Things were going great for Victoria Stodden in 2009.
She was a promising, already somewhat prominent researcher, recently adorned with a doctorate in statistics and a law degree from Stanford University. She had already published more than a dozen papers, proving herself as a computational scientist at the niche intersection of scientific reproducibility and democratic research. She had just begun a fellowship at Yale.
That was when scientific literary agent John Brockman introduced Stodden to Jeffrey Epstein.
Emails released by the Department of Justice last month show that between 2009 and 2011, Stodden and Epstein maintained what appears to be a close, often flirtatious relationship. Their correspondence began 19 days after the convicted sex offender was released from jail for soliciting a child for prostitution. It continued over the duration of, and after, Epstein’s one year of house arrest in Palm Beach, Florida. The emails — of which there are dozens — suggest Stodden visited Epstein at least twice, once at his Palm Beach home in September 2009 and then again a year later.
Stodden and Epstein engaged in long email conversations about scientific topics, including Stodden’s research at the time. She frequently updated Epstein on conferences she attended or jobs she was offered. Stodden sent him books to read, including copies of “iWoz” and “The Making of the Atomic Bomb.” At one point, Epstein apparently paid for a haircut and Frederic Fekkai hair treatment for her, which he called an early Christmas gift. On another occasion, he arranged for her to stay at one of his apartments in Manhattan, inside a complex that housed several of Epstein’s underage victims.
Stodden was not affiliated with USC at the time of her correspondence with Epstein, and did not begin teaching at the university until the 2020-21 academic year. Today, she is an associate professor at the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. The two Epsteins are unrelated.
Until early February the USC website featured a spotlight of Stodden. That page has since been taken down. The university would not respond to questions about why Stodden’s spotlight was removed, but acknowledged the existence of her communications with Epstein in an email statement.
“We are aware of the emails and take them seriously. Professor Stodden joined USC in August 2020, many years after the communications,” the university said in the statement. “Based on the information available, we are not aware of any connection to Epstein’s criminal behavior.”
Jeffrey Epstein moved in a wide circle of researchers in the years between his 2008 and 2019 convictions. He was known to host scientists at his New York home frequently, including fellow USC professor Antonio Damasio.
The full nature of Epstein and Stodden’s relationship is not known, nor is it known if she ever flew on his plane, traveled to his island or knew of his crimes during their correspondence. Thousands of people are mentioned in the emails; simply appearing in them or having corresponded and met with Epstein does not imply criminal involvement or knowledge thereof.
Stodden could not be reached despite multiple attempts to a variety of email addresses. When an Annenberg Media reporter visited Stodden’s house, nobody answered the door, but a neighbor said she had recently returned home from an overseas trip. Shortly after, a person who appeared to be Stodden approached the home before seeing the reporter and turning back around. The reporter left a note on the porch describing the forthcoming reporting and giving her an opportunity to comment.
Stodden is still listed as an associate professor at Viterbi. A spokesperson for Stodden’s department said she was not teaching classes this spring semester. A Ph.D. student working with Stodden said she was on leave for the first few weeks of the semester.
‘Sincerely, Angel’: Epstein hosts Stodden in Florida, pays for hair appointment
Stodden’s emails with Epstein span her tenure as a Kauffman Innovation fellow at Yale Law School in 2009 into her first years as a professor at Columbia University in 2010 and 2011.
About two weeks after Epstein was released from jail in 2009, after serving 13 months for two counts of soliciting prostitution, he contacted Stodden on a reference from Brockman. Less than a month after that first email, Stodden made plans to visit Epstein’s home in Palm Beach, emails show. (She made plans to visit in early September; that week, Epstein asked Stodden if she had any dietary restrictions to note for an upcoming lunch.) Epstein had just begun a year of probationary house arrest for his crimes.
Weeks later, Stodden asked to visit Epstein in December of that year. Through his assistant, Lesley Groff, Epstein then arranged a haircut and hair treatment for Stodden.
“You deserve some pampering,” Epstein wrote to Stodden on October 30, 2009.
About a month later, Stodden wrote to Epstein about her haircut, calling it “one of the best days of [her] life” and saying it looked “even better in person.”
In another email, Stodden wrote to Epstein:
“I wanted to chastise you for making my hair so great, so that now I’m going to have to go back to Michel and endure the drain on my credit card.
Btw, the first beneficiary of the new hair was Nathan Myhrvold, with whom I had lunch the next day (hope I’m making you jealous... ;) ). Brockman’s about to benefit tonight.”
After Epstein suggested other modifications to her appearance, Stodden asked, “How much control do you want anyway?” with a winky face. She signed the next email “Sincerely, Angel.”
They exchanged messages in at least a dozen email threads over the years. They discussed other scientists, sometimes suggesting or connecting the other to different researchers. Stodden often made plans to call Epstein during or after her conferences and talks.
In one email, sent in October 2009 with the subject line “Women!” Stodden sent Epstein a link to an article titled “Meeting pretty women makes men feel good.” She sent him notes when she got haircuts, which he would ask to see. She wrote him updates about the exercise she did. On New Year’s Day 2010, Epstein wrote to Stodden: “we are going to have fun.”
‘Reminded of how good things are around you’: Stodden’s 2010 stay at Epstein’s apartment in Manhattan, later visits with him
For about two weeks in May 2010, Epstein coordinated for Stodden to stay at an apartment owned by his brother, Mark Epstein, in New York City. Emails from Stodden and between Jeffrey Epstein and his assistant suggested that she stayed at apartment 4M on E. 66th St. in Manhattan.
While at the apartment, Stodden wrote to Epstein: “Love to catch up when you get a chance. Thanks so much for all your generosity - this place is perfect. I’m reminded of how good things are around you. :)”
Over the years, several of Epstein’s close friends and co-conspirators held addresses at that same apartment complex. Many underage models and sex abuse victims from Epstein associate Jean-Luc Didier’s modeling agency, MC2, were also housed at E. 66th St., according to a 2010 sworn deposition that a bookkeeper for MC2 gave.
In June 2010, Stodden wrote to Epstein suggesting times over the summer at which they could visit each other, in between a packed schedule of conferences.
In September, Stodden again visited Epstein. Emails reflect that their meeting was scheduled for 5 p.m. on September 1, 2010. Epstein’s assistant sent him an email timestamped at 9:14 p.m. stating “Victoria Stodden is here.”
Emails in April 2011 suggest Stodden and Epstein continued to call each other. No other correspondences between the two are recorded after 2011, except for a 2013 notification to Epstein’s inbox that he and Stodden had become connected on LinkedIn.
After Stodden’s time teaching at Columbia, she went on to hold professorships at UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign before joining USC. She testified before Congress in 2013 on the topic of scientific reproducibility and has since published two books. In 2024, she was featured by Viterbi after winning several prestigious international research awards. The article is still accessible on USC’s website.