New York Times reporter pitched Epstein interview on ‘your terms’

A New York Times newsman told Jeffrey Epstein that helium could constitute an nonfiction that would specify the financier connected his ain presumption arsenic helium faced allegations of sexually abusing minors successful the months starring up to his 2008 conviction, recently uncovered emails reveal.

After a antagonistic nonfiction astir Epstein was published successful September 2007, then-New York Times writer Landon Thomas Jr advised Epstein to “get ahead” of much atrocious publicity by doing an interrogation that would specify the communicative “on your terms”.

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“I Just work the Post. Now the floodgates volition unfastened — you tin expect Vanity Fair and NYMag to heap on,” Thomas wrote to Epstein successful an email dated September 20, 2007, referring to the magazines Vanity Fair and New York Magazine.

“My presumption is that the quicker you get retired up of this and specify the communicative and who you are connected your presumption successful the NYT, the amended it volition beryllium for you.”

Thomas, who near the Times successful 2019, urged Epstein to rapidly bash an interrogation to forestall the “popular tabloid perception” astir him from hardening, and expressed sympathy implicit his ineligible troubles.

“I cognize this is pugnacious and hard for you, but retrieve jailhouse whitethorn [be] bad, but it is not forever,” Thomas wrote.

As portion of his transportation to Epstein, Thomas recalled a 2002 illustration helium wrote astir the financier for New York Magazine, titled Jeffrey Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery.

Written earlier Epstein’s archetypal apprehension successful 2006, the illustration portrayed the financier arsenic an enigmatic but highly palmy businessman with the quality of a “taller, younger Ralph Lauren” and a “relentless encephalon that challenges Nobel Prize-winning scientists”.

The portion contained glowing appraisals from Epstein’s galore high-profile associates, whose praise-filled descriptions included that helium was “very smart”, “amazing”, “extraordinary”, and “talented”.

“Remember however for a portion my NY Mag portion was the defining portion connected you? That is nary longer the lawsuit aft each this,” Thomas wrote to Epstein.

“But I deliberation if we did a portion for the Times, with the documents and grounds that you mention, positive you speaking for the record, we tin again person a communicative that becomes the past nationalist connection connected Jeffrey Epstein.”

Jeffrey Epstein is pictured for the New York State Sex Offender Registry connected March 28, 2017 [File: New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP]

A small much than a week later, connected September 28, Thomas sent Epstein an email reiterating the value of “getting retired ahead” of different publications.

Thomas suggested that helium statesman reaching retired to associates of Epstein who could speech astir the financier’s concern activities and technological and philanthropic work, including erstwhile Harvard President Larry Summers and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

“Before I get a glimpse of the ineligible material, I was reasoning that I should astatine slightest commencement calling astir to radical who cognize you. Again to absorption connected the concern and scientific/philanthropic facet of the piece,” Thomas wrote.

“Could I commencement to bash that — telephone radical similar Larry Summers, Jess Staley, George Mitchell, Ehud Barak, Bill Richardson and others?” Thomas finished the email expressing his anticipation that Epstein was “holding up okay” and stating his presumption that “we request to determination connected this.”

It is not wide however Epstein responded to Thomas’s emails, which were included successful a trove of emails from Epstein’s idiosyncratic accounts that were made disposable to Al Jazeera by the whistleblower website Distributed Denial of Secrets.

Thomas did not respond to a petition for comment.

Following Thomas’s correspondence with Epstein, the Times went connected to people an nonfiction by the writer detailing the financier’s downfall the pursuing year.

The article, published a time aft Epstein’s blameworthy plea connected June 30, 2008, drew from in-person and telephone interviews that Thomas had conducted with the financier, including during a sojourn to Epstein’s land of Little St James respective months earlier.

In the article, Thomas described the financier sitting connected the patio of his land mansion arsenic helium likened himself to the eponymous quality of the satirical caller Gulliver’s Travels.

“Gulliver’s playfulness had unintended consequences,” Epstein was quoted arsenic saying.

“That is what happens with wealth. There are unexpected burdens arsenic good arsenic benefits.”

Little St James, a tiny backstage land formerly owned by the precocious financier Jeffrey Epstein, is pictured successful the US Virgin Islands connected November 29, 2025 [File: Marco Bello/Reuters]

A 2019 study by NPR said colleagues of Thomas astatine the Times had been “appalled” by the nonfiction erstwhile they reviewed it years later, pursuing the journalist’s admittance that helium had solicited a $30,000 donation from Epstein for a taste centre.

The emails obtained by Al Jazeera besides amusement that Epstein emailed an error-strewn Word papers to himself successful which Thomas is described discussing the ineligible lawsuit against Epstein with then-Florida authoritative David Weinstein.

The intent and root of the document, which describes Thomas and Weinstein discussing method aspects of the charges facing Epstein, is unclear. Weinstein said helium spoke to Thomas successful January 2008, but that the papers did not incorporate an close statement of their conversation.

Weinstein said they had spoken astir the “criminal justness process and wide authorities and national statutes”, but not Epstein’s lawsuit specifically.

He said helium did not cognize wherever the accusation successful the papers came from oregon who provided it to Epstein.

“I ne'er spoke with him astir the circumstantial facts of the precocious Mr Epstein’s case, nor did I connection immoderate sentiment astir that matter,” Weinstein told Al Jazeera.

The emergence of the emails betwixt Thomas and Epstein comes aft correspondence the 2 men shared from 2015 to 2018 came to airy past period successful a batch of documents released by US lawmakers.

Among different revelations, those emails showed that Thomas fto Epstein cognize that the precocious investigative writer John Connolly had contacted him for accusation for Connolly’s 2016 publication Filthy Rich: The Jeffrey Epstein Story.

“He seems precise funny successful your narration with the quality media,” Thomas wrote to Epstein successful an email dated June 1, 2016. “I told him you were a hellhole of a feline :)”.

A spokesperson for the Times said Thomas had not worked for the paper since aboriginal 2019 “after editors discovered his nonaccomplishment to abide by our ethical standards”.