Epstein Data Wiki

Stuart Pivar

Properties2
tagsperson, art, new-york-academy-of-art, fbi-302, litigation, 2007
aliasesStuart Pivar, Pivar, Stuart

6 min read

⚠ what this page is about, and what it is not

The founder of the New York Academy of Art, who knew Jeffrey Epstein from the 1980s and who was interviewed by the FBI about him in September 2007 while suing him for libel. No allegation against him was found anywhere in the release, and none is made here. ⚠ A witness interview is not an allegation, and the FBI’s own form says it contains no conclusions.

WhoStuart Pivar, founder of the New York Academy of Art1
In the release56 documents, 61 pages2
⭐ The actOn 4 September 2007 he was interviewed at his residence by the FBI in the federal investigation of Epstein, and told the agents that Epstein had funded roughly 150 scientists, that his scientific interests were “the functioning of the brain, life creation and eternal life”, and that “Epstein is plotting to monopolize scientific research”3
⚠ At the same timeHe was suing Epstein and Seed Media Group for libel, seeking $15 million, over a blog post calling him a “crackpot scientist”3
AndHe was still writing to Epstein in 2014, offering him a private taxidermy collection4

Stuart Pivar founded the New York Academy of Art. He is one of the few people in this release who told the FBI what he thought Epstein was doing with his money, and he did it while suing him.

The FBI interview, 4 September 2007

The 302 is short and almost all of it is about Epstein’s scientific philanthropy.3 Pivar told the agents:

  • He had known Epstein since the 1980s, when both were associated with the Academy, and that Epstein left it when he believed inappropriate financial activity was occurring.
  • Epstein “has donated 15 to 30 million dollars to Harvard” and “has also funded approximately 150 additional scientists”, among them a Nobel laureate the 302 names.
  • “Epstein’s scientific interests include the functioning of the brain, life creation and eternal life.”
  • ⚠ “Pivar believes Epstein is plotting to monopolize scientific research.”
  • “Pivar stated Epstein does not always tell the truth”, and pointed the agents to a journalist who had written about Epstein for Vanity Fair.

⚠⚠ THE INTEREST OF THIS DOCUMENT IS ITS DATE AND ITS SUBJECT. It is September 2007, in a federal child-exploitation investigation, and the witness is talking about the architecture of Epstein’s science funding. ⚠ The page does not infer a connection between the two; the 302 records what he said and the file records what the investigation was.

The libel suit

The same 302 records the reason he was in conflict with Epstein: Epstein owned Seed Media Group, whose blog carried a scientist’s review of Pivar’s book Lifecode describing him as a “crackpot scientist”, and Pivar was suing Epstein and the company for libel, seeking $15 million in damages.3

⚠ No document read for this page records the outcome of that suit, and the page does not supply one from outside the corpus.

What the other side said about him

⚠ The same FBI file carries a second 302, of Eileen Guggenheim, then chairman of the Academy’s board. Her husband told the agents that the school’s founder “got out of hand” and did not get re-elected to the board, and that Epstein resigned because Pivar, his main contact there, had gone.3

The two accounts are not the same account. Pivar told the FBI Epstein left over “inappropriate financial activity”; the Wilkinson account has Epstein leaving because Pivar had. ⚠ Both are in the same file, both are hearsay as to Epstein’s reasons, and this page reports the conflict rather than choosing.

Afterwards

He was still corresponding with Epstein years later. In June 2014 he wrote offering to connect him with a friend disposing of “the greatest private collection of taxidermy animals and birds in the US”; Epstein replied “great”.4

What this page does not say

No allegation against him was found anywhere in the release.5

⚠⚠ A WITNESS INTERVIEW IS NOT AN ALLEGATION, and the FD-302’s own footer states that it “contains neither recommendations nor conclusions of the FBI”. ⚠ Nothing here says his assessment of Epstein was correct, or that the FBI acted on it. He is a witness who gave an opinion, and the page reports it as one.

Footnotes

Footnotes

  1. Identification. His role is stated in a document, not assumed: the FBI 302 of Eileen Guggenheim in the same file calls him “The founder of the school”, the school being the New York Academy of Arts. ⚠ No document read for this page gives him any other title. ↩

  2. The measurement. "Stuart Pivar" returns 56 documents across 61 pages, 1.09 pages per document. ⚠ The hinge is page scope: a document counts when any one of its pages carries the phrase. ⚠ This is a small population and no artefact test was needed, but ⚠ the desk did not decompose it, did not search the derived stores, and did not open most of it. ↩

  3. The FBI interview. EFTA01689427 viewer p.18, read at the image at 700 dpi; a duplicate copy is at viewer p.19. An FD-302 dated 09/04/2007, inside an FBI case file whose cover sheets carry the file number 31E-MM-108062 and the case title naming Epstein. ⚠ His date of birth and his residential address are covered on the sheet and neither is supplied. ⚠ The 302 names a Nobel laureate and a journalist; the laureate’s description in the document is garbled and the page does not repeat the error or correct it onto the sheet. The Guggenheim 302 quoted in “What the other side said about him” is viewer p.20 of the same run, read at the image, with a duplicate at p.22. ⚠⚠ THIS FILE IS A CHILD-EXPLOITATION INVESTIGATION AND CONTAINS MATERIAL ABOUT THIRD PARTIES WHOSE STATUS IS UNDETERMINED. NOTHING OF THAT KIND IS REPRODUCED, DESCRIBED OR POINTED AT ON THIS PAGE, and the desk read only the two pages it cites. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  4. June 2014. EFTA01922253 p.1, text layer, not read at the image: Pivar to Epstein, Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 4:47 PM, “Jeffrey, My friend Greg has the greatest private collection of taxidermy animals and birds in the US which he needs to get ri[d of]”; Epstein’s reply, Tue 6/17/2014 11:25:59 PM, subject “Re: animals and birds”, is the single word “great”. ⚠ The friend is given a forename only on the sheet and is not identified here. ↩ ↩2

  5. Absences, each scoped. No allegation against him was found in the release read for this page. ⚠⚠ This is a narrow check: the desk opened the two 302 pages and two later messages out of 56 documents, ran no systematic adverse sweep, and searched none of the six derived stores. ⚠ The outcome of the libel suit is not established from this corpus and no outside source was used for it. ↩

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