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Botstein Steps Down

Episode 54: Botstein Steps Down

Walter Mullin and Emily Sachar on Leon Botstein's sudden retirement from Bard after the WilmerHale report on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Show notes

Leon Botstein is leaving Bard. After almost 51 years as president, he announced his retirement one day after the board got WilmerHale's review of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Walter Mullin and Daily Catch editor Emily Sachar talk through what the report says, what Botstein had told the public before, and why those two stories no longer match. The report includes a line Botstein gave investigators that the board chose to highlight: "I would take money from Satan if it permitted me to do God's work." It also says he visited Epstein's townhouse 25 times, made a two-day trip to Little St. James, and was around women later identified as Epstein's victims. The Daily Catch had already reported on the 2013 helicopter visit to Bard, when Epstein arrived with several young women and Botstein walked them around campus.
Emily walks through what the board did and did not know, including the 2014 Leon Black donation that came at Epstein's direction. She talks about the senior faculty member who warned Botstein off, the level three sex offender designation that anyone could have looked up in 2012, and the consulting fees Botstein took from an Epstein entity in 2016. She and Walter weigh the Bard that Botstein built against the choices he made, and look at what comes next: an interim leader, a national search, and whatever role Leon Botstein still holds at the college he ran for half a century.

Produced by Emily Sachar, Walter Mullin, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud at the Radio Free Rhinecilff studio

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Guests

Emily Sachar

Emily Sachar

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Walter Mullin

Walter Mullin

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