In the summer and fall of 2018, as Arizona State University's misconduct investigation was closing in on Lawrence Krauss, the celebrated theoretical physicist was texting Jeffrey Epstein — asking for lawyers, strategy advice, and sympathy. **2,400 federal evidence documents** now capture that relationship in forensic detail.
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Who Is Lawrence Krauss?
Krauss built a career as one of America's most visible public scientists. He directed the Origins Project at Arizona State University, hosted sold-out lectures, debated religious thinkers, and wrote bestselling books on cosmology.
In early 2018, BuzzFeed News published a detailed account of sexual misconduct allegations against him spanning more than a decade — groping, unwanted advances, and creating a hostile environment for women in science. ASU launched a formal investigation.
By August of that year, Krauss was texting Epstein.
What the Documents Show
Document vol00009-efta00785782-pdf captures messages from August 4, 2018. Krauss writes to Epstein directly: "You will be integral during all my decisions." Epstein responds with a physics joke. The exchange is light in tone but the timing is not: it falls squarely inside the window of ASU's active misconduct proceedings.
Document vol00009-efta00786509-pdf records messages from September 13, 2018 — the day Krauss returned from what appears to be a university grievance committee hearing. He relays the committee's findings to Epstein in real time: "they are all sympathetic it looks like, but apparently their mandate is not to ask questions or even convince dean that dismissal is not warranted."
He goes on: "She figures Dean won't take any middle ground that doesn't involve dismissal."
The person he is confiding in is Jeffrey Epstein.
Document vol00009-efta00786667-pdf shows a September 17, 2018 exchange in which Krauss asks Epstein — via his associate Bruce Moscowitz — for referrals to lawyers who had already spoken to Epstein's network: "can you perhaps give me the name and phone number of one or two of the lawyers you have spoken to regarding action down the line."
Document vol00009-efta00781867-pdf places the relationship in October 2018, when Krauss informs Epstein: "University responded in hardball. Sending you the email from the dean."
The Academic Misconduct Timeline
Krauss resigned from ASU in the spring of 2019, several months after these messages were sent. The university never released the full findings of its internal investigation — a fact Krauss himself references in the documents: "the other investigation's complainant is the university and therefore the other university report will not be released to anyone."
The timing establishes a direct overlap: as ASU's process escalated toward dismissal, Krauss was turning to Epstein's orbit for legal contacts, strategic counsel, and what appears to be emotional support from one of the most consequential criminal cases in modern history.
Epstein was arrested in July 2019, eight months after the last of these messages.
The Broader Pattern
Krauss is not the only figure from the academic and scientific world whose communications appear throughout the evidence files. The 2,400-document cluster associated with his name spans multiple volumes of the federal evidence archive, including messages from Epstein's seized devices going back to at least 2011.
Document vol00009-efta00518012-pdf places Krauss in Skype contact with Epstein as early as June 2011, years before the misconduct allegations became public, and years before Epstein's 2019 arrest on federal sex trafficking charges.
The earliest message in that 2011 document shows Krauss telling Epstein: "I'm ok I guess... feeling out of touch.. working, but I look forward to talking sometime." It reads like two old friends checking in. What it documents is a relationship that predates the public scandals by nearly a decade on both sides.
Krauss was not a peripheral name in Epstein's network. He appeared at Epstein-affiliated events, was cited by Epstein in donor communications, and — as the documents now confirm — was in active contact across a span of years that overlapped with the worst of Epstein's criminal activity.
The documents do not establish that Krauss had knowledge of Epstein's crimes. They do establish that the relationship was sustained, that it spanned nearly a decade, and that at the moment Krauss faced the most serious professional threat of his career, his instinct was to reach out to Jeffrey Epstein's network for help.
What This Means
The documents raise questions that ASU's sealed investigation cannot answer. Who were the lawyers Epstein's network referred to Krauss? What role, if any, did that network play in the legal strategy that followed? And why, of all the people a prominent physicist might turn to in crisis, was Jeffrey Epstein the confidant?
Krauss has stated publicly that his association with Epstein was professional and that he was unaware of Epstein's crimes. But the tone of the 2018 messages — the confiding, the requests for legal help, the phrase "you will be integral during all my decisions" — suggests a relationship closer than professional acquaintance.
For the women who filed complaints against Krauss at ASU, and whose accounts were validated enough that the university moved toward dismissal, these documents add a dimension the original reporting could not have known: as the institution worked to hold Krauss accountable, he was consulting one of the most powerful and dangerous men in America.
Those questions now sit inside 2,400 federal evidence documents — waiting for anyone willing to read them.
InvArchives publishes directly from federal evidence files. All document citations link to source records in the EFTA archive. This article reflects the content of primary documents and does not assert conclusions beyond what those records contain. Readers are encouraged to review the cited documents directly.
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This analysis references publicly released documents from the Epstein case archive. All individuals mentioned are presumed innocent unless convicted in a court of law. Language such as “documents indicate” reflects what appears in source materials, not conclusions of guilt. Readers are encouraged to review the cited source documents directly.