Harvard accepted over $8 million in donations from Jeffrey Epstein. The university plans to redirect unused funds toward supporting victims of human trafficking and sexual assault.
- Harvard University stated that in an ongoing review, the university found that it had accepted over $8 million in donations from the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
- To date, the review includes donations from Epstein between the years of 1998 and 2007, predating his conviction as a sex offender in Florida in 2008.
- The university plans to redirect $186,000 in unspent funds toward organizations that help victims of sexual assault and human trafficking, in response to the crimes that Epstein was accused of.
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Harvard University accepted over $8 million in donations from the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein between the years 1998 and 2007, according to message to the university published on Thursday stated.
The university plans to redirect $186,000 in unused funds to organizations that support victims of human trafficking and sexual assault.
Harvard University President Lawrence Bacow wrote a letter to the university community announcing an ongoing review of Epstein's donations, which began two weeks ago.
"Jeffrey Epstein's crimes were repulsive and reprehensible," Bacow wrote. "I profoundly regret Harvard's past association with him. Conduct such as his has no place in our society."
The review included donations from Epstein between the years of 1998 and 2007, predating his conviction as a sex offender in Florida in 2008. "To date, we have uncovered no gifts received from Epstein or his foundation following his guilty plea," Bacow wrote.
"The largest of these was a $6.5 million gift in 2003 to support the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics," the university president wrote. "The University received other gifts, which totaled approximately $2.4 million, based on current information."
Read more: Jeffrey Epstein had a 'Frankenstein'-like plan to analyze human DNA in the US Virgin Islands
Bacow noted in the letter that most of the funds had already been used as they weren't endowed funds, but he added that there is "one current use fund and one small endowment designated to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences with a total unspent balance of $186,000."
The university plans to redirect the unspent funds toward organizations that help victims of sexual assault and human trafficking.
Epstein died from suicide in a federal jail awaiting trial on one count of sex trafficking and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, related to an investigation into alleged abuse of underaged girls. Epstein pleaded not guilty to the charges. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to two state counts of soliciting prostitution and spent 13 months in a Florida county prison where he was granted work release for six days per week.
"This is an unusual step for the University, but we have decided it is the proper course of action under the circumstances of Epstein's egregiously repugnant crimes," the university president wrote.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has faced recent scrutiny for accepting donations from the disgraced financier. The MIT Media Lab was contact with Epstein following his conviction in 2008 and tried to conceal its connections, according to a report from the New Yorker. Joi Ito, who served as the director of the MIT Media Lab, resigned last week after the report.