\u201cNoam and I recognize the gravity of Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s crimes and the profound suffering of his victims,\u201d Valeria Chomsky wrote in a statement she shared this week with The Associated Press. \u201cNothing in this statement is intended to minimize that suffering, and we express our unrestricted solidarity with the victims.\u201d<\/p>\n
The friendship between Epstein and Noam Chomsky, the influential activist and pioneering linguist, has been known for several years. But the latest release of documents<\/a> by the Justice Department show a more extensive relationship than previously reported on and includes a memo suggesting that Chomsky was advising Epstein on how to rehabilitate his public image.<\/p>\n Admirers of Chomsky, a longtime critic of the U.S. political and media establishment, have expressed revulsion. Vijay Prashad, who has written books on Cuba and the Middle East with Chomsky, released a letter last week saying he was \u201cdisgusted by Epstein\u2019s pedophilia, and so by Noam\u2019s friendship with him.\u201d<\/p>\n In her public statement, Valeria Chomsky notes that she was speaking for herself and for her husband, who is 97 and \u201cconfronting significant health challenges\u201d since he suffered a stroke in 2023. She writes that they were naive and uninformed, and cites Noam Chomsky\u2019s \u201coverly trusting nature\u201d as a reason for their \u201cserious errors in judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Valeria Chomsky, the two first met Epstein in 2015, and were unaware at the time of his 2008 jail term for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. By 2015, the accusations against Epstein<\/a> had been the subject of hundreds of news articles, many of which detailed allegations that he had paid dozens of underage girls for sex.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we were introduced to Epstein, he presented himself as a philanthropist supporting science and a financial expert,\u201d she wrote. \u201cBy presenting himself this way, Epstein gained Noam\u2019s attention, and they began corresponding. Unknowingly, we opened a door to a Trojan horse.\u201d<\/p>\n Valeria Chomsky goes on to recall that \u201cEpstein began to encircle Noam, sending gifts and creating opportunities for interesting discussions in areas Noam has been working on extensively. We regret that we did not perceive this as a strategy to ensnare us and to try to undermine the causes Noam stands for.\u201d<\/p>\n She writes that they visited Epstein once at his ranch in New Mexico, attended dinners at his Manhattan townhouse and stayed at his apartment a few times. The relationship was friendly, but entirely professional, with no \u201cchildren or underage individuals present.\u201d<\/p>\n In emails exchanged in 2019, months before Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges<\/a> and killed himself<\/a> in his jail cell, Epstein laments his \u201cputrid\u201d reputation. In response, Chomsky comments on the \u201chorrible way\u201d Epstein has been treated by the media and advises him to ignore it. Valeria Chomsky says her husband\u2019s remarks should be \u201cread in context.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEpstein had claimed to Noam that he (Epstein) was being unfairly persecuted, and Noam spoke from his own experience in political controversies with the media,\u201d her statement reads in part. \u201cEpstein created a manipulative narrative about his case, which Noam, in good faith, believed in. It is now clear that it was all orchestrated, with at least one of Epstein\u2019s intentions being to have someone like Noam help repair his reputation by association.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By HILLEL ITALIE NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The wife of Noam Chomsky is acknowledging \u201cserious errors in judgment\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[41737,9450,71527,139,141,140,73610],"class_list":{"0":"post-152520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-epstein-files","9":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","10":"tag-noam-chomsky","11":"tag-orlando","12":"tag-orlando-headlines","13":"tag-orlando-news","14":"tag-valeria-chomsky"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Justice_Department_Jeffrey_Epstein_46261.jpg\")
A document that was included in the U.S. Department of Justice release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, photographed Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, shows a photo of Epstein on a inmate report from the Federal Bureau of Prisons . (AP Photo\/Jon Elswick)<\/p>\n