FILE PHOTO: President of Bard Faculty Leon Botstein speaks in the course of the “Altering Landscapes: From the Digital Classroom to the World Campus” panal in the course of the TIME Summit On Increased Schooling on Oct. 18, 2012 in New York Metropolis.
Jemal Countess | Getty Pictures
Bard Faculty President Leon Botstein introduced Friday that he’ll retire on the finish of June after 51 years main the distinguished New York liberal arts college, a day after a legislation agency retained by its Board of Trustees delivered a important 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 lawyer Jamie Gorelick wrote in a abstract to these trustees, which CNBC obtained.
“However President Botstein made selections in the middle of that relationship that mirror on his management of Bard,” wrote Gorelick, who served as a deputy lawyer 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 in depth than beforehand identified.
Botstein, who’s a famend orchestral conductor, has mentioned he cultivated Epstein as a donor for Bard, which is positioned 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 Pictures
“President Botstein mentioned that he didn’t see a danger to Bard’s repute in pursuing Epstein or the
potential danger to Bard college students of publicity to Epstein, nor did he take into account that his actions might validate and legitimize Epstein to potential victims or their dad and mom,” the lawyer wrote.
“In his public statements and his statements to the Bard neighborhood, President Botstein minimized and was not absolutely 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 baby intercourse trafficking prices.
A lady who answered the cellphone at Botstein’s residence on Friday referred inquiries to the school’s media affairs division.
Bard Faculty, in an announcement, 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 present.”
“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 school mentioned.
Botstein’s retirement assertion
Botstein didn’t point out Epstein by identify in his retirement announcement, which touted his function 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 imagine it was prudent and in the most effective 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 school that he had beforehand knowledgeable the Board of Trustees of his intention to retire, “and focus my vitality as school member, trainer, and musician.”
He additionally mentioned, “I’ll proceed with the Bard Music Pageant, SummerScape, and the Bard Conservatory and can reside 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 main points of Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor lady 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 have interaction 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 abnormal intercourse offender’, in his phrases — may very well be presumed to be rehabilitated in the identical manner that some other convicted particular person ought to, in his view, be on condition that presumption,” Gorelick wrote.
Botstein had contacts with Epstein from 2012 by means of 2019, the yr of his intercourse trafficking arrest and dying. Throughout that point, Botstein visited Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse about 25 occasions, 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 “varied 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 dad and mom, recommendation on their musical careers, and many others.,” 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 Faculty, for instance — that, had they been accepted, might have additional uncovered Bard college students to Epstein,” Gorelick famous.
She mentioned Botstein didn’t focus on with the board whether or not to simply accept donations from Epstein or whether or not he might “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 known as Enhanced Schooling 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 World Administration, on the Milken Institute World Convention in Beverly Hills, California, Could 1, 2018.
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Pictures
“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 supposed 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’t affirm 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 an announcement to CNBC, mentioned, “Whereas we’re happy with Leon Botstein’s resolution, to step again, it doesn’t go almost far sufficient.”
“He must stop instructing and conducting instantly,” Denker mentioned.
“Moreover, we have to see the systemic tradition of sexual abuse addressed, and shared governance together with school, workers, and college students to make sure related negligence doesn’t happen once more,” Denker mentioned.
The manager committee of Bard’s Board of Trustees, in an announcement obtained by CNBC, mentioned the board “is grateful to President Botstein for his 5 many years of service to Bard Faculty, his numerous accomplishments and the lasting affect of his management.”
However the committee additionally mentioned, “The considerations raised in current months have been critical and deeply felt.”
The committee mentioned that Bard “is dedicated to strengthening its insurance policies on donor vetting, fundraising, and conflicts of curiosity.”
“Exterior counsel is reviewing present 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 might be directed to organizations that assist survivors of sexual hurt.”
