Epstein Donated Big Dollars to Prestigious Art Camp, Reportedly Had Private Lodge Next to Junior Girls Section
The following is a Price of Business Digital Network Media Wrap Up, Created for USA Business Radio.
In the “fact is stranger than fiction” (or at least creepier) department, we see this report from The Daily Beast under the disturbing headline “Epstein Had His Own Lodge at Interlochen’s Prestigious Arts Camp for Kid”:
Since Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest for allegedly trafficking underage girls, authorities have cast a spotlight on his massive wealth and many properties, including his New York and Florida mansions, New Mexico ranch, private isle in the Virgin Islands, and apartment in France.
But during the 1990s, Epstein apparently had another getaway, at a Michigan cabin. There, the 66-year-old financier was a donor to the revered Interlochen Center for the Arts, a fine-arts boarding school and camp, and had bankrolled the “Jeffrey Epstein Scholarship Lodge” on its campus.
Indeed, The Daily Beast has discovered that Epstein listed this rental lodge in his infamous Little Black Book—a veritable rolodex of famous faces, from President Donald Trump and his lawyer Alan Dershowitz, to Harvey Weinstein’s brother Bob and even Courtney Love. The address book also contained the names of a pair of students who had attended Interlochen.
Beside the words “Michigan Home” and “Epstein Lodge” in the Little Black Book were the P.O. Box and address for Interlochen, along with three area phone numbers.
And in August 1998, Epstein and his alleged madam, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, took a five-day jaunt to Traverse City, Michigan, which is a short drive from the school, along with two other passengers, according to flight records.
The academy and summer camp, a gem in the quiet woods of northern Michigan, is known for churning out world-famous talent. Interlochen’s star-studded alumni include musicians like Jewel, Josh Groban, and Norah Jones, comedian Maria Bamford, Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, and actors Terry Crews and Felicity Huffman.
Epstein also counted himself as an alumnus. Katharine Laidlaw, Interlochen’s vice president of strategic communications and engagement, told The Daily Beast he attended Interlochen’s “National Music Camp” in 1967. His course of study was Bassoon/Orchestra/Radio, Laidlaw said… READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE IN ITS ENTIRETY.
According to the Raw Story: “The mother of soap opera actress Nadia Bjorlin has previously accused Epstein of attempting to groom her daughter, when she was a 13-year-old student at the camp in 1994.
“’She was at school at the famed Interlochen Music Center in Michigan when she met Epstein,’ Fary Bjorlin told The Daily Mail in 2011. ‘My daughter was a singer. She was a baby, she was a skinny little girl, not mature for her age. She was 13, but everyone thought she was nine or 10.’”
The Interlochen Camp is in Michigan, so it is now surprise that the Detroit Free Press weighed in:
“The report said Epstein was a 1967 attendee of the school’s music camp and, in later years, a benefactor. In one instance, he provided funding for a “Jeffrey Epstein Scholarship Lodge,” a rental lodge on the woodsy northern Michigan campus, according to the Daily Beast.
“In a 1995 story on the rental lodge by Log Home Living magazine, it is described as a barrier-free, handicapped-accessible structure built “to generate revenue for the camp scholarship fund.”
A school administrator told the online news site that Epstein is no longer a donor and made his final contribution to Interlochen in 2003.
The source, Katharine Laidlaw, vice president of strategic communications and engagement, also informed the Daily Beast via email that Interlochen stopped communication with Epstein and removed his name from “all donor recognition” after learning of “his conviction.”
