A newly released tranche of Justice Department records tied to Jeffrey Epstein includes a handwritten letter addressed to Larry Nassar, the former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics doctor who sexually abused hundreds of young athletes over nearly two decades.
The letter, which appears to have been written by Jeffrey Epstein, was addressed to “L.N.” and postmarked Aug. 13, 2019, just three days after Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in New York. Epstein’s death was ruled a suicide.
Nassar, a Michigan-based physician who served as a longtime doctor for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University, is serving a 60-year federal prison sentence on child pornography charges. More than 150 women and girls told a Michigan judge in 2018 that Nassar sexually abused them under the guise of medical treatment.
The letter, included in files released Tuesday by the Justice Department, contains crude and disturbing language that appears to reference sexual abuse and incarceration. It also includes an indirect reference to President Donald Trump.
“Dear L.N.,” the letter reads, “As you know by now, I have taken the ‘short route’ home. Good luck! We shared one thing … our love and caring for young ladies and the hope they’d reach their full potential. Our President also shares our love of young, nubile girls.”
The letter ends with, “Life is unfair,” and is signed, “J. Epstein.”
The envelope, addressed to Nassar at a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona, was marked “return to sender” because the addressee was “no longer at this address,” according to an FBI document also released by the Justice Department.
A separate FBI laboratory examination request shows that on Sept. 25, 2019, an agent received a call from the Bureau of Prisons regarding the letter after it was intercepted at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. In July 2020, the FBI requested a handwriting analysis to determine whether Epstein authored the letter or if it was written by someone else. The documents do not disclose the results of that analysis.
It remains unclear whether Epstein and Nassar had any personal relationship.
Epstein, a wealthy financier with ties to powerful political and business figures, was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges when he died in custody. Nassar remains incarcerated in federal prison.
Another batch of recently released Justice Department documents also included a Michigan-related lawsuit alleging that Epstein met his first known victim in the 1990s at Interlochen Center for the Arts, a renowned fine arts summer camp near Traverse City.
The complaint, filed in 2020 and later settled, said the girl was 13 when Epstein and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell approached her at Interlochen, groomed her over several years, and sexually abused her. The lawsuit also alleges Epstein later brought her to Mar-a-Lago, where he introduced her to Trump.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged in connection with Epstein.
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