- US financier Epstein committed suicide in prison
- Jeffrey Epstein's suicide in prison raises suspicions: what could he tell?
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08 September 2019 Director Joichi (Joi) Ito has resigned from the prestigious Media Lab of Boston MIT, overwhelmed by the controversy over donations received from Jeffrey Epstein, the financial billionaire accused of child sexual abuse, who committed suicide in prison on August 10 in New York while waiting for the trial.The first admission
Ito had admitted last August that he had accepted from Epstein 525,000 dollars for the laboratory and over a million for his investment fund, despite the billionaire's long been involved in accusations of sexual abuse of minors. New York federal prosecutors were going to try him for sexual trafficking and sexual abuse on underage girls, which lasted for several years from the early 2000s. Despite this, Joi Ito had defended his choice to accept donations and his work at Media Lab, refusing to resign. We were taken away from the director by some of the professors from the Media Lab, who resigned, while others signed a letter in support of Ito.
The New Yorker investigation
But the real news was not the 525 thousand dollars of donations: the weekly New Yorker revealed it on September 6, with an investigation by Ronan Farrow, the same journalist who revealed the 'Me Too' case, which showed how the Media Lab, under the direction of Ito, has had much more extensive financial relations with Epstein than what emerged in mid-August. According to the magazine's report, there are many e-mails that testify how the financier, whose frequentation of members of the scientific community was very well known, has been for years one of the main 'occult' channels, through front companies, of financing the Media Lab.
The letter from the president
A few hours after the publication of the New Yorker and the resignation of Joi Ito, a letter arrived to the community of MIT, the most prestigious research institution of the United States, signed by its president, Rafael Reif, in which it defines the accusations of the weekly " deeply disturbing ".
The president of MIT announces the opening of an investigation, entrusted to a law firm, to retrace the financial relations between employees of the Media Lab and the financier Jeffrey Epstein. "Because the accusations are extremely serious, they require an immediate, thorough and independent investigation." And he points out that "Joi Ito has submitted his resignation as director of the Media Lab and as a professor and employee of the Institute. As I wrote in my previous letter, the acceptance of Epstein's gifts resulted in an error of judgment. We are actively evaluating the best way to improve our policies, processes and procedures to fully reflect MIT values and prevent such errors in the future. Our internal review process continues, and what we learn from it will indicate the path to follow. "
"Take money"
The story also swept the public image of Nicholas Negroponte, the 75-year-old mythical internet guru, who co-founded the Media Lab in 1985 and was its director for 20 years. Negroponte, in a fiery internal MIT meeting, said he had recommended Ito to take Epstein's money. "If I put the clock back, I'd say again, take them." And he repeated, with even more emphasis: "Take it".