Financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had several connections to the Southwest, including funding Arizona State University scientist Lawrence Krauss and ownership of a 7,622-acre ranch in northern New Mexico.
Though many are significantly redacted, files recently released by the Department of Justice in response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act provide more details about connections Epstein had to Tucson.
Epstein’s two most significant connections to the city were personal and financial relationships to academics employed by the University of Arizona. Both came years after Epstein pled guilty to state charges of procuring a child for prostitution in 2008.
Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 in what was ruled by authorities to be a suicide.
UA academic conference knowingly received funding from Jeffrey Epstein in 2017
Government files show that Epstein cultivated an extensive network of relationships with prominent scientists throughout the 2010s, including Harvard University’s Martin Nowak, artificial intelligence researcher Joscha Bach and former MIT professor Joi Ito.
At least twice, that network extended to University of Arizona anesthesiologist and psychologist Stuart Hameroff, an organizer of the annual Science of Consciousness conference.
Email records show that Epstein donated $50,000 to the conference in 2017 through his foundation, Gratitude America Ltd.
“Thank you and Jeffrey very much!!” Hameroff wrote to Epstein’s accountant on April 13, 2017 after receiving word of the donation.
In 2019, before Epstein’s death, university officials said the school was unaware of Epstein’s involvement in the “anonymous” donation, the Arizona Republic reported.
But email records in government files show that at least Hameroff and conference manager Abi Behar Montefiore knew the money came from Epstein.
“We recently learned that certain university employees were then aware of Mr. Epstein’s association with Gratitude America Ltd. However, when a one-time contribution of $50,000 to support a conference in 2017 was received from Gratitude America Ltd., University of Arizona Foundation leaders were not aware of any involvement by Mr. Epstein. No subsequent donations were received,” UA spokesperson Mitch Zak wrote in response to questions from AZPM News.
The 2026 Science of Consciousness conference has been cancelled, according to its website. In a social media post last week, Hameroff wrote that “this was necessary due to several speakers and organizers including myself being mentioned in the Epstein files.”
“In 2017 I obtained one-time funding for a TSC conference in San Diego from Mr. Epstein. I deeply regret that, and apologize to Epstein survivors, those horrified by his (activities), TSC participants and my colleagues at the University of Arizona, especially the Arizona Astrobiology Center,” he wrote.
A 2016 email chain between Hameroff and scientist Gino Yu indicates that Hameroff also met with Epstein during a trip to New York City.
Hameroff researches the relationship of protein structures inside neurons to consciousness. He directs the UA’s Center for Consciousness Studies and is a professor in its psychology and anesthesiology departments.
Epstein extensively corresponded with left-wing intellectual Noam Chomsky
According to government files, Epstein frequently corresponded with Noam Chomsky, a 97-year-old linguist at the University of Arizona and a prominent left-wing intellectual known for his critiques of American foreign policy, scrutiny of corporate mass media and support of causes such as the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Emails show Epstein and Chomsky discussing a range of personal and intellectual topics throughout the 2010s, including grief, evolution and aging. The discussions were dotted with references to apparent meetings and gifts between the two men.
“I finished off the brisket and pretty much the corned beef but am saving the pastrami. Great mustard and bread too,” Chomsky wrote to Epstein on Aug. 11, 2016 during a conversation largely about the powers possessed by different animals as a result of evolutionary traits.
That same year, Epstein apparently tried to convince the academic to found a “Chomsky challenge” with an Epstein-funded cash prize for answering five fundamental questions in linguistics.
Emails indicate that Chomsky and his wife, Valeria Chomsky, met with Epstein at least four times between 2015 and 2017, both in New York City and Tucson.
In 2019, Chomsky appears to have advised Epstein on how to handle negative press attention around the time the federal government opened a renewed investigation into Epstein’s activities.
“It’s painful to say, but I think the best way to proceed is to ignore it,” Chomsky wrote to Epstein about six months before Epstein’s death.
“That's particularly true now with the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women, which has reached the point that even questioning a charge is a crime worse than murder,” he wrote.
In a statement, Valeria Chomsky, who is now Chomsky’s full-time caretaker, wrote that the email lacks context and that “Epstein created a manipulative narrative about his case, which Noam, in good faith, believed in.”
“Epstein took advantage of Noam’s public criticism towards what came to be known as ‘cancel culture’ to present himself as a victim of it,” she wrote.
“As is widely known, one of Noam’s characteristics is to believe in the good faith of people. Noam’s overly trusting nature, in this specific case, led to severe poor judgment on both our parts,” she wrote.
She wrote that Chomsky and Epstein first met in 2015, when Chomsky was unaware of Epstein’s conviction for sex trafficking charges in Florida. She wrote that the couple became aware of the conviction in 2018.
Noam Chomsky has been on unpaid medical leave from the University of Arizona since October 2023, UA spokesperson Mitch Zak confirmed. He and his wife were living in Brazil, Valeria Chomsky’s native country, as of June 2024.
Chomsky met with ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon in a dinner set up by Epstein
In an unusual political crossover, Noam Chomsky once invited Steve Bannon, a vocal nationalist and ex-Trump adviser who frequently lambasts global elites, to dinner at his Tucson home. The meeting was set up by Epstein.
Chomsky first reached out to Bannon in May 2018, about nine months after Bannon resigned from the first Trump administration, writing that he’d received Bannon’s email address from Epstein and would like to meet. Bannon agreed, adding that Tucson is one of his “favorite places in the country.”
The opportunity arose in February 2019.
“you two have more in common than you think, workers party. Little guy. History, pr. .etc,” Epstein texted Bannon.
“He will want to know how if you are for the little guys- tax cut health care attack and (ex-Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro) threats to organized workers,” Epstein texted.
“Yep,” Bannon responded.
After the three-hour meeting, Bannon texted Epstein that Chomsky was a “great gentleman” and called him “brilliant.”
In the weeks before Epstein’s arrest on federal sex trafficking charges in July 2019, files indicate that Bannon was working to produce a positive documentary about Epstein involving the financier’s acquaintances in the academic world, including Chomsky.
A June 17, 2019 text from Epstein to Bannon appears to list possible interview subjects: Martin Nowak, Joscha Bach, Lawrence Krauss, neurologist Mark Tramo, quantum scientist Seth Lloyd and Chomsky.
“We are set for Noam on Saturday,” Bannon texted Epstein on June 28, 2019.
A response from Epstein indicates that Chomsky did not know what the interview would be for. After Bannon asked if Chomsky would be “onboard,” Epstein answered affirmatively. But it is unclear if the interview occurred or if Chomsky was told what the footage would be used for.
“Noam in no shape to film---clearly in some sort of pain and has grown a beard,” Bannon wrote to Epstein two days later.
An interview Bannon apparently conducted with Epstein for the documentary has been released alongside other government files.
Valeria Chomsky’s statement does not mention Steve Bannon or the pro-Epstein documentary film.
According to a press release by the Department of Justice, its Jan. 30 release of numerous Epstein files would be the last required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act. This week, several congresspeople, including the act’s authors U.S. Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie, viewed unredacted files and [criticized](
many public redactions as unnecessary. Khanna has criticized the Department of Justice for releasing about 2.5 million fewer files than it initially said were eligible for release.
