Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College, personally acquired $150,000 for consulting charges in 2016 from a basis created by Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced billionaire accused of sexually abusing teenage ladies, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
In a short interview with The New York Times, Dr. Botstein confirmed the fee from the muse, Gratitude America, and stated that he donated all of it to the school as a part of a $1 million reward he gave that very same 12 months.
Dr. Botstein, 76, stated the remainder of his donation to the school got here from his private financial savings and earnings. He has been president of Bard College since 1975 and earned about $400,000 in 2016.
“I didn’t benefit personally at all,” he stated. The cash he acquired from Mr. Epstein’s basis, he stated, “made it possible for me to give as much as we were able to give that year” to the school.
He added: “I’m not a rich person.”
Dr. Botstein had beforehand stated that in addition to an unsolicited $75,000 reward and 66 laptops, Mr. Epstein had not given any presents to Bard.
On Wednesday, Dr. Botstein stated that he didn’t disclose the cash from the muse throughout a earlier interview with The Times earlier this month as a result of he was not conscious of it. He stated “the contract was signed by someone else” so Mr. Epstein’s title didn’t seem on his information. He stated he didn’t bear in mind the 2016 funds till he seemed into the matter after being requested by The Wall Street Journal.
Bard College stated in an announcement that Dr. Botstein gave the $150,000 as a part of his “annual 2016 gift to Bard, along with personal savings and the rest of his non-Bard income from honoraria and outside conducting fees, a practice he has maintained for many years.”
It is unclear whether or not the board of Bard College was conscious of this fee. Efforts to interview James Chambers, the board chairman, and different trustees weren’t profitable.
The fee is the most recent revelation that provides a deeper look into how Mr. Epstein used his cash to purchase affect. Mr. Epstein gave prolifically to many charities and universities, together with Harvard and M.I.T.
A report in The Wall Street Journal final month confirmed that Mr. Epstein’s community was wider than beforehand thought, together with figures just like the linguist Noam Chomsky and Lawrence Summers, the previous Treasury secretary and president of Harvard. Dr. Summers sought cash for a poetry basis, led by his spouse, Elisa New, a Harvard literature professor.
Dr. Botstein repeatedly pursued Mr. Epstein over a interval of a number of years, making quite a few visits to Mr. Epstein’s Upper East Side townhouse. Dr. Botstein stated these visits had been all about cash for Bard, a liberal arts faculty closely depending on rich donors.
“He enjoyed humiliating and dangling prospects,” Dr. Botstein informed The Times earlier this month. “He was sadistic. He absolutely strung me along.”
But in an announcement on Wednesday, the school stated that Mr. Epstein expressed curiosity in Bard’s music packages and launched Dr. Botstein, a conductor, to Gratitude America, which had shaped an advisory council of specialists from completely different disciplines.
The basis’s president, Richard Kahn — a longtime adviser to Mr. Epstein and an executor of his property — invited Dr. Botstein to serve a one-year time period on the advisory board as a music adviser, in line with the assertion. Mr. Kahn didn’t reply to messages left with telephone numbers and an e-mail tackle related along with his title.
The faculty’s assertion added, “Had the extent and horror of Epstein’s crimes been known, Bard would not have accepted his support.”
Source: www.nytimes.com