Editor’s Note: The Stanford Daily’s team of reporters and editors is currently working to review Department of Justice documents released this weekend for connections between Stanford, Silicon Valley and Jeffrey Epstein. We welcome your confidential tips here or at [email protected].

Convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein invited Stanford Medicine professor and ophthalmologist Mark Blumenkranz to his private island in Feb. 2013, an invitation Blumenkranz did not accept, new documents released by the Department of Justice on Friday reveal.

The invitation stemmed from medical treatment for eye problems that Jeffrey Epstein’s friend and eventual estate executor Boris Nikolić — a Croatian physician and biotech venture capitalist — had been receiving from Blumenkranz. A prominent figure in ophthalmology, Blumenkranz was then director of the Byers Eye Institute and chair of Stanford’s ophthalmology department.

The correspondence, which appears not to have resulted in an actual visit, came five years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting underage sex.

“While on vacation in the Caribbean with my late wife in 2013, a patient of mine with a vision-threatening problem contacted me to interpret diagnostic imaging studies of his eyes,” Blumenkranz wrote in a statement to The Daily Thursday evening. “I told him that I was in the Caribbean with limited internet access. He suggested my wife and I visit the island of a friend of his to use the high-speed internet there to review the images. I declined the invitation. Fortunately, I was able to find an adequate internet connection where I was and render timely care to the patient. I never visited the island and I have never met or spoken with Jeffrey Epstein.”

Nikolić introduced Epstein and Blumenkranz over email on Feb. 13, 2013, writing, “Mark meet Jeffery, Jeffrey meet Mark!” Nikolić had previously confided in Epstein about mood struggles related to his eye problems. “There is a possiblity [sic] that you need to rest and recharge,” Epstein replied.

According to Nikolić’s message, Blumenkranz was visiting St. John at the time, only a few miles from Little Saint James, the private island owned by Epstein from 1998 to 2019 which has since become infamous. Nikolić added that Bluemenkranz had “very slow internet and a small screen” and asked Epstein whether the professor could “visits [sic] your island and see my eye images.” 

In an earlier message to Epstein, Nikolić commented on the surprise of Blumenkranz’s proximity to Little Saint James, having already planned to see the ophthalmologist at Stanford the following week. “Life is so strange!” he wrote. “[Blumenkranz] was sailing today around your island.”

Promising Blumenkranz that Epstein would organize the visit, Nikolić noted that “a number of people are raving how spectacular is this island.” Reviewing the eye images was “not urgent yet,” he wrote, and “he would still recommend you to see Jeffrey’s island ;)” adding a winky face.

After speaking with Nikolić, Epstein extended an invitation to the island to Blumenkranz: “Mark, you are a very welcome guest to the island. I have set aside a mac for your use.” 

Having returned to New York that morning, Epstein also apologized for his inability to greet Blumenkranz in person, and copied a man named Brice to the email — likely Brice Gordon, who co-managed the island with his partner Karen.

Gordon would “be able to coordinate [Blumenkranz’s] visit, lunch for you and wife, tour of island and of course use of computer and phones for as long as you need,” Epstein wrote.

In keeping with Blumenkranz’s Thursday statement to The Daily, the visit seemingly never took place. Blumenkranz wrote at the time that he had been “able to obtain high speed Access” on St. John and reviewed the images with fellow ophthalmologist Michael Trese. The professor also cited “logistical challenges” that would have made a tour infeasible.

In emails from 2018, Nikolić again connected Blumenkranz with Epstein, who appeared to seek an ophthalmology expert to help treat an individual named Michael L. Link. Epstein described Link, whose email signature associated him with Southern Methodist University, as the “son of a friend.”

In the $600 million will he drafted two days before his death, Epstein named Boris Nikolić as his “successor executor.” Nikolić also previously served as a science and technology advisor to Bill Gates, another figure associated with Epstein.

“Boris is lucky to have such [a] loyal and caring friend,” Blumenkranz wrote to Epstein in 2013. “It makes life much easier when confronted with the inevitable challenges we all face from time to time.”

This story has been updated to include a statement from Blumenkranz that he has never met Jeffrey Epstein or visited his island.