A Stern adjunct professor congratulated Jeffrey Epstein on his “wonderful financial successes” in a newly released email exchange that took place in 2015, around one week after the convicted sex offender was accused of forcing a female minor to have repeated sexual relations with the former Prince Andrew and other men.
James Rosenwald, who has taught at NYU since 2012, sent Epstein an email titled “High Profile” on Jan. 5, 2015. He wrote that he had “toasted” to Epstein during his Thanksgiving weekend in Long Island with David Asch, the Senior Vice President of University of Pennsylvania. Epstein’s publicist, Christina Galbraith, forwarded the message to his other email address — where he had exchanges with high profile politicians and business professionals about his sex-trafficking activities. Around six hours later, Epstein replied, “thanks, what is david doing?”
“Your name popped up again in the Press and I thought it was time to congratulate you on your wonderful financial successes since your days as my Physics prof at Dalton!!” Rosenwald wrote to Epstein. “Unless your PR advisor is Donald Trump, I am not sure that current press provides you with much benefit.”
Rosenwald and Asch both attended the Dalton School, a Manhattan private school where Epstein taught physics and math between 1974 and 1976. According to former students interviewed by The New York Times, Epstein flirted with some girls and had a close relationship with a female student, prompting complaints to an administrator.
“Jeffrey E was my Physics Professor at the Dalton School in 1975,” Rosenwald wrote in a statement to WSN. “Look at my wiki page.”
The email was among 20,000 pages of Epstein-related documents released by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability in November 2025. Epstein was sentenced to 18-months in the Palm Beach County jail in 2008 for solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor.
On Jan. 3, 2015, two anonymous female plaintiffs filed a motion, alleging that the former Prince Andrew and former Harvard Law School professor Alan M. Dershowitz had sex relations with one of them — and that Dershowitz “required” her to do so. The plaintiffs claimed that Dershowitz served as Epstein’s counsel and that he was also “an eyewitness to the sexual abuse of many other minors.” Both men denied the claims, and Dershowitz filed a motion to intervene two days later, affirming that these are “defamatory falsehoods.”
Rosenwald’s Dalton Investments, along with his investment trust, are the third-largest shareholder of the Japanese media conglomerate Fuji Media Holdings. Since December 2024, the firm has been at the center of Japan’s “#MeToo” movement after one of Fuji’s TV personalities, Masahiro Nakai, was accused of sexually assaulting a female employee, sending the company’s stock price plummeting. In response to the scandal, Rosenwald pressed for management changes.
After earning his MBA from the Stern School of Business in 1984, Rosenwald began teaching MBA students at NYU in 2012. Upon joining the faculty, he established The Rosenwald Global Value Fund with a $100,000 donation, which has since grown to $1.9 million, giving MBA students hands-on investment experience. This year, he helped launch and serves as a judge in the Rosenwald Investment Competition, which awards $100,000 to five winning teams.
Hedge fund manager and Stern board member John Paulson was identified as “one of the billionaires” in Epstein’s contact lists twice since 2015. The Stern alum is one of NYU’s most prominent donors since 2009, where he gave at least $146 million. He contributed $100 million to his namesake $1.2 billion John A. Paulson Center, which is “among the largest NYU has ever received at its Washington Square Campus.” Epstein himself dropped out of NYU’s Courant of Institute of Mathematical Sciences in 1974.
NYU did not respond to requests for comment.
Contact Amanda Chen at [email protected].