Epstein donated to Harvard student group for years after sex conviction
From 2013 until his death, the sex offender donated at least US$375,000 to the Hasty Pudding Institute, Department of Justice files show
Long after Jeffrey Epstein was known as a convicted sex offender, he was also a top contributor to an elite cluster of groups founded by Harvard University students. For years, he was able to fill a table with “girls” at an annual gala that featured celebrities, billionaires and cultural luminaries.
Annual donations of at least US$50,000 to the Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770 – a non-profit umbrella for a social club, theatre troupe and a cappella singers – qualified him as a “Guardian of the Sphinx” at Order of the Golden Sphinx galas in New York from at least 2013 to 2019. His final invitation came just months before he was charged with federal sex-trafficking crimes and then hanged himself in a Manhattan prison.
Documents released by the Department of Justice (DOJ), including emails sent by an assistant, indicate Epstein would often fill his table with female acquaintances.
“Hello girls! Jeffrey would like you all to attend the Hasty Pudding Gala on April 13 at the Plaza Hotel,” Epstein’s assistant wrote in 2015 to recipients whose identities were redacted. “Let me know if you can go and who else we can invite to make the 10 (with JE approval of course ;)”
To one invitee, the assistant touted a chance to “wear a fancy dress and shoes!”