U.S. Justice Department records show that Dr. Mehmet Öz, now serving as President Donald Trump’s administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, emailed a Valentine’s Day party invitation in 2016 to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The disclosure is part of a sweeping release of millions of Epstein-related documents in recent weeks, made public under a bipartisan act of Congress.
The trove has shed new light on Epstein’s connections to influential figures in politics, finance, business and academia.
Öz, a former television physician turned public official, sent the invitation nearly a decade after Epstein’s first sex crime charges became public in July 2006.
Epstein, a financier with ties to elite circles, died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
The email, dated Feb. 1, 2016, was sent from Öz and his wife to Epstein. Its subject line read “Mehmet and Liza Öz’s Valentine’s Day Celebration” and it included a link to a digital invitation.
Öz is not accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment.
Öz appears several more times in the files, including in an email sent from an account under his name to Epstein on Jan. 1, 2016, with the subject line “Dr. Öz.” The body of the message is fully redacted.
Dean Ornish, founder of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute, invited Epstein to a 2014 event that featured Öz as a speaker, but Epstein appears not to have attended.
Öz’s name also appears on a list described as an “updated yes list for tomorrow evening” in a 2012 email from an unidentified woman with the subject line “Sunday, Dec. 9th Les Mis.”
Öz, 65, gained national prominence as a cardiothoracic surgeon and television personality. He hosted “The Dr. Öz Show” for more than a decade, dispensing medical advice to viewers.
