FILE PHOTO: President of Bard School Leon Botstein speaks through the “Altering Landscapes: From the Digital Classroom to the International Campus” panal through the TIME Summit On Greater Training on Oct. 18, 2012 in New York Metropolis.
Jemal Countess | Getty Photos
Bard School President Leon Botstein introduced Friday that he’ll retire on the finish of June after 51 years main the celebrated New York liberal arts college, a day after a regulation agency retained by its Board of Trustees delivered a essential report about his relationship with the late infamous intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“Nothing that President Botstein did in connection along with his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was unlawful,” WilmerHale legal professional Jamie Gorelick wrote in a abstract to these trustees, which CNBC obtained.
“However President Botstein made selections in the middle of that relationship that replicate on his management of Bard,” wrote Gorelick, who served as a deputy legal professional common within the Clinton administration.
Bard’s trustees retained WilmerHale in February to assessment its 79-year-old president’s relationship with Epstein after particulars about their communications have been made public with the discharge by the Division of Justice of paperwork, which made clear they have been extra intensive than beforehand recognized.
Botstein, who’s a famend orchestral conductor, has mentioned he cultivated Epstein as a donor for Bard, which is situated in Annandale-on-Hudson. His pursuit of Epstein got here a number of years after the shady cash supervisor pleaded responsible in Florida state court docket to soliciting a minor for prostitution and served a 13-month jail time period.
“President Botstein forcefully argues that Bard’s want for funds was paramount,” Gorelick wrote in her abstract of her report for Bard’s trustees.
“His view was, ‘I might take cash from Devil if it permitted me to do God’s work,’ ” Gorelick famous.
Jeffrey Epstein in 2004.
Rick Friedman | Corbis Information | Getty Photos
“President Botstein mentioned that he didn’t see a threat to Bard’s popularity in pursuing Epstein or the
potential threat to Bard college students of publicity to Epstein, nor did he think about that his actions may validate and legitimize Epstein to potential victims or their mother and father,” the legal professional wrote.
“In his public statements and his statements to the Bard neighborhood, President Botstein minimized and was not totally correct in describing his relationship with Epstein.”
Epstein, along with Botstein, had friendships with many high-profile individuals, together with President Donald Trump, former Harvard President Larry Summers, and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the brother of King Charles III of Britain.
Epstein died in August 2019 from suicide in a Manhattan federal jail, a number of weeks after being arrested on youngster intercourse trafficking prices.
A girl who answered the cellphone at Botstein’s residence on Friday referred inquiries to the faculty’s media affairs division.
Bard School, in a press release, mentioned, “Over the course of fifty years, President Botstein has been a transformative chief with the imaginative and prescient and unwavering dedication that has formed Bard into the world-class instructional establishment it’s at the moment.”
“We’re assured in Bard’s future and devoted to making sure this establishment all of us love continues to develop, thrive and mannequin excellence,” the faculty mentioned.
Botstein’s retirement assertion
Botstein didn’t point out Epstein by identify in his retirement announcement, which touted his position in Bard’s $1 billion endowment marketing campaign, which was accomplished in January. That marketing campaign was kick-started in 2021 with a $500 million problem grant from Open Society Foundations, the philanthropic community based by billionaire hedge fund investor George Soros.
However Botstein did reference the investigation of his contacts with Epstein.
“I consider it was prudent and in the very best curiosity of Bard to attend till the Wilmer Hale assessment was full to make this announcement,” Botstein wrote.
He mentioned in an electronic mail to Bard college students and college that he had beforehand knowledgeable the Board of Trustees of his intention to retire, “and focus my power as school member, instructor, and musician.”
He additionally mentioned, “I’ll proceed with the Bard Music Competition, SummerScape, and the Bard Conservatory and can stay at Finberg Home,” a campus residence, he wrote.
WilmerHale’s findings about Bard’s president
Gorelick, in her abstract, wrote that Botstein, in deciding to pursue donations from Epstein in 2012, didn’t attempt to perceive the small print of Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor woman for prostitution, and that he “disagreed with the view expressed by a senior school member, whom he had requested to assist with a proposal to Epstein, that Bard mustn’t interact with Epstein.”
Botstein was introduced with details about Epstein’s previous crimes and associated allegations towards him, Gorelick wrote.
“President Botstein relied on his view that an individual convicted of crimes involving intercourse with a
minor — ‘an odd intercourse offender’, in his phrases — may very well be presumed to be rehabilitated in the identical means that another convicted individual ought to, in his view, be provided that presumption,” Gorelick wrote.
Botstein had contacts with Epstein from 2012 by 2019, the yr of his intercourse trafficking arrest and loss of life. Throughout that point, Botstein visited Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse about 25 instances, visited Epstein’s Little St. James Island within the U.S. Virgin Islands for a two-day journey, welcomed Epstein for 2 visits to Bard, the lawyer mentioned.
The 2 males additionally attended “numerous live shows and recitals accompanied by a number of ladies who’ve since been recognized as victims of Epstein, and [Epstein made] a number of requests that President Botstein assist such ladies — within the type of invites to live shows and rehearsals, visits with the ladies and their mother and father, recommendation on their musical careers, and so on.,” Gorelick wrote.
“There have been many extra invites prolonged to Epstein — to remain at a Bard visitor cottage, to attend a live performance by conservatory college students, to go to Bard Excessive College Early School, for instance — that, had they been accepted, may have additional uncovered Bard college students to Epstein,” Gorelick famous.
She mentioned Botstein didn’t talk about with the board whether or not to simply accept donations from Epstein or whether or not he may “appropriately settle for funds from Epstein.
“President Botstein didn’t open up to or flag for the Board, when it accepted the contributions made by an entity referred to as Enhanced Training in 2011 and 2012, that these funds have been from Epstein.” Gorelick wrote.
And when the billionaire Leon Black made a donation to Bard in 2014, “which President Botstein understood had been made at Epstein’s behest, have been disclosed solely as funds from Black,” Gorelick wrote.
Leon Black, then-CEO of Apollo International Administration, on the Milken Institute International Convention in Beverly Hills, California, Might 1, 2018.
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
“In 2016, President Botstein accepted charges beneath a consulting settlement with an Epstein entity,” Gorelick wrote. “He didn’t disclose the settlement to the Board on the bottom that he meant to donate these funds to Bard.”
The lawyer mentioned that Botstein defined that the funds “have been donated to Bard by rolling them into his and/or his spouse’s contributions over time and weren’t individually recognized as coming from Epstein.”
“For that reason, the paperwork can not verify for the Board the contribution of these charges to Bard.” Gorelick wrote.
Owen Denker, a Bard scholar who’s the spokesman for the group “Take Again Bard,” which had sought to oust Botstein after revelations about his ties to Epstein, in a press release to CNBC, mentioned, “Whereas we’re happy with Leon Botstein’s choice, to step again, it doesn’t go practically far sufficient.”
“He must stop educating and conducting instantly,” Denker mentioned.
“Moreover, we have to see the systemic tradition of sexual abuse addressed, and shared governance together with school, employees, and college students to make sure comparable negligence doesn’t happen once more,” Denker mentioned.
The manager committee of Bard’s Board of Trustees, in a press release obtained by CNBC, mentioned the board “is grateful to President Botstein for his 5 a long time of service to Bard School, his numerous accomplishments and the lasting affect of his management.”
However the committee additionally mentioned, “The considerations raised in current months have been severe and deeply felt.”
The committee mentioned that Bard “is dedicated to strengthening its insurance policies on donor vetting, fundraising, and conflicts of curiosity.”
“Outdoors counsel is reviewing current insurance policies and can current findings and particular suggestions, together with on donor vetting procedures, to the Board and the event workplace,” the committee mentioned. “Funds related to Jeffrey Epstein can be directed to organizations that assist survivors of sexual hurt.”
