'Smoking Gun': Yale prof nearly blown up by Unabomber defends his Epstein emails

David Gelernter, a professor of computer science at Yale University and chief scientist at Mirror Worlds Technologies, survived an explosive letter he received in 1993 from Theodore "Ted" Kaczynski, the domestic terrorist known as the Unabomber.

It appears, however, that his reputation has taken a hit over letters he sent years later to Jeffrey Epstein — especially since he has emphasized he regrets "nothing" about his relationship with the child sex offender.

The package

Kaczynski targeted businessmen, scholars, and random civilians with homemade bombs from 1978 to 1995, injuring over 22 victims and ultimately killing three people. Among the Unabomber's victims was Gelernter.

'Gentlemen and ladies don't read each other's mail.'

On the morning of June 24, 1993, the Yale professor — who had just returned from a vacation in the national capital — sat down in his office in Arthur K. Watson Hall to catch up on his mail. Along with various envelopes, waiting for him was a package, which he reportedly thought was a Ph.D. dissertation.

Gelernter recalled that when he tore it open, he was greeted by smoke, a hiss, and a flash. Shocked, missing a few fingers, and under the impression that multiple bombs "must be going off all over campus," the professor fled the building, bleeding profusely.

"I saw the bones sticking out in all directions and the skin crumpled like paper," he later wrote.

According to the Yale Daily News, the computer professor suffered severe wounds to "his abdomen, chest, face and hand, and even today Gelernter does not have the use of his right hand."

The Unabomber later sent the professor a letter in April 1995 providing some insight into his animus toward technologists, writing, "People with advanced degrees aren't as smart as they think they are. If you'd had any brains you would have realized that there are a lot of people out there who resent bitterly the way techno-nerds like you are changing the world."

RELATED: Dear Uncle Ted

Photo by Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan/Getty Images

The threatening letters sent his way by the terrorist helped boost Gelernter's profile. The letters Gelernter later sent to Epstein now threaten to tear it down.

The letters

David Gelernter's name repeatedly shows up in the Epstein files released on Jan. 30 by the Department of Justice, specifically in emails sent from 2009 to 2015.

Blaze News has reached out to Gelernter for comment.

'I have no idea who my successor will be.'

Some of Gelernter's letters to and from Epstein — exchanged years after Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring a child for prostitution — discuss meetups, a visit to Yale, architecture, business opportunities, and art shows.

The author of an especially questionable letter dated Oct. 11, 2011, and signed "David" — a letter Gelernter has reportedly defended writing — told Epstein about a female student he was recommending for a job in 2011, describing her as a "Yale sr, worked at Vogue last summ=r [sic], runs her own campus mag, art major, completely connected, v small goodl=oking [sic] blonde."

RELATED: Massie drops bombshell after review of unredacted Epstein files, helps put name to alleged co-conspirator

Photo by James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images

Yale spokeswoman Karen Peart told CT Insider in an email last week that "the university does not condone the language used by the professor or the conduct he describes in his emails."

Gelernter told the CT Insider that at the time of writing, he had no idea about Epstein's status as a sex offender, that he was never exposed to Epstein's sex trafficking operation, and that he only became aware of the sex offender's criminal history around five years ago.

"From my standpoint, he was one of the two (maybe three) smartest men I'd ever met," Gelernter told the publication. "He was fun to talk to."

"Fondness for little girls is a perversion that runs way outside ordinary locker-room talk," the professor noted further. "No one would ever introduce it into normal conversation."

The professor subsequently stated in a Feb. 4, 2026, letter to Yale's engineering school Dean Jeffrey Brock that was forwarded to the Yale Daily News, "I was recommending her for a job I thought she'd like. When you do that — when you actually care about a rec letter — you keep the potential boss's habits in mind."

"So long as I said nothing that dishonored her in any conceivable way, I'd have told him more or less what he wanted. She was smart, charming & gorgeous. Ought I to have suppressed that info? Never!" continued Gelernter. "I'm very glad I wrote the note."

When asked the next day whether he regretted any part of his relationship with Epstein, Gelernter told the Yale Daily News, "Nothing."

Gelernter's latest statements defending his correspondence with Epstein have apparently already led to consequences.

In a message to his students obtained by the CT Insider, Gelernter reportedly indicated that he had been removed from the class.

"For now on I no longer teach CPSC 4500. I have no idea who my successor will be," wrote the professor, who has tenure at the university.

In his letter to students, Gelernter again defended his October 2011 letter to Epstein, claiming that the student referred to wanted to be recommended for a job working on the financial side of Epstein's private bank; stating that neither he nor the student were aware that Epstein was a sex trafficker; and condemning the university for taking issue with a personal email.

"The university's Smoking Gun is a personal, private email, dug out of the dump of Epstein files. (If someone handed you a a stack of other people's private correspondence, would you dive in and read them? Of course not. Gentlemen and ladies don't read each other's mail. (Courtesy 101.)," wrote Gelernter.

According to ratings from students on Yale's internal professor evaluation system, Gelernter reportedly ranked dead last among the 82 professors who have taught computer science courses at the university since 2020 and in the bottom 2% of all professors across the university.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!