A photo showing New Hampshire inventor Dean Kamen pictured with Ghislaine Maxwell has been released by the US Department of Justice.
The photograph is among the documents released in a tranche of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The image shows Kamen and Maxwell riding on a Segway together with his arms around her sides and one of her hands resting on top of his as both smile at the camera.
Maxwell was Epstein’s former girlfriend, household manager, and a chief recruiter of young, vulnerable females. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence after she was convicted of sex trafficking charges.
Like many of the prominent people who have been depicted in recently released images related to Epstein, Kamen is not accused of any wrongdoing.
In a statement to WMUR, Kamen said he believes the photo was taken in or around 2002, while he was attending a TED conference as a speaker in Monterey, Calif. He said that Epstein was a central figure in the TED community for many years.
“I have no specific memory of this photo or any other interaction with Ghislaine Maxwell and had only limited interactions with Jeffrey Epstein,” he said.
“I hope that it goes without saying that those interactions in no way involved any wrongdoing and, in hindsight, with what I now know, I regret even those limited interactions. Again, I have no knowledge of any of the horrific actions of Jeffrey Epstein [or Ghislaine Maxwell] other than what I have learned from news reports,” he added.
Kamen was also pictured in another recently released photograph alongside Epstein and billionaire Richard Branson. That photograph was among those released by the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee earlier in December.
It shows Kamen smiling with an arm on Branson’s shoulder as Epstein walks behind them in a tropical location. Kamen said it was taken at Branson’s Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands, where he had been a guest multiple times for conferences and fund-raising events.
Kamen is a well-known entrepreneur in New Hampshire who became famous for inventing the Segway, a self-balancing personal transportation device. His business, DEKA Research & Development Corp., is based in Manchester, N.H., and focuses on medical innovations. He is also the executive director of the nonprofit Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute, or ARMI, which is working to develop biomanufacturing technology to eventually grow human tissues and organs.
For her part, Maxwell had another New Hampshire connection. In July 2020, she was arrested at a sprawling Bradford property.
In court documents included in the Epstein files, US prosecutors described Maxwell hiding out on the 156-acre property, purchased for more than $1 million in cash in December 2019 through a carefully anonymized LLC.
She used an alias while meeting with a real estate agent in November 2019, introducing herself as Janet Marshall, a journalist who wanted privacy and who wanted to purchase the property quickly through a wire transfer, a prosecutor said during Maxwell’s bail hearing.
The prosecutor said Maxwell was able to complete the transaction using the fake name, and then successfully lived in hiding, undetected by the public, until her arrest.
It was only after Maxwell’s arrest that the real estate agent realized the person who toured the house as Janet Marshall was in fact Maxwell.
Early on the morning of July 2, 2020, FBI agents arrived at the Bradford property, which was barred by a locked gate, according to government filings. A private security guard was also working. When they told Maxwell to open the door, she fled to another room, and the agents had to breach the door to enter the house and arrest her.
While conducting a security sweep of the house, the agents also found a cellphone wrapped in tin foil on top of a desk, which prosecutors described as a misguided attempt to avoid detection by law enforcement.
The private security officer told the FBI that he was hired by Maxwell’s brother to guard Maxwell and the Bradford property. The guard said he was given a credit card in the name of the LLC used to purchase the house, which he used to make purchases for the property. He also told them Maxwell had not left the property in the time he had been working there, according to government filings.
After her arrest, Maxwell was transferred to the Merrimack County Department of Corrections, where law enforcement emails described that she would be closely monitored on 15-minute intervals, given the high-profile status of the case.
Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.