Artist Jeff Koons was present at a dinner party hosted by Jeffrey Epstein in 2013, as revealed by emails made public by the Department of Justice last week. This event occurred years after Epstein’s initial conviction for soliciting sex from a minor. Epstein personally invited Koons to the September 4 gathering at his Upper East Side home, an invitation that Koons and his wife accepted via email. The guest list also featured director Woody Allen and MIT professor Neil Gershenfeld, according to the DOJ-released correspondences.
In an August 30 email, Epstein informed his former assistant Lesley Groff that he had asked Gershenfeld, who had worked with Koons on the ‘Liberty Bell’ sculpture, to extend the invitation to the artist. Koons, through a statement from his gallery, Gagosian, confirmed his attendance, stating, “Upon the invitation of a professor at MIT, Neil Gershenfeld, my wife Justine and I attended a dinner at Jeffrey Epstein’s house.” He added that beyond attending the dinner, he had no further relationship with Epstein.
At the time of this dinner, Epstein had already served 18 months in jail following a 2008 guilty plea to charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor. By 2012, Epstein was reportedly engaging in philanthropic activities to mitigate the negative publicity surrounding his criminal record. The latest document release includes other emails referencing the dinner, where Groff mentioned to an unidentified individual that a ‘girl,’ whose identity is redacted, was also expected to attend. Groff wrote, “Jeffrey wants to make sure you know there is a dinner being planned for Sept. 4th,” listing Woody Allen and others as attendees.
Discussions between Epstein and Groff also mentioned a woman invited for dinner without an interview. An email dated September 3, a day before the event, involved an Epstein associate advising a recipient to research Koons, as he and his wife would be attending. Following the dinner, Epstein expressed interest in visiting Koons’s studio with Woody Allen, an event Koons later denied ever occurred.
The Wall Street Journal’s 2023 investigation noted Epstein’s attempts to visit Koons’s studio, but the artist’s presence at Epstein’s dinner had not been reported until now. This information comes from a recent release of the “Epstein files,” which included over 3 million documents published on January 30, revealing new facets of the ongoing controversy.
