Yale professor removed from teaching classes after Epstein emails surface
Published in News & Features
A Yale University professor has been removed from teaching classes while university officials review a six-year correspondence he had with Jeffrey Epstein, which included his description of a student to the accused sex trafficker as a “goodlooking blonde.”
The back-and-forth dialogue was discovered within numerous emails released in recent weeks by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of the agency’s “Epstein Library,” which showed a number of communications between computer science professor David Gelernter, 70, and Epstein.
Within their correspondences between 2009 and 2015, Gelernter in one email appears to be recommending a then-student as part of his software startup.
“I have a perfect editoress in mind,” Gelernter wrote in an email dated Oct. 11, 2011, according to the DOJ. “Yale sr, worked at Vogue last summer, runs her own campus mag, art major, completely connected, v small goodlooking blonde.”
In an email sent last week to Jeffrey Brock, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Gelernter defended what he wrote and said he was recommending the student for a job he “thought she’d like.”
“This one was obsessed with girls (like every other unmarried billionaire in Manhattan; in fact, like every other heterosex male), and if I hadn’t said what I did in that letter 10-odd years ago, he would certainly have called me & asked for a lot more aesthetic detail. (This is how men behave.)” Gelernter wrote in the email, which was also sent to computer science professor Holly Rushmeier and shared to media outlets, the Daily Beast reported.
“So long as I said nothing that dishonored her in any conceivable way, I’d have told him more or less what he wanted,” Gelernter wrote. “She was smart, charming & gorgeous. Ought I to have suppressed that info? Never! I’m very glad I wrote the note.”
In an email telling students he was “relieved” of his teaching duties, Gelernter said the student wanted to be recommended to Epstein for a summer job “on the financial side of his private bank” and that he had no idea at that point that Epstein had been convicted of any sex crimes. Gelernter also said the student had become a friend of him and his wife and had stayed at their home more than once.
According to a Yale spokesperson, Gelernter has been removed from teaching his computer science class until university officials can review his conduct.
“The university does not condone the action taken by the professor or his described manner of providing recommendations for his students,” the spokesperson said. “The professor’s conduct is under review. Until the review is completed, the professor will not teach his class.”
The spokesperson went on to say that Gelernter “both acknowledged and defended this communication and the action he took in connection with the communication.”
Gelernter did not respond to an email sent to his university email address on Wednesday seeking comment.
Gelernter is known for authoring the book, “Mirror Worlds,” which was published in the early 1990s and is credited for predicting the rise of the modern Internet.
In 1993, Gelernter was sent a bomb in the mail from Ted Kaczynski, known more commonly as the Unabomber. Gelernter suffered permanent damage to his right hand and eye from the explosion. In a letter, Kaczynski criticized Gelernter’s work in “Mirror Worlds” for asserting that the advancement of computers was inevitable.
According to the DOJ, Gelernter’s name shows up in 563 entries in the Epstein Library. Throughout their emails, the two discussed multiple occasions where they planned to meet up, many times in New York City, as well as business ventures. In multiple emails, Gelernter appears to invite Epstein to New Haven, records show.
In an email dated April 20, 2011, an assistant of Epstein discusses the possibility of him taking a helicopter to New Haven to visit Gelernter, the documents show.
In a series of emails in May 2011, Epstein tells Gelernter that he had “already been incarcerated,” according to the DOJ library. The statement came after the pair discussed Epstein being in Paris.
“Strolling down the right bank w/ gold dome of the Institut right across the river, medieval spires of the cite in front of you, Louvre to the left & the great nose of the city straight ahead, with French girls dressed & behaving like actual females everywhere, & the occasional Aston or Alfa or Lambo or Zonda streaking past: perfection.),” Gelernter wrote.
Epstein then replied, “you left out the smell of nutella crepe mixing with the cheap perfume of the streetwalker.”
“Paris fragrance, of course! But seems to me that any Paris group of spring girls is perfumed, just not as vividly as the golden-hearted whores,” Gelernter wrote. “(Have you read Irving Shaw’s masterpiece “The Girls in their Summer Dresses”?)”
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida state court to prostitution charges involving a minor and was sentenced to 18 months in jail. He was charged with federal sex trafficking crimes in July 2019 and died the following month in his jail cell. His death was ruled a suicide.
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