Two people who attended a prestigious Michigan fine arts school reported conduct of a sexual nature by Jeffrey Epstein, a major donor, according to an investigation that also uncovered dozens of allegations spanning decades against nearly ۵۰ other people.
Interlochen Center for the Arts operates a summer camp and performing arts school that draws students from around the world. It hired a law firm in ۲۰۲۴ to investigate reports of sexual abuse by faculty and staff. Subsequently, it expanded the work to include information about Epstein, the ۶۶-year-old financier who killed himself in jail in ۲۰۱۹.
Interlochen removed Epstein’s name from a lodge after he was convicted of sex offenses in Florida in ۲۰۰۸. The building, renamed the Green Lake Lodge, was recently demolished after the US justice department released millions of pages about him that had been compiled over the years.
Sanghavi law office says it collected ۷۰ accounts from alumni alleging “physical conduct of a sexual nature” by ۴۷ faculty and staff members affiliated with Interlochen from the ۱۹۵۰s through the ۲۰۱۰s, most before ۲۰۰۰.
“The information gathered during this investigation is, simply, devastating,” the ۹۷-page report says, noting that alumni reported grooming, flirting, sexual touching and sex.
Interlochen said it has provided names of people accused of misconduct to Grand Traverse county authorities in northern Michigan to determine what steps, if any, might be taken. None are currently employed there and more than a third are dead.
“We are deeply sorry for the harm experienced by members of our community and extend our apologies to those impacted by abuse at Interlochen,” president Trey Davey and board chair Barrett Rollins said in a letter to the community posted online.
“While the vast majority of the incidents described in the investigation took place many decades ago, and reports of abuse at Interlochen have significantly decreased over the past ۲۵ years, the passage of time does not diminish the experiences of our alumni,” they said. “Sexual abuse committed by an adult in a position of power or trust against a student is wrong, then and now.”
Interlochen today “is fundamentally different from the institution described in this report”, Davey and Rollins wrote, with comprehensive safety policies and a changed culture.
Epstein, who played the bassoon, was an Interlochen camper in ۱۹۶۷. He donated more than $۴۰۰,۰۰۰ to the school between ۱۹۹۰ and ۲۰۰۳.
Two women told investigators that Epstein engaged in conduct of a sexual nature with them, one of them at the Interlochen lodge that bore his name.
He brushed against her body “over her clothes, in a manner in which he indicated was accidental”, according to the report.
Epstein also paid for her to visit him in New York while she was a student. She said “every time he was ‘handsy’ with her, she would freeze until he would stop”, the report states.
The other woman said she gave Epstein a massage at his home, according to the report, and he may have asked her to remove her top. She never had any further contact with Epstein or his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Outside of the school investigation, at least two Interlochen alumnae made allegations of grooming and abuse against Epstein and Maxwell, according to federal records and media reports. Their identities were not made public.
One testified against Maxwell in ۲۰۲۱ when she was convicted of sex trafficking. It is unclear whether those women spoke to the law firm hired for the Interlochen investigation.
