(TJV NEWS) Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, allegedly harbored a disturbing ambition beyond his criminal case: using his wealth and influence to spread his DNA in an effort to engineer what he believed could be a superior generation of humans, NDTV reported.

Over the years before his death, Epstein privately told scientists and associates that he wanted to impregnate multiple women at his sprawling New Mexico estate, Zorro Ranch, effectively creating what some who heard the idea dubbed a “baby ranch.” According to a detailed investigation by The New York Times, Epstein envisioned the property as a place where women would be inseminated with his sperm and give birth to his children. There is no evidence the plan was ever carried out, nor any indication it would have been illegal, NDTV reported.

Epstein’s fixation was tied to his interest in transhumanism, a loosely defined movement that promotes using advanced technology, including genetic engineering and artificial intelligence, to enhance human abilities. Critics have long warned that aspects of transhumanist thinking echo eugenics, the discredited ideology of selective breeding that was later embraced by the Nazis, as NDTV noted.

Despite pleading not guilty to trafficking girls as young as 14, Epstein spent decades cultivating an image as a wealthy intellectual patron. Investigators and journalists later found that he routinely exaggerated his financial success and misrepresented his role in business and science. Still, through money and persistence, he embedded himself among influential figures in politics, finance and academia, according to NDTV.

As The New York Times reported, Epstein used donations and lavish events to ingratiate himself with elite scientists, including Nobel Prize–winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann, physicist Stephen Hawking, evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould and geneticist George M. Church. He funded research, sponsored conferences and hosted exclusive gatherings featuring expensive food and wine, with some scientists later admitting that the promise of funding dulled concerns about his criminal past.

Epstein donated $6.5 million to help establish Harvard University’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics and paid for conferences in the US Virgin Islands, flying guests to his private island. On one occasion, Hawking and other scientists even boarded a submarine chartered by Epstein, the Times reported and NDTV highlighted.

The so-called “baby ranch” idea surfaced repeatedly. Between 2001 and 2006, Epstein told scientists and business figures he wanted to use Zorro Ranch—his 33,000-square-foot estate outside Santa Fe—as a base to impregnate women with his sperm, according to multiple accounts cited by the Times. One woman who identified herself as a NASA scientist claimed Epstein wanted as many as 20 women pregnant at the ranch at any given time.

Epstein also spoke openly about preserving his body after death. A transhumanist associate told reporters that Epstein discussed cryonics and expressed a desire to have his head and penis preserved, NDTV reported.

Whether Epstein ever fathered children remains unclear. Recently released US Department of Justice files—part of nearly three million documents—contain references suggesting he may have, NDTV noted. One diary entry describes a teenage girl who said she gave birth around 2002 and that the baby was taken from her shortly after delivery, allegedly under the supervision of Ghislaine Maxwell. The claims have not been independently verified.

There has never been public confirmation that Epstein had children, and none were listed in his will. Still, NDTV reported that lingering documents, emails and testimony continue to fuel questions about how far Epstein’s obsession with legacy and control may have gone.