Tax filings show a charity once led by disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein donated at least $150,000 to the group behind the Hasty Pudding Club, the Harvard social club known for its cheeky, campy satires, in the period after he was sentenced to jail in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a minor and before he was charged with sex trafficking in 2019.
Gratitude America, a foundation once controlled by Epstein, made $50,000 in donations to the Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770 at least three times, according to the charity’s tax filings.
The donations were made in 2016, 2018, and 2019, the filings show.
The Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770 oversees the Hasty Pudding Club, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and the Harvard Krokodiloes, an a cappella group. The institute describes itself as “a premiere performing arts organization, a patron for the arts and comedy, and an advocate for satire and discourse as tools for change worldwide,” according to its website.
Revelations of the second and third donations were first reported by the Harvard Crimson. In response to the new disclosure, the institute said it would match the amount with contributions to the anti-sex trafficking organization Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, according to the Crimson.
In 2019, the Crimson reported on the first donation to the Pudding from Epstein’s charity, shortly after the Justice Department opened a probe into the financier’s controversial 2007 plea deal that kept him from facing more severe federal charges. Facing a backlash from Harvard students and alumni at the time, the Pudding donated a $50,000 gift to an anti-sex trafficking nonprofit, according to the Crimson.
In a statement on behalf of the Pudding’s alumni board, the organization said it is “perpetually focused on doing right, and philanthropy is at the core of our mission.”
“The Pudding has contributed far more than the donations in question to community and cultural organizations, including the Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS), the nation’s leading organization for empowering exploited and trafficked girls and young women,” the group’s statement read.
The Pudding organization is a nonprofit and receives no funding from Harvard. The chairman of Hasty Pudding Institute Graduate Board is Andrew L. Farkas, a real estate investor and 1982 Harvard graduate who was president of the Hasty Pudding Club as a student.
The theater in Cambridge where the group performs was renamed Farkas Hall following a “significant donation” from him in 2011, according to the Crimson.
Farkas’s own business relationship with Epstein stretched back years and included a joint venture to operate a marina in the Virgin Islands, according to Bloomberg. Farkas made Epstein a partner in the small marina in May 2007 as Epstein was developing a nearby 70-acre island where he built an estate, Bloomberg reported.
“While Mr. Farkas’ dealings with Mr. Epstein were entirely related to their business relationship, he regrets their association and condemns Epstein’s crimes,” a spokesperson for Farkas said in an email last week.
Farkas was also mentioned in Epstein emails that were released by the House Oversight Committee in November. The emails show Epstein suggested using Farkas as a cutout to re-route a donation to an MIT lab that was rejected as his notoriety was increasing.
In a series of emails beginning in February 2019, Joi Ito, then the director of the MIT Media Lab, told Epstein that a $25,000 donation to MIT from “your organization” had been rejected. Epstein responded he was trying to “get more” for Ito. Several months later, he suggested using Farkas as a possible donor to Ito’s lab.
“i can have andrew farkas, he gave a building to the hasty pudding harvard.” Epstein wrote in the emails to Ito.
In another email, Ito wrote that Farkas could contribute directly to him at MIT and asked about the amount. Epstein replied: “100-200.” It is not known whether Farkas himself donated to the MIT lab.
Ito resigned as head of the MIT Media Lab in September 2019 following allegations that he had deliberately masked the full extent of his ties to Epstein.
Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com.