MIT prof acted ‘in concert’ with Epstein to hide donations, placed on leave
An independent law firm has found that an MIT professor deliberately hid hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from Jeffery Epstein to the institute.
The same professor also accepted a “personal gift” of $60,000 from Epstein which he failed to report to the institute.
An independent report reveals that a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology acted “in concert” with Jeffrey Epstein in order to conceal donations made by the convicted sex offender to the MIT Media Lab.
MIT revealed Friday the results of an investigation into $850,000 donated by Epstein to the MIT Media Lab over a period of 15 years and as recently as 2017. The review of the situation was conducted by an independent law firm, which cleared institute president L. Rafael Reif of having any knowledge of the donations.
However, mechanical engineering and physics professor Seth Lloyd was reportedly fully aware. Lloyd was placed on paid leave after the report revealed that he purposely neglected to report funding received from Epstein.
Lloyd was the direct recipient of $225,000 of Epstein’s research donations, all of which were received post-conviction.
Only $100,000 of Epstein’s total donations to the institute were made before his 2008 conviction.
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In addition to failing to report Epstein’s bankrolling of his research, the professor failed to report a $60,000 “personal gift” from the convicted sex offender which he deposited into a personal bank account.
The report notes that “Professor Lloyd knew that donations from Epstein would be controversial and that MIT might reject them,” and that all donations made after Epstein’s convictions were “driven by” either Lloyd or Media Lab director Joi Ito. The Media Lab received $525,000 from Epstein during this time.
Epstein also visited MIT at least nine times after his conviction, without the knowledge of MIT leadership.
“We conclude that, in concert with Epstein, he purposefully decided not to alert the Institute to Epstein’s criminal record, choosing instead to allow mid-level administrators to process the donations without any formal discussion or diligence concerning Epstein,” added the investigators.
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Lloyd’s work focuses largely on quantum physics, specifically “quantum computation and quantum communications, including proposing the first technologically feasible design for a quantum computer, demonstrating the viability of quantum analog computation, proving quantum analogs of Shannon’s noisy channel theorem, and designing novel methods for quantum error correction and noise reduction.”
“The report describes the actions of individuals and uses the names of the central figures — senior academics, administrative leaders and staff,” reasoned institute president Reif. In return for this transparency, I hope and expect that, in the best MIT tradition, we can respond with decency, fairness, and understanding.”
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