Brookline’s former long-time director of school and child health services, Dr. Gloria Rudisch, maintained years of contact with Jeffrey Epstein, received funding from him and sent him supportive messages after details of his alleged crimes were emerging in news reports, according to new documents released by the Department of Justice.
The emails and other documents reviewed by Brookline.news show that Rudisch, who sometimes goes by Gloria Minsky, was in direct, regular contact with Epstein, including at least 14 in-person meetings and two dozen phone calls with his staff.
She helped Epstein organize a conference in 2011, and she was paid to consult for his nonprofit organization. She also sought his financial advice, and made plans to visit his island, all while working in a town role where her job was to support the health of children.
The inclusion of a person’s name in the so-called Epstein files does not indicate they participated in or were aware of Epstein’s crimes.
When Brookline.news reached her by telephone and asked to speak about her relationship with Epstein, Rudisch said, “I don’t think I can do that.” Rudisch also did not respond to a detailed list of questions that Brookline.news sent by certified mail.
Rudisch’s late husband, Marvin Minsky, an MIT cognitive scientist, was accused in 2019 of sexually assaulting Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent victims, who said in a deposition that she was forced to have sex with the scientist.
Rudisch publicly denied the allegations against her husband in 2019, but her own relationship with Epstein has not been previously reported.
The records detailing Rudisch’s communications with Epstein were part of a cache of millions of documents published by the DOJ about the life and work of Epstein, a disgraced financier who faced dozens of accusations of sexual assault and sex trafficking before his death by suicide in a New York City jail cell in 2019.
Rudisch, a pediatrician, worked for the town’s health department for nearly 50 years, from 1972 to 2021, first as the director of school health and then as director of child health, the latter of which was an independent contractor role. She retired in 2021. She also served many years on the town’s Commission for Women, and retains “emeritus” status with the group.
Christina Metcalf, a spokesperson for the town, said that there is no indication that other town employees knew about Rudisch’s relationship with Epstein, and no complaints filed on the subject.
Metcalf said that a review this month found that Rudisch had used her municipal email account for “personal, non-work related communications” with Epstein, which she noted is a violation of town policy.
But she said that the review “found no evidence of professional wrongdoing or illegal activity on the part of Ms. Rudisch.”
A pattern of support after legal issues
The contact between Rudisch and Epstein detailed in the files took place after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a child.
Epstein served 13 months in a Palm Beach County, Florida jail and was required to register as a sex offender. The sentencing was later called a politically-motivated “sweetheart deal” by victims’ rights advocates, and it helped him avoid federal prosecution.
In Feb. 2010, six months after Epstein’s release from jail, an assistant passed along a phone message from Rudisch to Epstein that read “Just thinking about you. Hoping things are better…are you able to travel now?”
“We would love to come down and see you again,” the message continued.
In late 2018 and early 2019, when details of his alleged widespread crimes were coming to light, Rudisch twice called to lend him sympathy, according to messages relayed to Epstein by one of his assistants.
Rudisch “called to let you know she is thinking about you and just so [sad] to see what is going on in the news,” an assistant wrote to Epstein on Dec. 7, 2018. “She wishes you best and just hopes [for] the best. She also said she would love to join in on one of your sessions at Martin’s office someday. She really loved all the conversations.”
A week earlier, the Miami Herald had published an investigative series documenting Epstein’s alleged serial sexual abuse of dozens of girls as young as 14 and the “deal of a lifetime” that led him to serve just 13 months in jail.
Rudisch called again two months later, according to the records.
“Gloria Rudish [sic] called to say she is thinking about you…she hates [what] is going on…and if you come up to Martin’s office [to] please let her know. She would love to see you,” an assistant wrote to Epstein in February 2019.
In June 2019, shortly before his arrest, Epstein mentioned Rudisch’s name to right-wing activist Steve Bannon as a possible interview for a project they were planning that news outlets have described as a “pro-Epstein documentary” intended to counteract bad press.
“Minskys. Wife. gloria. Should be done asap,” Epstein wrote in a text.
Years of relationship with Epstein
Click here to review the documents used to report this story.
Rudisch denied the 2019 allegations against her late husband, a pioneering artificial intelligence researcher who was a long-time associate of Epstein’s. She told the New York Post that she and Minsky, who died in 2016, visited Epstein’s residences in New York and Palm Beach “three or four times at the most” and that they always went as a couple.
“We were always together,” she said. “We didn’t stay at his house or anything.”
Unreported previously is the fact Rudisch made plans to visit Little Saint James, the private island that would later be revealed to be central to Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking activity.
Rudisch maintained a relationship with Epstein for at least nine years.
Her most frequent contact in the DOJ files came in 2011, when she and Minsky helped organize an academic conference on Epstein’s island.
In August of that year, Rudisch was offered a consulting agreement with Enhanced Education, Epstein’s foundation.
The contract stated that she would receive $50,000 over a year to serve as a “liaison” between Epstein’s foundation and the scientific, academic and philanthropic communities. The contract called on her to find research projects for the foundation to support, and to organize at least one scientific conference a year.
The contract from the files is unsigned, but a separate email from Epstein accountant Richard Kahn states that Rudisch and Minsky were jointly paid $8,333.33 that August.
Other emails included in DOJ’s release show that Rudisch went on to play a key role in organizing a December 2011 conference on the subject of “threats to earth” that took place on Little St. James, Epstein’s island.
“Jeffrey will be planning another conference soon and has enlisted the help of Gloria Rudisch and Marvin Minsky,” Lesley Groff, one of Epstein’s assistants, wrote in an email.
Rudisch suggested in an email to another Epstein associate that attendees bring college students and young scientists to the island.
“Marvin had the idea of asking each of the academic people to bring along one of their brilliant future looking students,” she wrote. “I’m not sure he discussed this with Jeffrey, as he just thought of it. This would get some more young scientists in the mix. I wonder if this might also work for the business folks.”
Before the 2011 conference, Rudisch was included on a list of people who would be traveling to the island on Epstein’s boat, and she was also invited to fly back to the United States on his plane, although it’s unclear from the documents whether she did.
Their regular phone and email correspondence continued. Epstein made plans to visit Rudisch and Minsky several times at their home in Brookline, the records show, including in 2014.
The couple also asked Epstein for financial advice.
“Marvin is to be presented with a substantial monetary award and they would like to speak with you about what to do…Gloria said it is over a million,” an assistant wrote to Epstein in 2014.
In 2015 and 2016, an assistant invited the two, as Epstein’s “good friends” to share “birthday stories” about their experiences with him.
Timeline of her role in Brookline
Town spokesperson Metcalf said that HR records show Rudisch was the Director of School Health from 1972 to 2005. In 2006, she was hired as Director of Child Health/Medical Director, for which she was paid as an independent contractor rather than an employee. An annual report from 2021 states that she retired that year, but Metcalf said her final check was issued in December 2023.
The child health services division, which no longer exists, dealt with infectious diseases, inspected child care programs, and, among other things, “maintained violence prevention and overall safety activities in local schools,” according to Rudisch’s personal website.
Rudisch’s position was eliminated after her departure due to budget cuts and the loss of certain state grants, according to Metcalf.
Rudisch was also appointed to the Brookline Commission for Women in 2007.
In 2021, the year she retired from the Brookline Department of Public Health, the commission voted to make Rudisch its first ever commissioner emeritus, “in honor of her long service on the BCW,” the annual report states. It’s a status she still holds with the commission.
BCW chair Aileen Lee said she was only recently made aware of Rudisch’s relationship with Epstein.
“I had no prior knowledge of their relationship, nor was it discussed between me and any other BCW members. In the past 5 years that I have been on the Commission, Dr. Rudisch has not attended any BCW events (that I am aware of) or been active participating with the Commission,” Lee said.
The town’s 2016 annual report describes Rudisch taking part in an annual “Dancing With the Stars” event sponsored by the Brookline Rotary. She competed on behalf of the Jennifer Lynch Committee Against Domestic Violence.
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