A single email in 2012 from the current head of Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute on sexuality to Jeffrey Epstein is among millions of pages released by the government on the investigation of the notorious pedophile.
Justin Garcia said in a statement to WFIU News the email was an example of his outreach to multiple agencies and foundations. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the time.
“I only later learned of his criminal background, antithetical to all of my work,” Garcia wrote in the statement. “I never met or spoke with him, and I did not receive any funding. I totally condemn what he did.”
He declined further comment.
Epstein spent 13 months in jail after pleading guilty to state prostitution charges, an extraordinarily light punishment for charges that he built a network of underage girls for sex. He was released in 2008 and arrested again in 2019 for sex trafficking minors. He died in prison in what was ruled a suicide.
A prolific donor to scientific research, Epstein maintained connections across academia, including former Harvard President Lawrence Summers and famed linguist Noam Chomsky.
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Garcia’s email to the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation on Dec. 7, 2012 has the subject “HI + thanks for connecting.” It started, “Thank you for connecting on Linkedln. I am familiar with some of your philanthropic works, and it's a real pleasure to be in touch. Based on what limited information I know, I think we share a lot of common interests — from evolutionary biology, to behavioral neuroscience, to efforts to battle HIV/AIDS.”
This email is the only time Garcia appears in the files, and there is no indication that Epstein responded.
The email mentions a book of Garcia’s about to be released, Evolution and Human Sexual Behavior, and says he will be in New York City during the holidays if Epstein wanted to meet.
The email ends with, “Well, I just wanted to reach out to say hello and let you know I was very pleased to see your name on LinkedIn!”
Garcia’s full statement:
“When I was a postdoctoral fellow I received a LinkedIn message from the founder of a philanthropic foundation. At the time I was submitting various grants and letters of inquiry to funding agencies and foundations. I followed up by writing to his foundation email address. I only later learned of his criminal background, antithetical to all of my work. I never met or spoke with him, and I did not receive any funding. I totally condemn what he did.”
The 77-year-old Kinsey Institute has been a political lightning rod almost since its inception because of the nature of the research. In 2023, Indiana legislators passed a law prohibiting any public money from being used for the institute.
Another Kinsey researcher met Epstein at least three times, according to the files. Anthropologist Helen Fisher, a former Senior Research Fellow who died in 2024, communicated with Epstein in 2016 and 2017.
Fisher’s position at Kinsey was a courtesy appointment, meaning she was not a salaried IU employee.
Fisher lived in New York at the time, as Epstein said in a 2015 email to an unnamed friend, “around the corner from me.”
Emails show the two ate together on several occasions.
Epstein invited Fisher to dinner at his Manhattan mansion on Jan. 6, 2016, with Woody Allen and his wife Soon Yi Previn. He emailed the other guests asking them to prepare questions for the scientist.
After the meal Epstein wrote to Fisher saying, “lots of fun , thanks .. you(r) new bud JE.” Fisher responded saying “the whole evening was enormous fun,” but that she was “a bit embarrassed about holding forth on the evolution of the penis.”
Fisher and Epstein got lunch on Jan. 15, 2016 alongside Kathy Ruemmler, former White House counsel under Barack Obama. Epstein also emailed Fisher two days before, saying, “ehud barak probably joining for lunch,” referring to the former Prime Minister of Israel.
The two met at least once more, in March 2017. Fisher thanked Epstein for “another fascinating lunch” at his house and sent one of her articles in the Harvard Business Review.
