A year prior to Jeffrey Epstein being accused of sex trafficking, he was quietly funding episodes of a science TV series that airs on PBS. The project has yet to be completed and lacks funding in the wake of Epstein's death.
An attorney for Epstein did not return a request for comment. The financial support came through Epstein's nonprofit organization, Gratitude America, Ltd. Kuhn said the money was being used to help produce the episodes. The donation to Kuhn's foundation is the largest donation Epstein made before he was arrested a year later on sex trafficking charges. After Epstein pleaded not guilty, he died in August while in federal lockup. His death was ruled a suicide.
Epstein's first engagement with Kuhn came a year before the multimillionaire sent in his first donation for the episodes. The two spoke on the phone and met numerous times at his apartment in New York, the shows creator says, after being introduced through a group of scientists, although he declined to name who those scientists were. Kuhn said he had no knowledge of any of the accusations that were later levied against Epstein at the time of their first introduction in and in the future encounters he had with him.
He called his behavior "reprehensible. Kuhn later explained that he cannot give away the money Epstein contributed because he's already spent it on crafting some parts of the episodes but guaranteed he would, in the future, not use donor money to complete the project.
The discovery that Epstein was funding a science-based TV show is the latest example of how many who met him overlooked the financier's previous legal disputes, which included being sentenced to a Florida jail in for soliciting a prostitute. He was sentenced to 18 months and ended up serving 13 months. The financial support for Kuhn's show also gives a glimpse into how Epstein, behind the scenes, used his wealth to invest in nontraditional projects and to get access to leaders in various intellectual communities.
