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2ATTERSON
aring variations on a scheme Mrs.
perpetrated against her late hus-
is his mentor. Seckel took books
yok money and promised a book;
rty lost money.”
, humorous,” one of Seckel’s marks
$75,000. When the time came to
@ ite”
al people whom Seckel had stiffed
uits he’d been involved in. In 2007,
rainst a man who'd edited his Wiki-
—_ spoke with Seckel’s lawyer,
at he'd reached a settlement for the
irnalist wrote. “Hornberger added
1im for his services.”
Ts wife, Isabel Maxwell.
id date and married in Malibu in or
:p the dates in my head,” Seckel 4
they moved to the South of France, 4
de in rare books and papers. While 4
| by a Virgin Islands company that
raudulently attempting to sell rareg
tury portrait of Isaac Newton.
ing to sell papers belonging to
ell’s sister and the daughter of Roy
Fittuy Ricu
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?”
2 Today, Epstein’s websites—JeffreyEpsteinFoundation.com and
| JeffreyEpsteinScience.com—are down. Their domain names have
4 long since expired. Several recipients of Epstein’s charitable con-
4 tributions, including New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital and Ballet
Palm Beach, announced that they would not be accepting new
“The further I can keep myself from anything like that the
Detter,” 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
enty-one physicists—from Princeton, Harvard, MIT, and CERN
235
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