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It’s not clear when Allen and Epstein first crossed paths, though the two were longtime friends and neighbors on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for years. The director and his wife, Soon-Yi Previn, have been photographed a few times leaving the financier’s townhouse—including in September 2013, five years after Epstein pleaded guilty to child prostitution charges, when a Page Six headline declared: “Woody Allen pals around with child-sex creep.”

Epstein “was hugging him and talking close to his ear,” and “had his arm on Woody’s shoulder,” one witness told the tabloid, adding that the pals appeared to enjoy a stroll down Madison Avenue before arriving at Epstein’s seven-story mansion.

Around the same time, Epstein hosted another dinner at his New York home, where he introduced Allen to a connection at MIT. Joi Ito, former director of the MIT Media Lab, “met other influential individuals at meetings with Epstein, including Woody Allen, a senior executive at the Hyatt Corporation, and a former prime minister of Israel,” according to a report commissioned by the school on its ties to Epstein.

MIT staff even raised the possibility that Epstein would bring Allen to campus during his October 2013 visit. “Ito expressed concern that inviting Epstein and Woody Allen to campus could create a public relations headache for MIT,” the report states. Apparently citing the Page Six story, Ito tried to dissuade Epstein from bringing Allen. “Since you two were just in the news recently, I wonder if that might be bad,” Ito emailed the financier.

The duo also reportedly had another mutual friend: Allen’s former teenage mistress, model Christina Engelhardt, who was 16 when she began dating the director in 1976. Their secret relationship lasted eight years, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Engelhardt tells The Daily Beast that she worked as a personal assistant for Epstein in the early 1980s, back when he was “only a millionaire” and “wasn’t there yet” when it came to sex-trafficking underage girls. She says she told Epstein that she’d dated Allen, but that the two New Yorkers weren’t friendly yet.

In December 2010, Allen attended a lavish dinner at Epstein’s residence toasting Britain’s Prince Andrew, who faces abuse accusations himself from Virginia Roberts Giuffre, an alleged victim of Epstein’s. Other celebrity guests at the soiree included TV journalists Katie Couric, Charlie Rose, and George Stephanopoulos, publicist Peggy Siegal, and comedian Chelsea Handler.

https://news.yahoo.com/inside-woody-allen-close-friendship-090038127.html