Penn’s Senior Vice President for Strategic Initiatives David Asch was mentioned in an email exchange between his high school classmate and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a Jan. 5, 2015 email to Epstein, New York University adjunct professor James Rosenwald III wrote that he and Asch had “toasted” to Epstein months before while celebrating Thanksgiving in the Hamptons. The exchange, first reported by NYU’s student newspaper, appears in the 20,000 Epstein-estate documents released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform as part of an ongoing investigation.
“Epstein was my high school physics teacher. The last time I had contact with him was nearly 50 years ago,” Asch wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian. “I would not have toasted him because he turned out to be a contemptible man. I am heartbroken for all of his many victims.”
Neither Asch nor Rosenwald has been accused of any involvement in Epstein’s crimes or wrongdoing.
A request for comment was left with Rosenwald.
In September, Penn President Larry Jameson announced “Penn Forward,” a new campuswide strategic framework spearheaded in part by Asch. Jameson also charged Asch with coordinating “In Principle and Practice,” the University's earlier initiative on which "Penn Forward" expands.
“Your name popped up again in the Press and I thought it was time to congratulate you on your wonderful financial successes since your days as my Physics prof at Dalton!!” Rosenwald wrote to Epstein just days after the former New York financier was accused of forcing a teenage girl to have sexual relations with several men.
In the message’s postscript, Rosenwald wrote that he and Asch “toasted” to Epstein during their “Thanksgiving weekend in Amagansett in November.”
Hours later, at 1:15 a.m. on Jan. 6, 2015, Epstein replied, writing “thanks, what is david doing?”
Both Rosenwald and Asch attended the Dalton School, a Manhattan private school where Epstein taught physics and math from 1974 to 1976. Several of Epstein’s female students previously told The New York Times that Epstein frequently flirted with the girls at Dalton. One student was “so concerned” that they raised the issue to a school administrator.
“Unless your PR advisor is Donald Trump, I am not sure that current press provides you with much benefit,” Rosenwald wrote in his initial message to Epstein. “Perhaps I am wrong? Not the first time!!”
In 2008, Epstein was sentenced to an 18-month jail sentence after pleading guilty to charges of solicitation of prostitution and solicitation prostitution from a minor.
Asch obtained an MBA from the Wharton School in health care management and decision sciences in 1989. He began teaching at Penn the same year. In addition to his administrative role, Asch currently holds the John Morgan endowed professorship at the Perelman School of Medicine and Wharton.
Asch has served as executive director of the Center for Health Care Transformation & Innovation since 2012. He also held the role of executive director at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics from 1998 to 2012.
