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MIT Researchers Forced to Write Thank You Notes, Asked to Dine With Donor Jeffrey Epstein

The MIT Media Lab received $125,000 in confidential donations tied to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein since 2015, years after he was convicted on sex crimes.

MIT asked staff to send thank you notes and dine with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein after he made donations to the institute’s Media Lab, according to architect and designer Neri Oxman. Speaking to the Boston Globe, Oxman details how she was asked to first present her research to Epstein in 2015, several years after he had already been convicted and served jail time in Florida for prostitution-related offenses. Former Media Lab director Joi Ito asked Oxman and others that the donations would be kept confidential because of Epstein’s criminal record, but yet they were asked to dine with Epstein and send him thank you notes. Oxman says she declined to dine with Epstein but did comply to Ito’s request to have her lab make him a thank-you gift: a grapefruit-sized, 3-D printed marble with a base that lit up.