A pioneer of “gender-affirming” medical procedures excitedly agreed to visit Jeffrey Epstein’s personal island and asked the late financier to fund his upcoming documentary, documents released Friday by the Department of Justice (DOJ) show.
Dr. Jess Ting, now an assistant professor of surgery at New York’s Mount Sinai Health System, made the request in a 2016 email to Epstein that discussed his “innovative” new transgender clinic within the hospital network. Ting appeared to have accepted an invitation to Epstein’s private island three years earlier from an unidentified Epstein “assistant,” the emails show.
Ting did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. The doctor has worked for Mt. Sinai since 2001, according to his LinkedIn profile. The surgeon has not been implicated in any of Epstein’s alleged crimes.
Ting excitedly informed Epstein in the 2016 email that he was made director of Mt. Sinai’s transgender medicine and surgery program launched in 2016.
“That’s right — Mount Sinai, being the progressive place that it is, saw [an] opportunity and need to take a leadership position in the area of Transgender Health and created the first full-spectrum academic program in the US focused on transgender surgery and care,” reads the email. “This was such an interesting and innovative idea, that I thought it would make a good documentary.”
Ting spearheaded Mt. Sinai’s first transgender-related vaginoplasty, a surgery that involves castrating a man and forming a fake vagina, according to his profile on Mt. Sinai’s website.
“If I could just be really forward, I was wondering if you would be interested in supporting this documentary?” Ting asked Epstein. “If so, the producer, director and I would love to come and give you the pitch in person. This is an exciting, groundbreaking project — both the center and the documentary — that will do good for the world. I hope you can be a part of it.”
A documentary about Ting’s work for transgender patients, “Born to Be,” was released in 2019, though available documents do not reveal whether Epstein agreed to fund the film.
Ting’s 2016 email also thanked Epstein for previously giving Mt. Sinai a $50,000 grant. Epstein previously said he would give Ting that amount for breast cancer research upon his request, a 2013 email exchange shows.
Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008, years before the contact between him and Ting. Epstein was under federal investigation for an alleged sex trafficking enterprise that operated with assistance from his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, before he died in his jail cell in August 2019. Authorities ruled his death a suicide by hanging.
An Epstein associate whose name is redacted from the DOJ’s records invited Ting to “have some fun” on the disgraced financier’s private island in a 2013 email exchange.
“Jeffrey would like you to enjoy a day on his island during your vacation!” the assistant wrote. “We can have you and your family picked up from St. John on what ever day is convenient for you, brought to Jeffrey’s island to play with his ‘toys’ and have some lunch.”
Ting called the offer “extremely generous,” continued to coordinate a date with Epstein’s associates and proposing to bring a friend and her three kids aged eight and under, the emails show. An Epstein assistant told Ting in an email days later, “I hope you had a nice visit to Jeffrey’s island last Friday.”
The DOJ released troves of Epstein-related documents that included Ting’s correspondence under President Donald Trump’s Epstein Files Transparency Act on Friday.
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