Jeffrey Epstein Board

[MiamiGent]

Top MIT officials knew of Epstein’s ties to Media Lab, e-mails show

By Deirdre Fernandes Globe Staff, September 9, 2019, 9:21 p.m.

Top level MIT fund-raising and finance officials were aware of Jeffrey Epstein’s extensive ties to the university’s Media Lab and agreed to keep them hidden, e-mails from a whistle-blower obtained by the Globe reveal.

The e-mails suggest that, far from acting alone, Media Lab employees and the research facility’s former director, Joi Ito, had a tacit understanding with some central university administrators to keep quiet Epstein’s financial contributions and his role in helping recruit other high-level donors.

Ito resigned on Saturday after an explosive report in The New Yorker alleged that he and other Media Lab employees deliberately masked the full extent of the center’s ties to Epstein and worked with the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender despite the university listing him as a “disqualified” donor.

But according to e-mails that circulated in 2014 and 2015 among university officials, at least two top MIT fund-raisers, along with a finance department administrator, were aware of Epstein’s involvement in the Media Lab and knew that his donations were to be treated as anonymous in the university’s donor tracking system.

The e-mails were provided by Whistleblower Aid, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit representing Signe Swenson, a former alumni coordinator and development associate at the media lab

Swenson told The New Yorker that she resigned in 2016 in part because she felt uncomfortable with the Media Lab’s associations with Epstein. In a statement on Monday, she said she came forward with the documents because she was concerned that Ito and MIT were offering only a partial explanation of the university’s ties with Epstein.

“When I heard the statements coming from Ito and MIT, I could tell they didn’t capture the whole story and were so carefully crafted not to deny what I knew to be true either,” Swenson said. “I saw MIT was closing ranks. I couldn’t accept that.”

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/09/09/top-mit-officials-knew-epstein-ties-media-lab-mails-show/OFEzFtD0mgic2zzXOSPe9J/story.html?et_rid=692192707&s_campaign=todaysheadlines:newsletter