Overview
- A newly released Justice Department tranche of Epstein materials includes a previously unseen image of Stephen Hawking between two bikini-clad women, now identified as a 2006 photo taken at the Ritz-Carlton in St. Thomas during an Epstein-funded science symposium.
- A spokesperson for Hawking’s family says the women were his long-term carers and calls any suggestion of inappropriate conduct “wrong and far-fetched in the extreme.”
- Hawking is referenced at least 250 times in the files, but there is no public record of formal allegations against him, and he died in 2018 before Epstein’s 2019 arrest.
- The documents also contain unproven material, including a 2015 email from Epstein proposing a reward to rebut a claim that Hawking took part in an “underage orgy,” and a separate uncorroborated 2019 FBI tip about an all-male club visit.
- The DOJ says more than 3.5 million documents were released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, with redactions limited mainly to protecting victims and their families.