Dr. Bernard Kruger, a doctor in Manhattan, has stepped away from roles at two concierge medicine practices after the public disclosure of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy sex offender who died in a jail cell in 2019.
The head of one practice, the Atria Health and Research Institute, sent an email to employees on Monday saying that Dr. Kruger had “recently retired and is no longer involved with Atria.” He had been a part-time, nonpracticing physician there, the email said.
A spokeswoman for the other practice, Sollis Health, a private emergency room, said on Friday that Dr. Kruger was on leave from the company’s board of directors “pending a review launched by management in consultation with external legal counsel when it became aware of Dr. Kruger’s past interactions with Jeffrey Epstein.”
The doctor had been part of a small circle of specialists catering to Mr. Epstein in the last decade of his life, The New York Times reported last week. As revealed in the tranche of Epstein files released by the federal government, the doctors gave V.I.P. treatment to the financier, his friends and many of the young women in his orbit — and were handsomely rewarded. Some of Mr. Epstein’s doctors worked at Mount Sinai, which has formed a committee to investigate those ties.
Dr. Kruger was a longtime physician to Mr. Epstein. In 2016, a private emergency room in Manhattan that he co-founded charged Mr. Epstein $15,000 for an annual membership that covered him and five “girls,” emails show. An accountant told Mr. Epstein that the practice — called Priority Private Care at the time, but now Sollis Health — did not require naming the patients, which would give him “more flexibility.” (A spokeswoman for Sollis said names were added later, and also said Dr. Kruger had never been a practicing physician there.)
Dr. Kruger’s medical office in Manhattan also appears to have allowed Mr. Epstein to book appointments without using names. In one case in 2018, the office sought to reschedule an appointment for “Jeffrey’s assistant” but didn’t know which assistant.
Dr. Kruger’s spokesman, Mark Botnick, said last week that the doctor believed that incident had been a clerical error. “The fact that Mr. Epstein was later revealed to be a serial predator does not implicate the physicians who cared for him,” he said.
On Friday, Mr. Botnick said that Dr. Kruger had “made the decision to retire from his role as a clinical consultant at Atria,” but declined to say whether he had been pushed to do so. He said of the Sollis review, “Dr. Kruger looks forward to the outcome of the inquiry and expects the results to be shared publicly.”
Atria, an elite practice that operates in New York, Florida and California, was founded after Mr. Epstein died in what was ruled a suicide. An Atria spokesman told The Times that Dr. Kruger had worked there since 2023.
The email announcing his departure from Atria said he had provided colleagues with support and thanked him for his contributions.
Maggie Astor covers the intersection of health and politics for The Times. She welcomes tips on Signal: @maggieastor.63.
The post Epstein Doctor Steps Away From Elite Health Clinics appeared first on New York Times.
