the yellow shirt is Steve Benson, red shirt is Martin Nowak and the man on the end is Dimitar Sasselov. and Seth Lloyd is on the chair."15
George Church. Martin Nowak. Seth Lloyd. Dimitar Sasselov. Four scientists from Harvard and MIT — on a private island owned by a convicted sex offender. Discussing science beyond any institutional oversight, any ethics board, any review committee.
After a follow-up meeting, Church sent Nowak his references:
"I sensed skepticism and/or curiosity on Sunday, so I'm enclosing some references below: Reading and writing DNA have improved faster than Moore's law... Cellularization of lung, liver, heart scaffolds and working transplants... we have a project in progress attempting all organs at once."16
Nowak's response: "no skepticism, only complete amazement!"
Complete amazement. On Epstein's island. With Epstein in the room.
The Keycard — Full Picture
Here's what the documents establish, in sequence.
December 2010: May Huang emails Epstein's staff about a keycard. "today i received your keycard... many thanks!" Lock combinations for four doors on the sixth floor were shared with Epstein's staff. A key was left waiting for "JE."17
November 2014: Huang and Groff coordinate a dinner at PED. "Martin also has a keycard." And Groff: "We have a key card to Martin's office... can you take it with you when you go to the island?"18 The keycard traveled between Harvard and Little St. James.
September 2017: The card reader system changes. Huang proactively emails to replace Epstein's card. "his old card(s) can be thrown out to avoid confusion." New cards mailed to the Manhattan townhouse.
Seven years. Three documented keycard interactions. A convicted sex offender with permanent, unsupervised access to a Harvard research institute — and the university's own staff maintaining it.
This was not a donor who occasionally visited. This was infrastructure. Lock combinations shared. Cards shuttled between properties. Replacement cards mailed when the system upgraded. An offer to manually escort him in if the new card hadn't arrived yet.
What happens when a registered sex offender holds a keycard to a Harvard genetics lab?
He holds it for nine years. Harvard replaces it when it stops working. Nobody — not the administration, not the ethics board, not the twenty-eight scientists on his recruitment list — says a word.
The card was mailed to 9 East 71st Street. The building where the FBI would execute a search warrant twenty-two months later.
This article is part of the Zorro Ranch research series. Previous: Ten Thousand Acres. Next: "Come Visit, You Look Miserable" — The VIP Guest List.
Sources & Documents
- EFTA02222697 — May Huang email replacing Epstein's Harvard keycard, September 7, 2017. View →
- EFTA00694707 — "FSF candidates" scientist recruitment list compiled by Roger Schank, April 2009. View →
- Androcyte LLC — CRISPR longevity company; Church held 2% equity. Referenced in dossier records. Search →
- vol00009-efta00383096 — Epstein staff genome inquiry: "did we check on my genome?" View →
- EFTA00868063 — Epstein science funding email: $14.5M across MIT, Harvard PED, Church, Krauss. December 2014. View →
- Dossier records — 87 scheduling documents, Groff ↔ Church's Harvard admin, through November 2018. Search →
- HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029622 — Epstein's "list for bannon steve," June 30, 2019 — six days before arrest. View →
- EFTA00410021 — Epstein directing geological maps and GPS coordinates for Jack Horner at Zorro Ranch. View →
- Dossier records — Groff's September 2012 master schedule: Horner dinosaur site visit + Nowak/Boyden invitation. Search →
- EFTA02436261 — Nowak to Epstein: "molecular self deception" as defense strategy, September 2009. View →
- EFTA01817760 — Epstein to Nowak on DNA code and deception, September 2009. View →
- EFTA02025576 — Epstein staff pursuing Leon Black's $2M Harvard donation through Nowak, September 2011. View →
- EFTA00586091 / EFTA00587177 — Leon Black irrevocable pledges to PED: $4M personal + $5M foundation, December 2014. View →
- Dossier records — Epstein staff directing Summers to meet at "Martin's office," October 2018. Search →
- EFTA02317984 — Island science conference photos identifying Church, Nowak, Lloyd, Sasselov, October 2010. View →
- EFTA02417232 — Church sends DNA/organ engineering references to Nowak after island meeting, November 2010. View →
- EFTA02320962 — May Huang keycard and lock combination correspondence, December 2010. View →
- EFTA02090733 — Keycard and island travel coordination, November 2014. View →
