Lawrence Krauss has never been charged with any criminal offence and has consistently denied the misconduct allegations against him, calling the reporting “libelous” and saying the encounters described either did not happen or were consensual. The findings against him were made by a university under its own code of ethics, not by a court. This page documents the money, the public defence he gave Epstein, and what he did when the same kind of allegation was made about him.
Most people in this archive took Epstein’s money and said nothing. Harvard took $9.1 million. MIT logged gifts as anonymous. The institutional pattern was silence.
Krauss is the exception, and that is why he has a file. He did not merely accept the money — he went on the record defending the man, using his scientific authority to do it.
The 2011 quote is the most damaging thing any funded scientist said about Epstein, and it is worth reading as an argument rather than a soundbite:
“As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence, and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I’ve never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people.”
He is invoking the authority of scientific method — his own credibility as a physicist — to explain why a convicted man’s account should outweigh the accounts of the girls. Epstein had pleaded guilty three years earlier.
Then the position reversed. In February 2018 BuzzFeed published detailed misconduct allegations against Krauss. He denied them, called the reporting libelous, and privately sought Epstein’s help.
What Epstein supplied was not a character reference. It was a media plan: find a reporter, supply a frame, change the subject. It is documented in full on the press file.
2011 — Krauss on Epstein’s accusers: “not as young as the ones that were claimed.” On the association: “I feel raised by it.”
2018 — Krauss, accused himself, forwards a reporter’s enquiries to Epstein and asks how to respond.
Epstein’s answer: “I would look for some reporter to do a more nuanced post-morten on the case — with Trump overtones, legal joustings, #metoo-isms, and profit-motives.”
The press file →
Section 01
The Record
Lawrence Maxwell Krauss, born 27 May in New York City, raised in Toronto. Becomes a theoretical physicist and cosmologist at Yale, then Case Western Reserve.
The Physics of Star Trek makes him a public figure. He becomes one of the most visible science communicators in the world and a prominent anti-theist, later publishing A Universe from Nothing.
Krauss organises a physics conference funded by an Epstein foundation — two years before Epstein’s guilty plea.
Recruited to Arizona State University as the inaugural director of the Origins Project. The same year, Epstein pleads guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution.
Epstein’s foundation Enhanced Education gives approximately $250,000 to the Origins Project. Krauss continued accepting it after the 2008 plea. Enhanced Education appears to have filed with the IRS only once, for 2002.
Asked by the Daily Beast about Epstein, Krauss says: “Jeffrey has surrounded himself with beautiful women and young women, but they’re not as young as the ones that were claimed… he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I’ve never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people.” He adds: “I don’t feel tarnished in any way by my relationship with Jeffrey; I feel raised by it.”
Peter Aldhous publishes “He Became A Celebrity For Putting Science Before God. Now Lawrence Krauss Faces Allegations Of Sexual Misconduct.” Allegations include pinning a woman to a hotel bed and forcibly kissing her in 2006, groping a woman in Iowa in 2011, and groping a woman at a conference in Australia. Four former ASU staff describe sexist remarks. Krauss issued a nine-page denial calling it a “libelous story” that “ignored counter-evidence, distorted the facts.”
Newly released emails show Krauss forwarding his correspondence with the reporter to Epstein and seeking his advice on how to respond. Epstein drafts a media strategy: “I would look for some reporter to do a more nuanced post-morten on the case — with Trump overtones, legal joustings, #metoo-isms, and profit-motives.”
ASU places him on paid administrative leave and bars him from campus, reopening its investigation into the Australian convention allegation. He resigns as chairman of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists board, which manages the Doomsday Clock.
Based on interviews with the complainant and two eyewitnesses, ASU investigators conclude Krauss “created an offensive environment for academic pursuits” and violated the university’s Code of Ethics. A university investigation found he violated ASU’s sexual harassment policies in at least one instance.
Krauss is removed as director of the Origins Project. ASU shutters the project entirely.
He retires from ASU after a year on paid leave.
House Oversight releases more than 20,000 documents. The Krauss–Epstein correspondence about the misconduct allegations is among them — alongside an email in which Krauss tells Epstein: “We were able to keep the Leon Black money, but the $25K from your foundation is getting bounced by MIT back to ASU. Sorry…”
Section 02
The Money and the Project
Approximately $250,000 reached the Origins Project from Epstein’s foundation Enhanced Education. Records obtained by BuzzFeed News place the giving across a span running from the early 2000s to April 2017 — nine years after the guilty plea.
The foundation itself barely existed on paper. Enhanced Education appears to have filed with the IRS only once, for 2002. One ASU record listed Epstein’s employer as “Leon D. Black, Enhanced Education” — conflating the donor and the man whose philanthropy Epstein was directing.
The relationship began before the conviction and did not stop at it. Krauss organised an Epstein-funded physics conference in 2006. He was recruited to found Origins in 2008, the year of the plea. The money continued for nearly a decade after.
And it ran alongside the Leon Black money. Leon and Debra Black gave $2 million to Origins, including a pledge binding on Black’s estate — gifts Epstein directed. A released email has Krauss updating Epstein on the accounting: “We were able to keep the Leon Black money, but the $25K from your foundation is getting bounced by MIT back to ASU. Sorry…”
Read that email closely. The apology is to Epstein, for a donation another institution refused. The relationship being managed there is not donor-to-beneficiary. It is closer to colleague-to-colleague.
ASU shut the Origins Project down in 2018. The university had no donor prohibition in place at any point — unlike Harvard, which had barred Epstein in 2008 and watched the money arrive anyway through other names.
Section 03
What the Credential Was For
This archive keeps finding the same transaction: Epstein bought scientific standing, and the scientists got funding. Krauss shows what the standing was actually worth.
It was not the money. $250,000 over fifteen years is modest — Harvard took thirty-six times as much.
It was the sentence “as a scientist.” A theoretical physicist of international reputation, invoking empirical method, telling a reporter that the accusers were wrong. That is not something money can buy directly. It has to be volunteered.
And it worked in both directions. Epstein got a credentialed defender in 2011. Krauss got, in 2018, a man experienced in surviving exactly the accusation he was facing — and asked him how.
The symmetry is the point of this page. The defence Krauss offered Epstein was that the women were older than claimed and that the accused should be believed over the accusers. Seven years later he needed the same argument made about himself.
What the record does not establish. That Krauss knew anything about Epstein’s crimes, that he participated in anything, or that Epstein’s media strategy was ever executed. No resulting article has been identified.
What it does establish is that when a prominent scientist faced a #MeToo allegation, the person he turned to for counsel was a registered sex offender whose foundation had funded his research — and that the offender had a strategy ready.
Documented: the $250,000, the 2011 quotes, the ASU findings, the correspondence seeking Epstein’s advice, and Epstein’s drafted strategy.
Not established: any criminal conduct by Krauss, any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, or that the media plan was carried out.
His position: the allegations are false or describe consensual encounters; the reporting was libelous and ignored counter-evidence.
Section 04
Open Questions
Section 05
Sources
$250,000 From Epstein
Jul 2019. The BuzzFeed records, the 2011 Daily Beast quotes in full, and the ASU sexual harassment finding.
statepress.com →Krauss in the Epstein Files
Nov 2025. The released emails showing him seeking Epstein’s advice on responding to the BuzzFeed reporter.
observer.case.edu →Arizona’s in the Epstein Files
Dec 2025. The Leon Black accounting email, and the contrast with institutions that quietly took the money without defending him.
arizonaagenda.com →He Defended Epstein First
Jul 2019. Enhanced Education’s single IRS filing, and the giving period.
phoenixnewtimes.com →Placed on Leave
Mar 2018. The specific allegations, his nine-page denial, and his resignation from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
foxnews.com →The Research Ledger
Ten funded programmes audited against his stated aims — and the four that had no connection at all.
Read the report →The Frame
The four-part formula Epstein wrote down — and why not one word of it addresses whether anything happened.
Read the report →Marvin Minsky
The first MIT grant, the jail visits, the 2011 boat manifest — and an allegation he never answered.
Read the profile →Arizona State
The $2.25m, the absent donor policy, and the Origins Project in full.
Read the report →The Press File
Epstein’s 2018 media strategy for the Krauss allegations, and how he tracked #MeToo in real time.
Read the report →The Origins Project
What the programme was, who it convened, and what the money bought.
Read the report →