Interlochen Center for the Arts says it will tear down lodge formerly named for Jeffrey Epstein
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INTERLOCHEN, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan summer arts camp and boarding school where Jeffrey Epstein has been accused of meeting at least two of his victims will tear down a lodge that once bore his name.
The Interlochen Center for the Arts said this week that its board of trustees has approved a plan to demolish the Green Lake Lodge, which had been known as Jeffrey E. Epstein Scholarship Lodge until the school cut ties and scrubbed references to the late millionaire sex offender after his first conviction in 2008.
Epstein attended the Interlochen Arts Camp in 1967 as a teenager, and donated more than $400,000 to the school between 1990 to 2003, including $200,000 for the construction of the lodge.
“The lodge has, over time, come to carry associations that are not reflective of who we are as an institution or the values we strive to uphold,” Interlochen said in a statement. “After careful consideration, the Board determined that removing this structure in a safe and timely manner is the right step for Interlochen at this time.”
A world-renowned destination for young artists, actors and musicians, Interlochen’s alumni include Grammy winners Chappell Roan and Norah Jones and Oscar winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph.
At least two of Epstein’s accusers have said they met him at Interlochen in the 1990s.
The school said it was aware of news reports about the women’s claims and said it has invited them to speak with an independent investigator as part of an external investigation into reports of historical misconduct at Interlochen.
A pair of internal reviews, most recently after Epstein’s sex trafficking arrest in 2019, found no reports of misconduct at Interlochen involving Epstein in its records, the school said.
Epstein visited Interlochen periodically, often with his confidante and former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, and stayed in the lodge now marked for demolition.
According to correspondence included in the Justice Department’s recent release of Epstein-related records, he directed that tuition for at least one student be paid out of his donations and once flew violinist Itzhak Perlman to the school on his private jet.
Epstein killed himself in a federal jail in Manhattan in August 2019, a month after being indicted on federal sex trafficking charges. In 2008 and 2009, he served jail time in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18.
Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking for helping to recruit some of Epstein’s underage victims, and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.