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Jeffrey Epstein Gave $850,000 to M.I.T., and Administrators Knew Jeffrey Epstein Gave $850,000 to M.I.T., and Administrators Knew
(about 2 hours later)
The convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein donated a total of $850,000 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and top administrators were aware of the gifts for years, according to a report released on Friday by a law firm hired by the university to investigate its ties to the disgraced financier. Over 15 years, the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein repeatedly donated to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Top administrators knew about the gifts, felt conflicted about them, and accepted them anyway. The university’s president even signed a thank-you note.
The firm, Goodwin Procter, found that Mr. Epstein made 10 donations from 2002 to 2017, and also visited the school nine times from 2013 to 2017. The school said last year that it had received roughly $800,000 over the past two decades from Mr. Epstein, who killed himself in his Manhattan jail cell in August while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. But on Friday, months after the campus was roiled by revelations of Mr. Epstein’s financial ties to the school’s prominent Media Lab program, investigators hired by the school absolved M.I.T.’s leadership of breaking any rules.
The university placed Seth Lloyd, a mechanical engineering professor who previously acknowledged a relationship with Mr. Epstein, on paid leave after the report found that he “purposefully failed” to inform M.I.T. of multiple donations from Mr. Epstein, including a $60,000 gift that was deposited into a personal bank account and not reported to the school. The law firm Goodwin Procter spent four months compiling a report on M.I.T.’s dealings with Mr. Epstein, who killed himself in his Manhattan jail cell in August while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. The investigation found that Mr. Epstein made 10 donations — totaling $850,000, slightly more than M.I.T. had previously disclosed — from 2002 to 2017. Mr. Epstein also visited campus at least nine times from 2013 to 2017, a period that followed his conviction on sex charges involving a minor in Florida.
Mr. Lloyd did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The university took action against only one person still connected with the school: Seth Lloyd, a mechanical engineering professor who previously acknowledged accepting money from Mr. Epstein, was placed on paid leave. The report found that Mr. Lloyd had “purposefully failed” to inform M.I.T. of multiple donations from Mr. Epstein, including a $60,000 gift deposited into his personal bank account.
The report found that three current and former M.I.T. administrators learned of Mr. Epstein’s donations to the Media Lab in 2013, but “in the absence of any M.I.T. policy regarding controversial gifts,” other donations were approved under “an informal framework” that the administrators developed. The report concluded that Mr. Epstein’s visits, along with any donations made after his 2008 conviction in Florida, had been enabled by Mr. Lloyd or Joichi Ito, the former director of the Media Lab who stepped down in September.
Denis A. Bovin, a member of the university’s executive committee, said at a news conference on Friday afternoon that M.I.T. had not thought such a policy was necessary. The 61-page report, based on dozens of interviews and a review of more than 610,000 emails and documents, cleared others of wrongdoing, including the university’s president, L. Rafael Reif. Mr. Reif acknowledged last year that he had signed a letter thanking Mr. Epstein for a donation in 2012, but the report said he “had no role in approving” the donations.
One current and two former M.I.T. vice presidents who learned of Mr. Epstein’s donations in 2013 and began quietly approving them were rebuked in the report, but not disciplined because it concluded that they had not broken any university policies.
The three vice presidents — R. Gregory Morgan, Jeffrey Newton and Israel Ruiz — made “significant errors in judgment that resulted in serious damage to the M.I.T. community,” according to the report.
Mr. Ruiz is the school’s executive vice president and treasurer, although the university announced last month that he would step down this semester for a career outside of academia. The announcement made no mention of the Epstein scandal.
Mr. Ruiz said in a statement that he was confident that the university’s leadership and broader community would “create an effective and successful path forward.”
Mr. Morgan and Mr. Newton have retired from the university. They did not respond to requests for comment.
According to the report, the men debated whether to accept Mr. Epstein’s money “in the absence of any M.I.T. policy regarding controversial gifts.” They reached a compromise: Under “an informal framework,” the school would accept the donations while insisting that the gifts be small and unpublicized to prevent Mr. Epstein from using them to improve his reputation or gain influence at the university, the report said.
Efforts to reclassify Mr. Epstein’s donations as anonymous “made it impossible for all but a select few to see the number or amount of Epstein donations,” the school’s executive committee said in a statement. The committee called for university employees “to take steps to protect and ensure the integrity and factual accuracy of the donor database.”
Denis A. Bovin, a member of the executive committee, said at a news conference that M.I.T. had not thought it would need a policy concerning gifts from someone with Mr. Epstein’s past.
“We never thought in our history that we’d have this kind of problem,” he said.“We never thought in our history that we’d have this kind of problem,” he said.
One of the administrators who knew of Mr. Epstein’s criminal history, Israel Ruiz, is M.I.T.’s executive vice president and treasurer. Last month, the university said he would step down this semester for a career outside of academia. The others, R. Gregory Morgan and Jeffrey Newton, previously retired from the university. Mr. Lloyd, the professor, is now under review in the mechanical engineering department, with proceedings “moving swiftly,” Alan G. Spoon, a member of M.I.T.’s board of trustees, said during a conference call with reporters.
Mr. Ruiz said in a statement that he was confident that the university’s leadership and broader community would “reflect on this episode and create an effective and successful path forward.” Mr. Lloyd, who was introduced by his book agent to Mr. Epstein in 2004, declined to comment.
Messages left for Mr. Morgan and Mr. Newton were not immediately returned on Friday afternoon. The report focused heavily on Mr. Ito, the former Media Lab director, who acknowledged raising $1.7 million from Mr. Epstein for the lab and his own outside investment funds. The disclosure raised an uproar at a program that prides itself on its contrarian culture.
The report said the senior administrators had made “significant mistakes of judgment” in accepting donations from Mr. Epstein after his 2008 conviction on sex charges in involving a minor in Florida, but had not breached any university policy. The university did not announce any disciplinary action against administrators. Mr. Ito, a master networker who raised at least $50 million for the Media Lab, met Mr. Epstein in 2013 at a TED conference in California and then “cultivated” the financier as a donor and a link to other wealthy people, according to the report.
After news of Mr. Epstein’s relationship with the school became public last year, the university set up two faculty-led committees to work on policies for gifts and the vetting of donors. Mr. Ito resigned from the Media Lab in September. He also stepped down from The New York Times Company’s board, as well as several other boards and a visiting professorship at Harvard. He did not respond to a request for comment.
“We must fix what needs fixing and improve what needs improving,” L. Rafael Reif, M.I.T.’s president, said in a statement Friday. The report found that Mr. Epstein’s presence on campus had disturbed Media Lab staff members — investigators were told that Mr. Epstein was sometimes accompanied by young female assistants — and that Mr. Ito probably sensed their nervousness. In 2013, Mr. Ito expressed concern that a proposed campus visit from Mr. Epstein and the director Woody Allen could result in a public relations headache, investigators found. A Media Lab communications employee distributed photos of one event to other people at the lab, writing in an email that they should “feel free to post on social media — as long as Jeffrey Epstein does not appear in any of the photos!”
Mr. Reif acknowledged last year that he had signed a letter thanking Mr. Epstein for a donation in 2012, four years after the financier’s plea. The 61-page report cleared Mr. Reif of wrongdoing, saying that he was unaware that the school’s prestigious Media Lab was accepting donations and “had no role in approving” the funds, according to the university. News reports about other internal emails previously demonstrated how Media Lab officials had obfuscated Mr. Epstein’s relationship with the program. The emails included references to donations from other wealthy figures that purportedly involved Mr. Epstein.
After Mr. Epstein was charged with sex trafficking in July, the Media Lab became ensnared in the public reckoning over the vast network of academic, business and political leaders who rubbed shoulders with the financier or accepted money from him. In one 2014 email, Mr. Ito wrote that a $2 million gift from the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates had been “directed by Jeffrey Epstein.” In a subsequent email, another lab official wrote that “for gift recording purposes, we will not be mentioning Jeffrey’s name as the impetus for this gift.” In another email exchange, Mr. Ito discussed how Mr. Epstein was helping to connect the lab to Leon Black, the founder of Apollo Global Management, a prominent private equity fund. One email indicated that Mr. Black had given the lab $4 million.
The lab’s director, Joichi Ito, acknowledged raising $1.7 million from Mr. Epstein for the lab and his own outside investment funds. The disclosure created an uproar at the Media Lab, a program that prides itself on its contrarian culture. Mr. Gates has denied that Mr. Epstein directed grant-making on his behalf. A representative for Mr. Black said he could not immediately be reached for comment.
Mr. Ito, a master networker who had raised at least $50 million for the Media Lab, resigned from the center in September. He also stepped down from The New York Times Company’s board of directors, as well as several other boards and a visiting professorship at Harvard. Roberto Braceras, a Goodwin Procter partner who led the investigation, said on the conference call that his team spoke with representatives of Mr. Gates, who “deny that any Gates donation had any relationship to anything regarding Epstein.” He said Mr. Black’s representatives could not be reached, but added that “there’s no evidence that Black’s donations were the result of Epstein’s encouragement.”
Internal emails demonstrated how Mr. Ito and other Media Lab officials took steps to conceal the lab’s relationship with Mr. Epstein. In one 2014 email, Mr. Ito wrote that a $2 million gift from the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates had been “directed by Jeffrey Epstein.” In a subsequent email, another official at the lab wrote that “for gift recording purposes, we will not be mentioning Jeffrey’s name as the impetus for this gift.” The university has already set up two faculty-led committees to work on new policies for gifts and the vetting of donors. Those committees are expected to deliver their recommendations in the spring, and the executive committee said administrators should work closely with them to put such policies in place as soon as possible.
Mr. Gates denied that Mr. Epstein had directed grant-making on his behalf, and the firm’s report said Mr. Gates’s representatives had flatly denied that Mr. Gates had donated at Mr. Epstein’s behest. Crystal Lee, a graduate student at M.I.T., said she was pleased that Mr. Lloyd was no longer teaching students. But she said the report did not answer all the questions she had.
In another email exchange, Mr. Ito discussed how Mr. Epstein was helping to connect the lab to Leon Black, the founder of Apollo Global Management, a prominent private equity firm. One email indicated that Mr. Black had given the lab $4 million by wire transfer. “I am still troubled by many of the specific details of the case that will go unresolved with the report’s air of finality,” she said.
The report said Mr. Black had acknowledged donating to charities affiliated with Mr. Epstein, but that he had not specifically addressed whether he had given to M.I.T. or whether Mr. Epstein had asked him to donate. For example, she said, the university offers only “woefully inadequate” support for mental health, despite the circumstances of the scandal.
Roberto Braceras, a Goodwin Proctor lawyer who led the investigation, said the firm had been unable to connect with representatives for Mr. Black but his team had seen no evidence that donations were made at Mr. Epstein’s direction. “We just can’t speculate,” he said. “I am optimistic that M.I.T. can and should change, if only because of my fellow students, who have done so much work to make this campus a better place,” she said.
A representative for Mr. Black said he could not immediately be reached for comment. Kate Kelly contributed reporting, and Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.