‘Doctor and Patient Privilege’: Deepak Chopra’s Name is Among the Many Notables That Surfaced in Jeffrey Epstein Document Release

The name of Deepak Chopra, the prominent wellness guru and alternative medicine advocate, has appeared in recently released documents from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, revealing a series of meetings and email exchanges that spanned multiple years—connections that have raised questions about how the convicted sex offender maintained access to prominent figures long after his 2008 conviction.

Documented Meetings Through 2019

According to CBS News, Chopra appears in Epstein’s calendar at least a dozen times across 2016, 2017, and 2019. The appointments included one-on-one meetings—including at least one in Paris in November 2016—as well as group gatherings. Records show Epstein was invited to a 25th anniversary event for Skeptic Magazine where Chopra was a discussion panelist, and that Epstein later invited Chopra to a dinner with filmmaker Woody Allen and his wife Soon-Yi Previn.

CBS News reported that in one week in April 2019—three months before Epstein’s arrest on federal sex trafficking charges—Epstein’s calendar included lunch with Chopra, alongside meetings with other prominent individuals including former Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, political strategist Steve Bannon, and investment banker Robert Kuhn.

Chopra’s Explanation: Meditation and Research

In a statement to CBS News, Chopra explained the context of their relationship. “Jeffrey Epstein was introduced to me by Barnaby Marsh, former CEO of the Templeton Foundation, as someone who could potentially fund research on the brain and consciousness,” Chopra said.

According to Chopra, their meetings primarily focused on treating Epstein’s sleep problems. “After meeting, he shared he suffered from insomnia and expressed interest in learning meditation, which I taught him. Our meetings, focused solely on practicing meditation, lasted about 30 minutes each,” he stated. Chopra added that he suggested Epstein visit neuroscientist Dr. V.S. Ramachandran’s lab at the University of California San Diego to learn about brain research, and that Epstein later introduced him to Joichi Ito at MIT Media Lab, though “ultimately, no research project was ever pursued.”

CBS News noted that Epstein’s difficulty sleeping is documented in jail records from the weeks before his death in August 2019, when he was provided a CPAP machine.

Email Exchanges Released

The House Oversight Committee released over 20,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate in November 2025, including email correspondence between Epstein and numerous prominent individuals.

According to HuffPost, in July 2016, Chopra asked Epstein for information about Marla Maples, Trump’s second wife, writing “Anything we share is between us. I share nothing with anyone but trust you.” Epstein responded with details about his past relationship with Trump, including a claim about a bet between them when Maples became pregnant.

“I’m always cognizant of Dr. and patient privilege. However, in this case, I hope that all of the truth comes out after ongoing and proper investigations. I’m happy to share whatever I know with authorized officials. Otherwise there are only endless speculations without knowing the context.”

Multiple news outlets including HuffPost, Yahoo News, and Newsweek reported that in November 2016, Epstein shared a link with Chopra to an article about a civil lawsuit that had been dropped. The lawsuit had alleged sexual assault involving Epstein and Trump. Newsweek reported that the article was about “Katie Johnson, who accused Donald Trump of raping her when she was aged 13 at an alleged Epstein “sex party,” abruptly dropping her civil lawsuit. Trump’s lawyers dismissed the claims at the time as a politically motivated hoax.” According to the published emails, Chopra asked Epstein if a civil case against him had also been dropped, and when Epstein confirmed it had, Chopra replied “Good” followed by “See you this Sat 230 PM?”

Chopra’s Response to Document Release

Following the release of these documents, Chopra issued a statement quoted by multiple outlets: “I’m always cognizant of Dr. and patient privilege. However, in this case, I hope that all of the truth comes out after ongoing and proper investigations. I’m happy to share whatever I know with authorized officials. Otherwise there are only endless speculations without knowing the context.”

Broader Context of the Document Release

The International Business Times UK noted that the House Oversight Committee released the material on November 12, 2025, as part of a large document tranche. The outlet emphasized that “the files themselves do not allege wrongdoing by Chopra; they document correspondence that illuminates how Epstein maintained lines into intellectual, scientific, and celebrity circles well after his 2008 conviction.”

The Washington Post reported that the documents show the breadth of Epstein’s contacts, featuring “both men and women and members of both political parties” in messages that “range from the inane to clear efforts to pull the levers of power.”

HuffPost reported that others whose names appeared in the correspondence included Soon-Yi Previn, magician David Blaine, billionaire Peter Thiel, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and linguist Noam Chomsky, among others. The outlet noted that “most of these conversations included sharing gossip, discussing political developments and responding to links to news stories.”

The Nature of Epstein’s Network

CBS News analysis of the documents found that Epstein “appears to have been a prolific networker” with “many dimensions beyond his criminal activity—including complex financial transactions and philanthropic activity that would have attracted many suitors.”

The outlet noted that Epstein had a documented interest in medicine, science, and longevity, and that records show he had planned as early as 2012 to launch a company focused on gene sequencing. This interest in neuroscience and consciousness studies overlapped with areas where Chopra has built his career.

CBS News reported that “some of those relationships spanned years and involved dozens of meetings, events, meals and travel” and that “several prominent people continued to spend time with Epstein up until his arrest in 2019, even as sex trafficking accusations intensified after his 2008 ‘sweetheart deal’ with prosecutors in Florida.”

The documents provide a window into how Epstein maintained relationships with prominent figures across multiple fields, though as CBS News noted, “the exact nature of the relationships are hard, if not impossible, to characterize based on the documents” alone.

This story was aggregated by AI from several news reports and edited by American Kahani’s News Desk.