Harvard Office of General Counsel: Review of Epstein-related relationships

# REPORT CONCERNING JEFFREY E. EPSTEIN’S CONNECTIONS TO HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Diane E. Lopez, Harvard University Vice President and General Counsel Ara B. Gershengorn, Harvard University Attorney Martin F. Murphy, Foley Hoag LLP

# INTRODUCTION

On September 12, 2019, Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow issued a message to the Harvard Community concerning Jeffrey E. Epstein’s relationship with Harvard. That message condemned Epstein’s crimes as “utterly abhorrent . . . repulsive and reprehensible” and expressed “profound\[\] regret” about “Harvard’s past association with him.” President Bacow’s message announced that he had asked for a review of Epstein’s donations to Harvard. In that communication, President Bacow noted that a preliminary review indicated that Harvard did not accept gifts from Epstein after his 2008 conviction, and this report confirms that as a finding. Lastly, President Bacow also noted Epstein’s appointment as a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Psychology in 2005 and asked that the review address how that appointment had come about.

Following up on President Bacow’s announcement, Vice President and General Counsel Diane E. Lopez engaged outside counsel, Martin F. Murphy of Foley Hoag, to work with the Office of General Counsel to conduct the review. Ms. Lopez also issued a message to the community providing two ways for individuals to come forward with information or concerns about Epstein’s ties to Harvard: anonymously through Harvard’s compliance hotline and with attribution to an email account established for that purpose. Since September, we have interviewed more than 40 individuals, including senior leaders of the University, staff in Harvard’s Office of Alumni Affairs and Development, faculty members, and others. We also collected and conducted targeted searches and reviews of more than 250,000 pages of documents, including records from the development office and, pursuant to procedures the University adopted in 2014 and amended in 2015, emails from a number of faculty and staff.1 There were eight reports to the hotline and sent in by email, and we followed up on the issues raised in these messages as part of our review. We are thankful for the many who spoke with us and who brought forth their concerns about this matter.

This report summarizes the principal facts we have learned in the course of the review, and makes recommendations based on those findings. Our findings and conclusions are drawn from (and therefore necessarily limited by) the documents we reviewed and credible information provided by the individuals we interviewed.

# SUMMARY OF PRINCIPAL FINDINGS

# FINDINGS CONCERNING EPSTEIN’S FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF HARVARD

1. Between 1998 and 2007, before his 2008 conviction on charges relating to soliciting minors for prostitution, Epstein made $$ 9,179,000$ in gifts to Harvard to support Harvard faculty members and programs. Epstein’s gifts to Harvard included $$ 736,000$ in support provided after his 2006 arr

... (truncated, 66 KB total)