PATTERSON

## FILTHY RICH

aring variations on a scheme Mrs. perpetrated against her late hus- is his mentor. Seckel took books ook money and promised a book; rty lost money."

humorous," one of Seckel's marks
$75,000. When the time came to
o it."

al people whom Seckel had stiffed uits he'd been involved in. In 2007, gainst a man who'd edited his Wiki- heimer spoke with Seckel's lawyer,

at he'd reached a settlement for the urnalist wrote. "Hornberger added im for his services."

I's wife, Isabel Maxwell. id date and married in Malibu in or p the dates in my head," Seckel they moved to the South of France, de in rare books and papers. While 1 by a Virgin Islands company that raudulently attempting to sell rare tury portrait of Isaac Newton. ing to sell papers belonging to Isa-

ell's sister and the daughter of Rob-

It was an odd thing, Epstein's association with this self-professed PhD who, on closer inspection, turned out to be a bit of a grifter. But the Mindshift conference that Epstein and Seckel hosted in the Virgin Islands did take place, in 2010. Murray Gell- Mann was there, along with Leonard Mlodinow, a physicist who coauthored books with Stephen Hawking. Gerald Sussman, an expert on artificial intelligence who taught at MIT and also attended the conference, said that he didn't remember too much about it.

"We had scientific discussions, talked about various things," he said vaguely.

When Mark Oppenheimer asked him if he'd given money to Seckel, Sussman "got testy" with the reporter.

"I have had some dealings with him," Sussman said. “I don't want to say what it's about, because I don't feel good about it, okay?"

Today, Epstein's websites-JeffreyEpsteinFoundation.com and Jeffrey EpsteinScience.com-are down. Their domain names have long since expired. Several recipients of Epstein's charitable con- tributions, including New York's Mount Sinai Hospital and Ballet Palm Beach, announced that they would not be accepting new gifts.

"The further I can keep myself from anything like that the better," said Ballet Palm Beach founder Colleen Smith.

But in 2012, Epstein held one more conference on Little Saint Jeff's. Once again, three Nobel Prize winners were in attendance. Stephen Hawking was also there. All in all, Epstein had gathered twenty-one physicists-from Princeton, Harvard, MIT, and CERN

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{"people":["isabel maxwell","robert maxwell","murray gell-mann","leonard mlodinow","stephen hawking","gerald sussman","mark oppenheimer","colleen smith","jeffrey epstein"]}