MANCHESTER, N.H.- Inventor Dean Kamen has agreed to take leave of absence from FIRST Robotics, the nonprofit group which hosts programming for ages 5-18, while a private firm investigates his connection to Jeffrey Epstein.

Kamen announced his decision Sunday in which he explained that he would step away from the group’s board of directors effective immediately, pending an independent review. This decision comes after the Department of Justice on Friday released the latest batch of Epstein related files which featured a number of emails connecting Kamen with Epstein including one from 2013 that showed a detailed plan for Kamen to spend the night on Epstein’s private island.

However Kamen issued a statement to WMUR-TV explaining the reasoning as to why Epstein had contacted him, “Jeffrey Epstein reached out to me to become involved in my projects to bring clean water and distributed power to developing countries by offering resources and introductions to the leaders of those countries,” But Kamen was quick to note that he during the early part of the meetings he found Epstein’s only interest in the matter was self-promotion and that he avoided future meetings.

As a result of this and a number of other emails Kamen is encouraging FIRST’s board to conduct an independent review as he remains confident of its outcome as he says his philanthropic work is his highest priority and doesn’t want to deal with questions about its integrity.

It should be noted that Dean Kamen has not been accused of any wrongdoing or implicated in any of the crimes Jeffery Epstein was convicted of as Kamen maintains that he has had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes other than what he has learned from news reports.