[GRADE A2 -- EFTA02465191, EFTA02464551, EFTA02456763, EFTA02457006, EFTA02329455, EFTA02329468, EFTA02449028, EFTA02329520, EFTA02243002 (Epstein's own files)]
Leonid (Leon) Peshkin (b. 1970, Moscow) is a principal research scientist in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. His family came to the U.S. as political refugees from Russia. He holds an M.S. from the Weizmann Institute (Israel) and a Ph.D. in Computer Science/AI from Brown University (2001).
Peshkin was introduced to Epstein by Mikhail (Misha) Gromov, the Abel Prize-winning Russian-French mathematician (b. 1943, Boksitogorsk, USSR) who emigrated in 1974 and holds positions at IHES and NYU's Courant Institute.
April 25, 2016 (EFTA02465191): Gromov writes to Epstein:
"You may like meeting Leon Peshkin from Harvard. He departed from AI and converged to embryology, proteomic and fast single cell sequencing. Besides he is the man of Genome in a Bottle."
Epstein responds: "how do i contact?"
April 28, 2016 (EFTA02464551, EFTA02465226): Groff sends reminders: "Misha Gromov suggested you meet Leon Peshkin in Cambridge."
| Date | EFTA | Event |
|---|---|---|
| Apr 25, 2016 | EFTA02465191 | Gromov recommends Peshkin to Epstein |
| Apr 28, 2016 | EFTA02464551 | Groff reminds Epstein about Peshkin |
| Jul 8, 2016 | EFTA02456763 | Peshkin responds: "Misha mentioned Jeffrey to me, I'd love to meet" |
| Jul 9, 2016 | EFTA02457006 | Meeting scheduled 10:30am; Peshkin going to father's 95th birthday |
| Sep 14, 2016 | EFTA02329455 | Peshkin confirms: "OK for 1:30 -Leon" |
| Sep 14, 2016 | EFTA02329468 | Peshkin: "I am flexible, feel free to shift me around" |
| Sep 17, 2016 | EFTA02329520 | Bedford trip: Krauss, Barak, Ito, Peshkin, Bach, Nowak |
| Sep 28, 2016 | EFTA02449028 | Peshkin thank-you: "a memorable occasion" |
| May 6, 2018 | EFTA02243002 | Bedford schedule: "4pm Appt w/Leonard Peshkin" |
The Bedford gathering is now documented through multiple source emails. EFTA02043442 provides the operational logistics email from Lesley Groff to Martin Nowak (cc: Karyna Shuliak), sent at 1:39 AM on September 17, 2016:
Epstein due to arrive Bedford airport at 10:30am, bringing Joi Ito and Vincenzo Lozzo with him. They would go to Nowak's institute upon arrival. Everyone else due at 12:00pm. "Wheels up tomorrow is 5pm so departure from your institute is 4pm."
Full confirmed attendee list:
| Attendee | Arrival | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Jeffrey Epstein | 10:30am via Bedford airport | Host/patron |
| Joi Ito | With Epstein, 10:30am | MIT Media Lab director (later resigned over Epstein ties) |
| Vincenzo Lozzo | With Epstein, 10:30am | [Identity under investigation -- see Open Questions] |
| Lawrence Krauss | 12:00pm (11am originally, needs to return NY for dinner) | Theoretical physicist (later accused of sexual misconduct) |
| Ehud Barak and Nili | 12:00pm | Former Israeli PM |
| Leon Peshkin | 12:00pm | Russian-born Harvard biologist |
| Joscha Bach | 12:00pm | AI researcher |
| Martin Nowak | At institute | Harvard evolutionary dynamics, Epstein-funded program (host) |
| Karyna Shuliak | With Epstein | Epstein's assistant / logistics coordinator |
Peshkin's thank-you note (EFTA02449028, September 28, 2016):
"am I supposed to send a thank-you note? anyhow - a memorable occasion, I got to have an argument about existence of God with Ehud Barak and Lawrence Krauss and to see a new side of Martin Nowak with whom we met many times before. Unfortunately I did not get to talk much with Jeff himself. Please tell him I send regards and promise some good stories from the book of Peshkin."
This note reveals: (a) an informal intellectual atmosphere where a first-time attendee debated theology with a former PM, (b) Peshkin already knew Nowak from prior academic contexts, (c) Epstein was present but not the primary interlocutor -- the gathering functioned as a salon, and (d) the phrasing "the book of Peshkin" suggests a personal narrative or memoir.
Bedford gathering timeline across corpus:
| Date | EFTA | Event |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 16, 2015 | EFTA00340019 | Bedford arrival: Jet Aviation, 380 Hanscom Dr, Bedford MA |
| Sep 17, 2016 | EFTA02043442 | Main gathering: Krauss, Barak, Ito, Peshkin, Bach, Nowak, Lozzo |
| May 6, 2018 | EFTA02243002 | Bedford schedule: "4pm Appt w/Leonard Peshkin" (+ Nowak, Ito, Bach, Summers) |
The 2018 Bedford event (EFTA02243002) adds Larry Summers to the attendee list, establishing that the Bedford salon was a recurring format where Epstein's political and scientific contacts overlapped.
Misha Gromov appears in 69 jmail emails spanning 2012-2019, with documented meetings in New York, Cambridge, Paris, and Bedford. The v2.0 mining found 5 Gromov JmailEmail nodes (Oct 2017, Jun 2019) but all had null body content -- only subject lines ("Re: Jeffrey Epstein") and dates survive.
The Gromov-Khodorkovsky co-appearance query returned zero documents, meaning their documented connection comes solely from photographs in the 2026 DOJ file release showing Gromov alongside Mikhail Khodorkovsky (exiled Russian oligarch/Putin critic), Martin Nowak, and Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem at an Epstein gathering. The Khodorkovsky fulltext search returned 21 documents, but these are dominated by news aggregation emails (GDELT, newsletters) rather than direct correspondence.
Neo4j analysis shows Peshkin with 36 relationships in the graph. His connections map to the Harvard/MIT scientific network: Nowak, Gromov, Krauss, Bach, Ito -- all documented at the Bedford gatherings.
Peshkin's active engagement with Epstein (April-September 2016) overlaps precisely with:
WHAT THIS SHOWS AND DOES NOT SHOW: The documents establish that Gromov, a Russian-born mathematician with extensive Epstein access (69 emails, 7 years), introduced Peshkin, another Russian-born scientist, to Epstein during the exact window of Russian election interference operations. The Bedford gathering places a Russian-born scientist in the same room as a former Israeli PM, an MIT Media Lab director, and a theoretical physicist -- all orbiting Epstein three weeks after his "ask again aug 1" date. Peshkin's thank-you note describes an intellectual salon atmosphere, not an operational meeting. The documents do NOT establish any intelligence connection for either Gromov or Peshkin. Peshkin's family were political refugees from Russia, suggesting an adversarial rather than cooperative relationship with the Russian state. The temporal overlap between Peshkin's Epstein engagement and the DNC hack campaign is noted but does not imply causation. The most parsimonious explanation is that Epstein's serial recruitment of scientists continued unabated during 2016 regardless of geopolitical events. [v2.0] The new attendee Vincenzo Lozzo -- who arrived with Epstein and Ito at 10:30am -- requires further identification.