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Is this passage from the article not damning?

> According to Swenson, Ito had informed Cohen that Epstein “never goes into any room without his two female ‘assistants,’ ” whom he wanted to bring to the meeting at the Media Lab. Swenson objected to this, too, and it was decided that the assistants would be allowed to accompany Epstein but would wait outside the meeting room.

> On the day of the visit, Swenson’s distress deepened at the sight of the young women. “They were models. Eastern European, definitely,” she told me. Among the lab’s staff, she said, “all of us women made it a point to be super nice to them. We literally had a conversation about how, on the off chance that they’re not there by choice, we could maybe help them.”

They continued to work with someone whom they suspected of trafficking women. Not years prior, before his trial — right there in their own office. That’s beyond the pale. That’s what “tainted” means.

Yes, Epstein’s plea deal for 13 months of prison time with offsite work privileges was a monstrous miscarriage of justice. That’s also an issue we need to fix. But let’s not pretend that this is the first we’re learning of the justice system’s heavy tilt in favor of rich people. There is no way Ito and Gates were unaware of how someone’s wealth and connections could allow them to escape justice.

> They continued to work with someone whom they suspected of trafficking women. Not years prior, before his trial — right there in their own office. That’s beyond the pale. That’s what “tainted” means.

So anyone who interacted with Epstein while his assistants were present is tainted? Or is taint contingent upon suspicion? If you met Epstein and decided that the rumors were baseless, are you not tainted?

> Yes, Epstein’s plea deal for 13 months of prison time with offsite work privileges was a monstrous miscarriage of justice. That’s also an issue we need to fix. But let’s not pretend that this is the first we’re learning of the justice system’s heavy tilt in favor of rich people. There is no way Ito and Gates were unaware of how someone’s wealth and connections could allow them to escape justice.

I'm tired of hearing people say things like "we know the rich can abuse the justice system" and shrugging it off with "that's a problem we have to fix". Yes, those things are true, but it's the problem we have to fix. Choosing to spend your time and energy criticizing people who didn't vet their acquaintances to your high standards or accepted money from unclean sources is unproductive. Pardon my bluntness, but I simply don't care very much that various people lack the moral scruples required to avoid the Epsteins of the world. I think most people lack those scruples, it's just that most people never get an opportunity to interact with an Epstein in the first place. They are never tempted.

How exactly did Epstein's wealth and connections get him off? That's the crux of the issue. Everything else seems like a sideshow to me.

This may disappoint you, but I don’t have a clear objective definition of what qualifies as tainted. The Media Lab intern who got him coffee is fine. Continually working with him to secure millions of dollars in funding — again, while suspecting him of still being a sex trafficker — is not. Them’s the breaks.

You asked how Epstein’s wealth and connections got him off. Here’s how: he knew powerful people who were willing to minimize or ignore his transgressions. That’s it. It’s how he escaped with such a lenient sentence legally, and it’s how he was able to continue working with organizations like MIT Media Lab professionally. You’re acting like these are entirely separate issues, when really they’re just two sides of the same coin.

I think it's probably fair to say he blackmailed powerful people. Especially the lawyers of kirland under lefkowitz

Wow I was downvoted for hard speech again. Ohh hackernews

> You asked how Epstein’s wealth and connections got him off. Here’s how: he knew powerful people who were willing to minimize or ignore his transgressions. That’s it. It’s how he escaped with such a lenient sentence legally, and it’s how he was able to continue working with organizations like MIT Media Lab professionally. You’re acting like these are entirely separate issues, when really they’re just two sides of the same coin.

I am very interested in exactly how "knowing powerful people" translates into a plea deal. That process is what I would like to focus on, and I am not willing to take it on faith that this is the result of a general kind of apathy or a sense that Epstein was beyond punishment.

The Daily Beast reported that Acosta told the Trump transition team that he had struck the plea deal because he "was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and he should lay off." While on some level I agree with you that this is the more fundamental and important source of rot and corruption that needs to be excised, it's also the case that many different institutions at all levels of society took part in creating Jeffrey Epstein and they should all be held to account.

Maybe people are just hungry for a "win" here and the MIT Media Lab is an easier/weaker target than the CIA or Mossad. I'd feel bad for them if their behavior in this saga hadn't been utterly reprehensible and telegraphed at so many points that they knew what they were doing was wrong.

The state almost always wants to make a plea deal in criminal cases, since trials are really time-consuming and expensive. IIRC, upwards of 90 percent of US criminal convictions arise from guilty pleas for this reason. Typically, accused criminals are much less powerful than the prosecuting attorney’s office, so the state more or less gets to set the terms of the plea bargain. (This isn’t really a good thing!) But when the accused criminal has hundreds of millions of dollars, and access to high-powered lawyers like Dershowitz and Starr, then he has a lot more power to set the terms. No prosecuting attorney wants to be on the wrong side of an acquittal like OJ Simpson or Robert Durst.

Well then, aren't those powerful people the ones whose names we should be dragging through the mud? These are the ones that got him free. Shining the spotlight anywhere else before you shine it there, is just blindness. It should be more alarming how he got that lenient sentence because that's the justice system failing.

> wealth and connections could allow them to escape justice

Back in 2008 Epstein was officially convicted. Now Epstein is dead.

Do you mean that Epstein's wealth and connections allowed Epstein to escape justice by suicide?

The idea that none of these people were ever exposed to further evidence of what a piece of shit Epstein was is an utterly incredible notion. He would blurt out "what does that have to do with pussy?" in the middle of the discussion at the scientists' dinners he hosted. He showed a keen interest in eugenics. And more than a few of the MIT Media Lab went with him to the island which the locals had nicknamed "pedophile island."

There is no way that none of these people -- especially the ones with means, like Bill Gates or Reid Hoffman -- had any inkling of Epstein's real nature. They just calculated that his money outweighed the risk to themselves or their institution from taking it, not to mention the shame (if they indeed ever felt any whatsoever) of helping a convicted sex offender against children rehab his reputation.

> I also think it's unreasonable to expect people whose job is begging for money (and whose continued employment is tied to their ability to get it) to be particularly stringent about whom they accept the money from.

For one thing, it's absolutely a fundraiser's job to be stringent about who they accept money from. Non-profits and banks are subject to money-laundering and anti-terrorism-financing laws that explicitly dictate "know your customer" (or donor in this case). You should never ever, deal with people that you're not comfortable being publicly associated with.

> If the feds let Epstein off, he probably didn't do anything that bad, right?

That's the source of this entire controversy, and a point that I vehemently disagree with. The prosecutor who gave him that plea agreement had to resign from his Trump admin post because of the backlash from his decision. Epstein was accused of horrific crimes, which there were mountains of evidence attesting to, and yet he basically walked away and the investigation just stopped.

Epstein got a deal because he was friends with people like Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew, who certainly wouldn't want an investigation into the nature of their relationships. Based on what's available publicly, it's absurd to argue that the Feds didn't punish Epstein, ergo Epstein didn't really do anything "that bad".

Grooming and sexually abusing minors for decades certainly sounds "that bad."

> That's the source of this entire controversy, and a point that I vehemently disagree with. The prosecutor who gave him that plea agreement had to resign from his Trump admin post because of the backlash from his decision. Epstein was accused of horrific crimes, which there were mountains of evidence attesting to, and yet he basically walked away and the investigation just stopped.

You misunderstood my point completely. I'm not saying that the government's decision to give him a deal actually means he didn't do anything wrong. I'm saying that it likely appeared that way to many people.

> Epstein got a deal because he was friends with people like Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew, who certainly wouldn't want an investigation into the nature of their relationships.

Is that why he got a deal? Can you provide documentation of this? To me, this is the crux of the issue. If "knowing people" is enough to get a plea deal then we have a problem, a much bigger problem than "MIT accepted $ from bad person".

> Based on what's available publicly, it's absurd to argue that the Feds didn't punish Epstein, ergo Epstein didn't really do anything "that bad".

As mentioned above, I'm not making this argument. I'm arguing that it wasn't absurd to think this way before the Epstein thing went mainstream. There were all kinds of rumors swirling around Epstein and I don't think it would have been unreasonable at all to dismiss them as rumors based on the fact that the feds let him off with a deal.

> You misunderstood my point completely. I'm not saying that the government's decision to give him a deal actually means he didn't do anything wrong. I'm saying that it likely appeared that way to many people.

This naiveté is undermined by the fact that the fundraisers themselves had very serious discussions about what to do if the women he insisted accompany him anywhere were being trafficked and wanted a way out. They knew exactly who this guy was, the story makes it perfectly clear.

I really thought you were trolling with your posts and I am trying to see even a glimpse of your argument and agree but can’t. It is like the age old saying “if you lay with dogs you get fleas” and this is 2019 the entire world is connected and our actions and reputation now expand the globe. So maybe it is okay for your morals to associate with pimps and child rapists but MIT has other donors and associates that it is actually against their morals to associate with such people. MIT new this and tried to hide the fact. There are several types of lies and this feels like a lie by omission because they knew other donars likely would distance their money away from child rapists. Is there some law forcing them to disclose all their donars, no. But they knew that fact would upset others even going as far as telling their professors this is hush hush. So they risked it and got caught. Shame on them.

> Non-profits and banks are subject to money-laundering and anti-terrorism-financing laws that explicitly dictate "know your customer" (or donor in this case). You should never ever, deal with people that you're not comfortable being publicly associated with.

Huh? KYC only requires you to check that the money is legal (on both ends - incoming (money laundering) and outgoing (financing terrorism)). Nothing else.

Personally, I'd prefer to take money from someone like Epstein. I'm 99.99% certain I can direct the money to a better goal than he can (I'm only about 40% certain about Gates' money and about 2% certain about Musk's money).

The criticism is that you are letting an Epstein character buy your organization's credibility and social capital, not that the financial capital isn't being put to its best and highest use.

Indeed, which is why you should keep his name off the donor list (and any buildings), and/or publicly disavow his (other) actions.

The problem isn’t “donating money”. The problem is “selling something” (be that influence and prestige in case of Epstein, or equity and future profits in case of Saudi money).

Rapists that donate are better than rapists that don’t donate. Disagreeing with that is a classical case of the ad hominem fallacy (“you’re bad therefore everything you say / do is bad”). In case of Epstein an additional problem was that he was a powerful rapist. But the proposition that his power came from donations is naive. Power and donations have a common cause - money.

>"My point is that seven degrees of separation from Jeff Epstein seems like a distraction from the real issues here."

Except that its not seven degrees of separation its exactly one degree:

"Mr. Ito said during the meeting that he had visited Mr. Epstein’s Caribbean island twice to raise money, which he has pledged to return or donate to causes that support sex-trafficking victims."[1]

And just to be clear that Ito was in fact aware:

">Nicholas Negroponte, a prominent architect who helped found the lab in 1985, told the crowd that he had met Mr. Epstein at least once since Mr. Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea in Florida for soliciting a minor for prostitution, and had advised Mr. Ito about the donations. I told Joi to take the money,” he said, “and I would do it again.”

>"Also consider that Epstein's plea deal probably gave people like Ito and Gates some source of comfort."

Wait, what? Why should anyone consider that? What kind of people take comfort in a wealthy person using their connections to bargain down a federal sax trafficking charge down to two felony "prostitution with a minor" charges?

[1]]2]https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/business/media/mit-media-...