Jeffrey Epstein “facilitated” the construction of — but didn’t actually fund — Harvard’s $3.6 million Hillel building, according to a report Friday.
The deep-pocketed pedophile served as the financial manager to Leslie H. Wexner, the lead donor of the project, student newspaper The Harvard Crimson reported.
The newspaper reported in 2003 that Epstein’s name appeared on a plaque, alongside Wexner and his wife, as a donor of the building.
But Hillel Executive Director Rabbi Jonah Steinberg told the Crimson that Epstein never personally contributed cash toward construction of the building, which was completed in 1994 and is named Rosovsky Hall.
Its namesake, Henry Rosovsky, is a dean emeritus of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Epstein and Rosovsky linked up through Wexner in 1991, and Rosovsky later attended discussions held at Epstein’s office in Cambridge, according to the Crimson.
“Mr. Epstein facilitated a leading gift toward the construction of Harvard Hillel’s building, and his name was associated with that gift at the time – however, that gift itself was donated by the Wexners,” Steinberg wrote in an email. “Given that, and in view of Mr. Wexner’s having severed connections with Mr. Epstein, we were glad to list only Leslie and Abigail Wexner as having donated the naming gift for Harvard Hillel’s building.”
Steinberg said the only Epstein donation Hillel received was for $50,000 in 1991 “long before his criminal activities became known.” He didn’t respond to questions about whether that money would be returned, in light of Epstein’s criminal past.
On Thursday, Harvard admitted that it accepted $8.9 million in donations from Epstein — though claimed none of the money was given after the financier’s guilty plea in 2008 to soliciting an underage prostitute.
Epstein, who was made a Visiting Fellow in the school’s Department of Psychology in 2005, often sported Harvard-branded shirts — though he never attended the school.
He died last month in a jailhouse suicide weeks after he was charged with federal sex-trafficking conspiracy for allegedly abusing young women.
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