To be named in the Epstein files is now a mark of shame, carrying with it a presumption that one is tainted by association with him and may have engaged in some truly odious practices.

(Non Sequitur)

Like the character in the cartoon, I would have thought that there was no way that my name would appear in the Epstein files but I was surprised to find that it actually does. How I discovered this was that there are many scientists and other well known academics mentioned in the news reports about the Epstein files so I went to the department of justice website that has a searchable database of the files released so far to check on names at random. It quickly got boring searching for well-known names, so on a whim I entered my own name and was stunned when it returned that my name was in this file.

I was agog, of course, since I have never met Epstein and, like the guy in the above cartoon, do not move in anywhere close to the wealthy circles in which he operated. So how could I be connected? But the entire mention of me was below:

Contact
Source Device NYCO24363.dmg/Macintosh HD
Path /Users/Story/Library/Application Support/Skype/lawkrauss/main.db
SourceType Skype
First Mano
Last Singham
ID 66

This was just one of over 100 items like this spread over 23 pages in this single file, ordered alphabetically by first name. The first names in this file alone run from Lisa to Margerie, so one can imagine that there must be around 500 pages like this covering the full alphabet. Some of the people have had their contact information like email addresses redacted, which makes sense. But for some others, their names have also been redacted and it is not clear why this was done selectively. I can understand if they were the names of victims but wonder if some were redacted merely because they are well-known and friends of Trump.

It looks like my name appears among the Skype contacts of physicist Lawrence Krauss, a close friend and defender of Epstein and beneficiary of his wealth, who has also been accused of many allegations of sexual improprieties and for which he sought advice from Epstein as to how to deal with them.

I know Krauss because he was the chair of the physics department at Case Western Reserve University during part of the time when I was there, so it is not surprising that my name would appear as one of his contacts, though I do not recall ever having a Skype call with him, unlikely since we worked in the same building and did not interact much except to discuss routine departmental stuff. My interactions with him were in person or by email. Two other names in this same file were secretaries I know in my department whose first names start with the letter ‘L’.

So while my mention in the files was innocuous, a drive-by mention like that of so many people, there is something about being two degrees of separation from Epstein that still makes me feel unclean.