Islander bankrolled by Epstein on and off for nearly two decades

Published 5:00 pm Friday, February 27, 2026

For years, Jeffrey Epstein used money and access to draw scientists into his orbit. Newly released files show that Vashon islander Ben Goertzel, a prominent artificial intelligence researcher, was among those scientists.

“I was a small part of his campaign to make himself look fancier and wash his reputation,” Goertzel said in a recent self-taped Youtube video. “ … I had nothing to do with his crimes. I had nothing to do with his social life … I regret being involved with him.“

Epstein files recently released by the Department of Justice show that Epstein bankrolled Goertzel for nearly two decades, helping fund his work.

Among the thousands of names appearing in the files released in January, Goertzel stands out for his ties to the Vashon community.

In addition to being an island resident, Goertzel is the brother of Rebecca Goertzel, who served as principal of Chautauqua Elementary School for seven years until June 2023. He is also the son of Carol Goertzel, who served as executive director of Vashon Youth and Family Services until late 2020.

He has also appeared publicly in island life. Last March, Goertzel was featured at a Women Hold the Key fundraising event at Vashon Center for the Arts called “AI, Robot and You: A Journey into the Future,” which included a robot musician created by Goertzel, “Desi the Robot.”

Goertzel’s connection to Epstein appears to have been part of a much larger web. A 2019 New York Times story reported that Epstein actively cultivated scientists and researchers — especially in fields such as artificial intelligence — using his money and social reach to cast himself as a patron of ambitious intellectual work.

The Beachcomber attempted to reach Goertzel for comment but did not receive a response by press time.

After recent chatter about his relationship with Epstein ignited online, Goertzel released a video, a 3,700-word Substack essay and a LinkedIn post addressing the connection. He has described the relationship as “fairly boring.”

“I was not in the know about his horrible crimes or I wouldn’t have been dealing with him,” Goertzel wrote in a Feb. 20 LinkedIn post.

Broadly, Goertzel has said he regrets the relationship and has sought to explain why it happened. He said his dealings with Epstein took place strictly in “office settings,” and that he never flew on Epstein’s plane, visited his island or socialized with him.

Goertzel’s LinkedIn post drew a stream of negative comments, with some accusing Goertzel of being a “liar” and suggesting he was “in the know.”

The files show a long-running relationship that continued well after Epstein’s 2008 Florida plea deal. On July 22, 2009, Epstein was released from the Palm Beach County Jail after serving about 13 months of an 18-month sentence tied to prostitution-related charges, including one involving a minor.

The next day, Epstein wrote to Goertzel saying he was “free and home,” to which Goertzel responded with a winky face, and “Congratulations!!!!”

In a 2015 email exchange, when Epstein’s funding was apparently on hold because of bad press over his sex crimes, Goertzel defended him in an email to him, that the allegations were either “made up by greedy people seeking money and fame” or “maybe some variation of what is alleged did happen, but if so it was surely an occurrence among reasonably mature people who mutually consented at the time.” That same day, according to the files, Epstein approved $25,000 in funding for Goertzel.

In his recent Youtube video, Goertzel said he had been “social engineered by the dude,” and led to believe that the public allegations were exaggerated or false.

“Research to dig into Epstein’s problems was very low on my priority list,” he said in the video.

He also said that having “Aspergers,” or autism spectrum disorder, may have played a role in why he did not “have the psychological savvy to recognize that he was worse than another playboy billionaire,” he said in the video.

Goertzel said Epstein backed artificial general intelligence (AGI) research — a form of AI aimed at matching human-level reasoning — at a time when few others were interested. Over the years, he said in his Substack post, he received a few hundred thousand dollars from Epstein — estimating the total at about $360,000.

He also said in the video that Epstein was not his “favorite funding source,” and described him as only one part of a much broader effort to raise money for his work.

The DOJ files show regular correspondence between the two men from 2008 to 2017. Goertzel appeared in the Epstein files 802 times as of Wednesday, Feb. 25. But by Thursday, Feb. 26, the file library showed “no results found” tied to Goertzel’s name. Later that night, the files reappeared.

According to Goertzel’s Substack post, he first met Epstein in 2001. Soon after that meeting, Epstein donated $100,000 to the University of New Mexico to fund a research fellowship for Goertzel in AGI.

Much of the correspondence between Epstein and Goertzel that is included in the Epstein files is mundane — scheduling meetings, arranging calls, discussing visits to Epstein’s New York or Florida offices, including one of his home offices. But some of the exchanges read more personally.

In one 2013 email, Epstein wrote, “I think it is now time for you to drop the hippie look, you can’t be taken seriously.”

Goertzel replied, “I would be willing to cut my hair for a lot of AGI money. … Changing my look is an option, but changing my ‘apparent personality’ would require greater acting skills than I possess.”

Some emails were cryptic or difficult to interpret on their face. In one 2016 exchange, for example, Epstein asked, “Did we wire you the money for drinks?” Another email chain referenced sandwich condiment preferences and included winking emojis.

Many of the emails involve Goertzel asking Epstein for money to support AI research, which Epstein regularly appears to have provided in relatively modest sums — sometimes $2,000, $3,000, $10,000 or $100,000, according to the files.

In his Substack post, Goertzel outlined some of that funding, while acknowledging that his accounting may not be perfectly accurate. Examples he cited from 2015 include a $35,000 donation to satisfy “matching private funding” requirements for a Hong Kong government research grant, and a $30,000 donation for longevity-related research using public medical data.

He also wrote that, in connection with the latter donation, Epstein gave his team access to servers at a private school in the Virgin Islands — “not on his private island” — though Goertzel said the servers were never ultimately used.

At one point, Epstein’s now-defunct foundation also gave $100,000 to Humanity Plus, a nonprofit focused on emerging technology and human advancement, where Goertzel serves as vice chair, according to his résumé.

The relationship persisted during years when Epstein remained the subject of allegations of sexual abuse of underage girls. It was not until 2019, however, that new federal sex-trafficking charges brought renewed scrutiny and ultimately greater public exposure.

Goertzel, now CEO and chief scientist of SingularityNET, has built an international reputation as an early and influential thinker in artificial intelligence. He is a leading developer of the OpenCog framework for artificial general intelligence and is widely associated with the development and popularization of AGI as a field. He has written dozens of books and research papers and led multiple AI projects over the years.

He also led the software team behind “Sophia,” the humanoid robot that drew global attention after being named the world’s first robot citizen. He has also been cited as a key instructor and organizer of international AGI summer schools for graduate students and researchers.

This is not the first time Goertzel has been publicly linked to Epstein.

In a 2019 interview with The New York Times, Goertzel said, “I have no desire to talk about Epstein right now… The stuff I’m reading about him in the papers is pretty disturbing and goes way beyond what I thought his misdoings and kinks were.”

Goertzel’s name is also beginning to surface in other reporting tied to the files.

A South China Morning Post investigation, reported on Feb. 16 that Epstein committed at least $113,000 to support Goertzel’s work and help him secure at least HK$8.9 million— roughly US$1.14 million — in Hong Kong government grants at a major university by fulfilling matching-fund requirements.

“Knowing what we know now, it’s quite disgusting to me that I was dealing with this guy in the past,” Goertzel said in the YouTube video. “I have five kids myself, I have three sons and two daughters and a little granddaughter … The idea that I was there, sitting across a desk from him, pitching him AGI is going to save the world and then … the next day, he was in the next room over, exploiting teenage girls … not what I realized was going on at the time.”

This is a developing story. Keep reading The Beachcomber for updates.