An undated image of Bard College President Leon Botstein, left, with financier and registered Level 3 Sex Offender Jeffrey Epstein that was part of the trove of U.S. Justice Department materials released early this year. The photo was taken during one of Epstein's campus visits.

Slightly more than two pages in length, the WilmerHale law firm’s summary of its investigation into the strange case of Leon Botstein and Jeffrey Epstein offers up this quote from the president of Bard College: “I would take money from Satan if it permitted me to do God’s work.” 

With apologies to the Book of Genesis, it can be said that Mr. Botstein, who on May 1 announced his imminent retirement as president, traded his and Bard’s good name for a mess of pottage. The college got relatively little money — $75,000 and a few dozen laptops — from the financier over the course of the seven years in which new revelations about Mr. Epstein’s sexual predation showed up with steadily increasing frequency in news reports and court documents. Mr. Botstein, however, personally received $150,000........

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