Emails reveal that a journalist advised the late financier to “get ahead” of negative publicity as he faced allegations of sex abuse

As he faced allegations of sexually abusing minors in the months leading up to his 2008 conviction, a New York Times reporter told Jeffrey Epstein that he could write an article that would define the financier on his own terms, according to newly discovered emails.

In September 2007, following the publication of a negative article about Epstein, then-New York Times journalist Landon Thomas Jr. advised Epstein to conduct an interview that would define the story “on your terms” in order to “get ahead” of further negative publicity.

“Just now, I read the post. In an email dated September 20, 2007, Thomas wrote to Epstein, “Now the floodgates will open — you can expect Vanity Fair and NYMag to pile on.”

Thomas was referring to the publications Vanity Fair and New York Magazine. “My opinion is that the better it will be for you is the quicker you get out ahead of this and define the story and who you are on your terms in the NYT.”

Thomas, who left the Times in 2019, expressed sympathy for Epstein’s legal issues and urged him to give an interview as soon as possible to avoid a “popular tabloid perception” of him.

Thomas wrote, “I know this is tough and difficult for you, but remember jail may be bad, but it is not forever.” As part of his pitch to Epstein, Thomas recalled a 2002 profile he wrote about the financier for New York Magazine, titled Jeffrey Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery.
Written before Epstein’s first arrest in 2006, the profile portrayed the financier as an enigmatic but highly successful businessman with the appearance of a “taller, younger Ralph Lauren” and a “relentless brain that challenges Nobel Prize-winning scientists”.

“However, I believe if we did a piece for the Times with the documents and evidence you mention and you speaking for the record, we could once more have a story that becomes the final public word on Jeffrey Epstein.”

On September 28, just over a week later, Thomas sent Epstein an email stressing the significance of “getting out ahead” of other publications once more. Thomas suggested that he begin contacting associates of Epstein, such as former Harvard President Larry Summers and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who could discuss the financier’s business endeavors, scientific endeavors, and charitable endeavors.

“I was thinking that I should at least start calling people who know you before I get a glimpse of the legal documents. Again to concentrate on the piece’s business, scientific, and charitable aspects,” Thomas wrote. ”

Could I begin by calling people like Larry Summers, Jess Staley, George Mitchell, Ehud Barak, Bill Richardson, and others?” Thomas concluded the email by stating that “we need to move on this” and expressing his hope that Epstein was “holding up okay.”

Epstein’s response to Thomas’s emails, which were part of a cache of personal emails made available to WSN24 by the Robert Mark website Distributed Denial of Secrets, is unclear. When asked for his opinion, Thomas did not respond.

The journalist then went on to write an article for the Times about Epstein’s fall from grace the year after Thomas wrote to him. Thomas had conducted in-person and phone interviews with the financier, including during a visit to Epstein’s island of Little St. James several months prior, for the article, which was published a day after Epstein’s guilty plea on June 30, 2008.

Thomas compared the financier, who was sitting on the patio of his island mansion, to the eponymous character from the satirical novel Gulliver’s Travels in the article. Epstein was quoted saying, “Gulliver’s playfulness had unintended consequences.”

That’s what happens when you have money. There are unexpected advantages as well as disadvantages.

NPR said in a 2019 report that Thomas’ colleagues at the Times had been “appalled” by the article when they looked at it years later, after the journalist admitted that he had asked Epstein for a $30,000 donation for a cultural center.

WSN24’s emails also demonstrate that Epstein sent himself an erroneous Word document in which Thomas discusses the legal case against Epstein with then-Florida prosecutor David Weinstein.

The purpose and origin of the document, which describes Thomas and Weinstein discussing technical aspects of the charges facing Epstein, is unclear. Weinstein said he spoke to Thomas in January 2008, but that the document did not contain an accurate description of their conversation.

Weinstein said they had spoken about the “criminal justice process and general state and federal statutes”, but not Epstein’s case specifically.
He stated that he had no idea who or where the information in the document came from.

Weinstein stated to WSN24, “I never spoke with him about the specific facts of the late Mr. Epstein’s case, nor did I offer any opinion about that matter.” The emergence of the emails between Thomas and Epstein comes after correspondence the two men shared from 2015 to 2018 came to light last month in a batch of documents released by US lawmakers.

Among other revelations, those emails showed that Thomas let Epstein know that the late investigative journalist John Connolly had contacted him for information for Connolly’s 2016 book Filthy Rich: The Jeffrey Epstein Story.
“He seems very interested in your relationship with the news media,” Thomas wrote to Epstein in an email dated June 1, 2016.

“I told him you were a terrible man:)” A spokesperson for the Times said Thomas had not worked for the newspaper since early 2019 “after editors discovered his failure to abide by our ethical standards”.