The convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein "hoped to seed the human race with his DNA" by impregnating 20 women at a time at his New Mexico ranch, The New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing four people familiar with his thinking.

He has discussed the idea with scientists and others since the early 2000s at various dinners, conferences, and gatherings, The Times reported.

There is no evidence he acted on the idea, the report said.

Epstein has pleaded not guilty to new sex-trafficking charges and is in jail awaiting trial in New York.

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Jeffrey Epstein "hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women" at his New Mexico ranch and told scientists and confidants of his plan, The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing four sources familiar with his thinking.

The financier and convicted sex offender has discussed the idea since the early 2000s at various dinners, conferences, and gatherings, The Times reported. But there is no evidence he actually acted on it.

The idea was to impregnate 20 women at a time by inseminating them with his sperm, The Times reported, citing Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist and writer who said he heard the story secondhand from a NASA scientist who described her conversation with Epstein.

One scientist told The Times that Epstein was not shy about the idea, discussing it at a dinner in 2001. Another told the newspaper that Epstein talked about it with him at a 2006 conference in the Virgin Islands.

The idea likely comes from Epstein's well-known interest in transhumanism, a eugenics-like philosophy about enhancing the population by using modern technologies, The Times said.

Epstein pleaded guilty to two prostitution charges in court in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2008. Uma Sanghvi/Palm Beach Post via REUTERS

Read more: Jeffrey Epstein could face trial on sex-trafficking charges in June 2020, and his lawyers say there are more than 1 million pages of evidence

Lanier said the scientist told him that Epstein had been inspired by a 1980s-era sperm bank called the Repository for Germinal Choice, which claimed to offer sperm from Nobel Prize winners and shut down in 1999.

Lanier also told The Times he thought Epstein was screening candidates for his plan at his dinner parties, to which he frequently invited attractive and highly accomplished women.

Epstein reportedly rubbed elbows with prominent scientists to pursue his interests in eugenics and cryogenics

Epstein was charged earlier this month with trafficking dozens of underage girls. Prosecutors allege that Epstein paid girls to give him massages and perform other sex acts and that he arranged for some to recruit other young girls.

Epstein has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is being held without bail. He was convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution from a minor, though the plea deal's leniency was widely criticized.

Read more: Epstein's 'ground zero': How the financier reportedly wreaked havoc on the Royal Palm Beach High School community

A sketch of Epstein during a status hearing in his sex-trafficking case in July. Reuters/Jane Rosenberg

The Times reported that Epstein often exaggerated his intellect and scientific prowess when he interacted with members of an elite scientific community and that he used his connections to delve into subjects like eugenics and cryogenics.

He even told one transhumanism advocate that he wanted his head and penis to be cryogenically frozen, according to The Times.

Among the top scientists he socialized with, according to The Times, were the physicists Stephen Hawking and Murray Gell-Mann, the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, the neurologist Oliver Sacks, the molecular engineer George Church, and the theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek.

But Steven Pinker, the Harvard University professor and cognitive psychologist, told The Times he grew suspicious of Epstein after attending some of his elite "salons and coffee klatsches."

"He would abruptly change the subject, ADD-style, dismiss an observation with an adolescent wisecrack," Pinker said, calling Epstein an "intellectual impostor."

Pinker also told The Times that he once argued with Epstein once about the risk of global overpopulation and that Epstein had argued against giving food and healthcare to poor people because he believed it would contribute.