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By Giulia Carbonaro
Senior Reporter
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British theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, one of the most important and brilliant scientists in history, was named in newly released court documents related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein, who was accused of preying on underage girls, died by apparent suicide in jail in 2019 before he could stand trial in Manhattan on sex trafficking charges. The documents released on Wednesday are related to a lawsuit involving Epstein's longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was found guilty in 2021 of conspiring with the convicted sex offender and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The court records include names that were previously redacted but which a New York judge ordered in December should be unsealed beginning from January 1. They don't contain any evidence or allegation of wrongdoing linked to these people, who are simply considered to have associated with Epstein.
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The disgraced millionaire was known to have a wide circle of friends among celebrities, politicians and other high-profile figures. The documents released on Wednesday contained a total of over 70 names, four of which are redacted, including Hawking.
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Hawking, who was famously diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) at the age of 20 and was told he would not survive more than two years with the disease, died in 2018 at the age of 76 after publishing groundbreaking studies exploring the mysteries of cosmology and black holes. His condition, incurable, had slowly left him almost completely paralyzed.
His appearance on the unsealed court documents is linked to Epstein's efforts to discredit allegations of Hawking taking part in an "underage orgy."
In an email written in 2015, Epstein refers to claims made by Virginia Giuffre, an alleged trafficking victim, involving Hawking and former President Bill Clinton. According to filings released on Wednesday, Epstein told Maxwell that he could offer money to Giuffre's friends to "help prove" that the allegation against the scientist was false.
"You can issue a reward to any of Virginia's friends, acquaints, family that come forward and help prove her allegations are false," the email reads. "The strongest is the Clinton dinner, and the new version in the Virgin Islands that Stephen Hawking participated in an underage orgy."
We know that Hawking was once pictured in several photographs during a visit to Epstein's private Caribbean in early 2006, before the financier was first charged not long after in the same year. In the photographs, which emerged in 2015, the scientist can be seen at a barbecue on Little St James, taking a boat cruise and a submarine tour off the island's sea bed.
Hawking was among 21 high-profile scientists attending a conference on gravity funded by Epstein at the Ritz-Carlton hotel on neighboring island St Thomas in March 2006. Other scientists attending the conference accepted Epstein's offer to visit the now-infamous island, where Epstein is known to have taken underage girls for sex.
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