Dr. Jess Ting, the head of transgender medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, brought his girlfriend and her three children to Jeffrey Epstein’s private Caribbean island years after his criminal conviction on sex crimes, emails show.
Ting, who specializes in crafting fake vaginas for gender-confused males, cultivated a personal and professional relationship with Epstein for years, according to emails released by the Justice Department on Friday.
In 2013, Ting visited Epstein’s island with his family — a trip upon which Epstein’s assistant told the doctor that he was welcome to come play with Epstein’s “toys.” Ting in 2015 offered to let Epstein vet his answers to a reporter about the sex offender’s philanthropy, which included funding for Ting’s research.
Neither Mount Sinai nor Ting responded to multiple requests for comment from The Daily Wire. Ting confirmed the visit to the island on Monday night in a written message to The Advocate, an LGBT activist outlet. Ting has not been accused of any criminal misconduct.
“I came to know Jeffrey Epstein in my professional capacity as a general plastic surgeon about 10+ years ago,” Ting told the publication. “I remember reading news reports about his being charged with sex crimes, but I don’t recall if that was before or after I treated any of the patients referred by his office.”
Ting became famous for helping create a pseudo-vagina for then-17-year-old Jazz Jennings, a gender-confused male who was pushed by the media as one of the first transgender-identifying children. This saga played out tragically to millions of Americans in the TLC show “I Am Jazz.”
The emails show that Ting was invited to have lunch and play with Epstein’s “toys” on March 14, 2013, to Little Saint James, a private island owned by Epstein, where accusers say he sex trafficked women and young girls. That invitation came just a few years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18.
The invite was sent two days after Ting was added to Epstein’s email directory by his assistant, Lesley Groff. Groff has denied all wrongdoing and has said she was shocked by the allegations against Epstein.
“Hello Dr. Ting. Jeffrey would like you to enjoy a day on his island during your vacation! 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,” an assistant of Epstein wrote. “Please let us know what day would work and they can take it from there!”
Justice Department.
Just seven minutes after the initial invitation, Ting responded to confirm the visit.
“That is incredibly generous of Jeffrey!! I will get back to you shortly about timing,” Ting wrote.
On March 18, 2013, Ting was asked by one of Epstein’s associates what day would work to visit the island.
“Just checking in to see if a certain day would work for you to have some fun on Jeffrey’s island! Let us know,” the person wrote.
Epstein’s assistant later emailed him to let him know that Ting, his girlfriend, Michelle, her three kids, and two nannies would be visiting the island. “Dr. Ting is thrilled and thanks you so much,” the assistant wrote.
Ting claimed to The Advocate that the “toys” mentioned in the initial invite were jet skis and sailboats.
“I was vacationing in St. John with my then-girlfriend, and he invited me to his island. He wasn’t there at the time, and the only people who were there at the time were his staff,” he said.
Just a few days after the island visit, Ting was invited over to Epstein’s Manhattan home.
“Hello Dr. Ting. I hope you had a nice visit to Jeffrey’s island last Friday. Jeffrey is asking if you could come see him at his home,” Epstein’s assistant wrote on March 25, 2013. That visit appeared to happen on April 3, 2013, after Ting confirmed that he could go over to Epstein’s house at 10:00 p.m.
On April 13, 2013, it was announced that Epstein was funding Ting’s research at Mount Sinai on cancer metastasis.
During a subsequent visit to Epstein’s home on May 3, Ting was told that it was okay to bring the three young kids along. “Jeffrey says it is just fine to bring the kiddos!” an assistant for Epstein wrote.
Epstein also connected Ting, then a plastic surgeon, with a woman named “Shelley” who wanted a nose job and was reportedly “a very good friend” of Epstein.
“Jeffrey is asking if you might have time tomorrow, Friday May 3rd, after 4pm to see a very good friend of his regarding her nose… » Please let me know if this might be possible,” Epstein’s assistant wrote on May 2, 2013.
Ting told The Advocate that he had seen several women referred to him by Epstein, and that he had treated “a few female associates referred by Jeffrey Epstein.” He added that they were all adults and there “were no concerns about consent.”
The emails also show that Ting consulted with Epstein on several of his health issues and scheduled MRIs for him.
Ting and Epstein’s relationship continued for the next few years and even included them coordinating responses to reporters together.
On January 23, 2015, a Reuters reporter reached out to Ting about his ties to Epstein following a new report on Epstein’s relationship with the disgraced Prince Andrew.
“I’m a reporter with the Reuters news wire, and I’m working on a story about the philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein. Are you available for an interview about Mr. Epstein? I understand he has helped to fund some of your work, and I’m interested in learning more about his philanthropy and whether it has been affected by the recent news about him,” the reporter asked.
Mount Sinai, where Ting is a doctor, received thousands of dollars in donations from Epstein and his foundation. The hospital pledged to donate to groups supporting rape and sexual assault survivors after Epstein’s 2019 arrest.
After the request for comment, Ting forwarded the email to Epstein’s assistant to see if he should respond.
“See below. Would Jeffrey like me to respond to this?” Ting wrote.
“Hi Dr. Ting…Jeffrey actually says to YES respond!” Epstein’s assistant responded.
Ting responded by offering to let Epstein approve his replies to the reporter’s questions.
“I will ask him to email me the questions and then I will forward them to you so Mr. Epstein can vet my responses,” Ting wrote.
On January 29, Epstein was forwarded a message from Ting saying, “That reporter never got back to me.”
Later in their relationship, Ting reached out to ask Epstein to thank him for the $50,000 he had donated to his research and to inform him that he had gone into transgender medicine.
“I have been made surgical director of the brand new transgender surgery program at Mount Sinai. That’s right — Mount Sinai, being the progressive place that it is, saw am 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,” Ting wrote on May 14, 2016.
Ting also asked Epstein to fund a documentary he was making on transgender medicine.
“This was such an interesting and innovative idea, that I thought it would make a good documentary. I pitched the idea to a well-known director and we have started scouting interviews and are in the process of making a fundraising trailer, Ting wrote.
“If I could just be really forward, I was wondering if you would be interested in supporting this documentary? 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,” he added.
Epstein forwarded that email to one of his associates, who replied by saying that it would be better to fund a breast cancer center at Mount Sinai.
On July 1, 2017, Ting wrote to Epstein again and shared a link to the trailer of the documentary.
“I have given up plastic surgery and have jumped into the world of transgender surgery. It’s the most gratifying, worthwhile, and fascinating thing i’ve ever done. Michelle (my gf) is even making a documentary about it! Please take a look at the rough trailer,” he wrote.
Epstein responded, “wow, ill return mid july, lets talk.”
About one month later, Ting shared a Daily Mail article with Epstein and several others on the opening of the Mount Sinai transgender center.
Ting’s documentary on the opening of the clinic, “Born to Be,” was released in 2020. The film follows “how his journey from renowned plastic surgeon to pioneering gender-affirming specialist has led to his own transformation.”
As of March 2021, Ting said he has done over 1,500 so-called “gender affirming” surgeries on patients as old as 77 and as young as 17. Ting innovated something called the peritoneum vaginoplasty, which uses skin taken from the stomach to fashion a pseudo-vagina.
“In the beginning, I was just going to do a little bit of this operation. It was just going to be a part of my practice,” Ting said of his work during a podcast published by Mount Sinai. “But once we started doing the operations and just seeing how transformative they were for patients, I was like, wow, there is no way I can go back to doing plastic surgery.”
Ting acknowledged the dangers of the procedures.
“If you make a mistake, someone can get — they can die. They can bleed. And the operations are more difficult. And at the same time, they’re not as well-developed. I probably shouldn’t say this, but, you know, I get nervous before almost every case.”
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