JAMES PATTERSON Seckel acquaintances, I kept hearing variations ona scheme Mrs. | It was an odd thing, Epste: Pearce Williams believed he perpetrated against her late hus- PhD who, on closer inspec band, the man Seckel said was his mentor. Seckel took books } But the Mindshift confer and promised money, or he took money and promised a book; in the Virgin Islands dic but somehow, the promised party lost money.” j Mann was there, along wit “He was charming, erudite, humorous,” one of Seckel’s marks 3 coauthored books with St told the reporter. “I lent him $75,000. When the time came to q 4 expert on artificial intel]; pay it back he didn’t want to do it.” 4 3 attended the conference, s: Oppenheimer found several people whom Seckel had stiffed : about it. and uncovered dozens of lawsuits he'd been involved in. In 2007, 4 q “We had scientific disc: Seckel settled a libel lawsuit against a man who'd edited his Wiki- 5 he said vaguely. pedia page. Years later, Oppenheimer spoke with Seckel’s lawyer, 4 q When Mark Oppenheir Nicholas Hornberger. a F Seckel, Sussman “got testy” “Hornberger confirmed that he'd reached a settlement for the yi a “I have had some dealir case, a favorable one,” the journalist wrote. “Hornberger added want to say what it's abor that Seckel has still not paid him for his services.” a ) it, okay?” He also interviewed Seckel’s wife, Isabel Maxwell. - 9 . Aland Isabel met on a blind date and married in Malibu in or r. oN “sround” 2007 (“I don't keep the dates in my head,” Seckel g \ 3 Today, Epstein’s websites— explained). A few years later, they moved to the South of France, a ‘ JeffreyEpsteinScience,com— where Seckel continued to trade in rare books and papers. While ; long since expired. Several r. living in France, he was sued by a Virgin Islands company that 4 j tributions, including New Yc accused him and Isabel of fraudulently attempting to sell rare | ) Palm Beach, announced tha books and a seventeenth-century portrait of Isaac Newton. q gifts