Harvard gives Jeffrey Epstein money to sex victims

Financier Jeffrey Epstein appears in a photograph taken for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services' sex offender registry March 28, 2017.
REUTERS
Ben Morgan13 September 2019

Harvard University is reviewing more than £7 million in donations from disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and will donate all unspent funding from him to victims of sexual crimes, its president has announced.

Lawrence Bacow said Epstein’s connections to Harvard and other colleges raise “important concerns”.

Mr Bacow said Harvard received nearly $9 million (£7.3 million) from Epstein between 1998 and 2007 but the Massachusetts institution had rejected a donation from him after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida.

Most of his donations have been spent, but a remaining $186,000 (£150,000) will be given to groups helping sex crime victims.

“Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes were repulsive and reprehensible,” Mr Bacow wrote in a message to past and present Harvard students.

“I profoundly regret Harvard’s past association with him.” The review was ordered two weeks ago but was only announced last night.

Epstein, 66, apparently committed suicide in jail on August 10 while he was waiting to be tried on federal charges of running a sex trafficking ring of under-age girls, some as young as 14.

He faced sex trafficking accusations in Florida in 2007 but signed a deal that year with prosecutors.

This controversial arrangment allowed him to avoid federal charges and plead guilty to lesser state

prostitution charges, for which he spent 13 months behind bars.

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