It might appear, at first blush, an unlikely connection: Leon Botstein, the president of Bard, one of many nation’s most progressive schools, and Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced billionaire accused of sexually abusing teenage women.

However reporting from The Wall Avenue Journal this week confirmed that Dr. Botstein didn’t simply pursue Mr. Epstein hoping to boost cash, he did so repeatedly. He made frequent visits to Mr. Epstein’s Higher East Facet townhouse, and Mr. Epstein and his entourage hopped by helicopter to Bard’s lush campus within the Hudson Valley.

Dr. Botstein mentioned in interviews with The New York Instances that the visits have been all about funding for Bard — for the college’s dedication to social justice, its prisoner schooling program, its liberal arts mission. Bard calls itself “a non-public school for the general public good.”

“Folks don’t perceive what this job is,” he mentioned, including, “You can not decide and select, as a result of among the many very wealthy is the next proportion of disagreeable and never very engaging folks. Capitalism is a tough system.”

In defending his pursuit of Mr. Epstein and candidly describing the burden of elevating cash, Dr. Botstein gave perception into how the necessity to entice {dollars} can seem to run headlong into an instructional establishment’s said values.

Mr. Epstein gave prolifically to many charities and universities, together with Harvard and M.I.T., and the Wall Avenue Journal report confirmed that his community of contacts was wider than had been thought, together with distinguished figures just like the linguist Noam Chomsky and Lawrence Summers, the previous Treasury secretary and president of Harvard. Dr. Summers sought cash for a poetry basis, led by his spouse, Elisa New, a Harvard literature professor. Mr. Summers declined to remark.

“Would we settle for cash from Jeffrey Epstein right now? No,” Dr. Botstein mentioned, describing the previous donor as a “monster” and “really evil man.” “We had no concept, the general public report had no indication, that he was something greater than an strange — in the event you might say such a factor — intercourse offender who had been convicted and went to jail.”

Mr. Epstein had been very publicly accused of sexually abusing women as younger as 14. Nevertheless, he had minimized his authorized publicity with high-powered attorneys, settlements that silenced complaints, and a plea deal that short-circuited an F.B.I. investigation.

Bard School, about 100 miles north of New York Metropolis, was having a troublesome time after the 2008 monetary disaster. By 2016, a monetary rankings company had downgraded Bard’s financial outlook, partly as a result of the school had little money.

After Mr. Epstein gave Bard an unsolicited $75,000 reward in 2011, Dr. Botstein mentioned that he hoped for extra donations. The Instances had beforehand reported the reward.

“A man despatched us cash, and we adopted up,” he mentioned. “It’s a easy story.”

Over the following 4 or so years, The Wall Avenue Journal reported, there have been two dozen or so visits scheduled with Mr. Epstein, largely on the financier’s Manhattan townhouse. Mr. Epstein visited Bard to attend an opera in 2013 and a live performance in 2016, planning to carry his younger feminine assistants and arrive by helicopter, in keeping with the newspaper.

In an interview, Dr. Botstein mentioned he by no means witnessed younger feminine assistants round Mr. Epstein, that he was not current when Mr. Epstein’s helicopter arrived, and that he didn’t keep in mind whether or not he had met Mr. Epstein throughout these visits, which he mentioned occurred in the course of the summer season when courses weren’t in session.

Dr. Botstein mentioned that it was his responsibility to boost cash for the liberal arts establishment he leads, in a time when the nation is just not adequately funding increased schooling. Bard has a small alumni base, he mentioned, so a big a part of his job is persuading rich people who find themselves not affiliated with the establishment to present cash.

“That could be a humiliating expertise to return again and again and over,” Dr. Botstein mentioned, including, “We’re fully on the mercy of the very rich.”

At first, creating a relationship with Mr. Epstein didn’t appear far afield for Bard, in keeping with Dr. Botstein. Bard has a program for convicted felons, and Dr. Botstein mentioned that the campus believes in second possibilities.

“That’s a part of our instructional mission,” he mentioned. “You wouldn’t criticize a priest for giving communion to a convicted felon.”

School presidents should typically mingle with unsavory characters to boost cash, mentioned Stephen Trachtenberg, a former president of George Washington College. Throughout his tenure, Mr. Trachtenberg mentioned, he thought of accepting donations from Scientologists and from the Libyan strongman, Col. Muammar Gaddafi, however finally rejected them.

In an interview, Mr. Trachtenberg, now 85, mentioned he by no means regretted his determination concerning Gaddafi, however nonetheless wonders whether or not he made the proper name with the Scientologists, who he mentioned wished the college to confer an honorary diploma on their founder, L. Ron Hubbard, a George Washington alumnus.

“I might have put 10 college students via school for that type of cash,” he mentioned of the supplied sum, and added, “You’re attempting to determine how one can steadiness the supply of the cash with the aim that you just’re making use of the cash to.”

Mr. Epstein voraciously befriended rich executives, celebrities and politicians. Because the accusations towards him widened, although, establishments began investigating their ties to him and accounting for his items, typically redirecting the cash. Mr. Epstein killed himself in his Manhattan jail cell in 2019, in keeping with the New York Metropolis medical expert. On the time, Mr. Epstein was awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking prices.

All schools and nonprofit teams ought to ideally have a gift-acceptance coverage authorized by their trustees, addressing how one can deal with “tainted cash,” mentioned Invoice Stanczykiewicz, director of the Fund Elevating College at Indiana College, referring to items from disreputable folks.

There are not any arduous and quick guidelines about which donors are off limits, he mentioned; moderately, it’s as much as every establishment’s board of trustees and the neighborhood to carry fund-raisers accountable. He pointed to an previous maxim: “If this confirmed up above the fold within the newspaper, would we be embarrassed? Would we be capable to defend this?”

Dr. Botstein mentioned Bard doesn’t have any restrictions about which donors it could settle for cash from, but it surely does have a rule that items in extra of $10,000 require approval by the board of trustees. Efforts to achieve the chairman of Bard’s board, James. C. Chambers, weren’t instantly profitable.

Bard is in higher monetary form right now than it was when it was wooing Mr. Epstein. The faculty’s endowment acquired a $500 million reward in 2021 from the billionaire George Soros, a donation Dr. Botstein known as “probably the most historic second” for the school since its founding in 1860.

No such items got here from Mr. Epstein. Visits with him would at all times be accomplished in lower than half an hour, Dr. Botstein mentioned. And except for Mr. Epstein’s donation of 66 laptop computer computer systems, efforts to extract cash from him proved unsuccessful.

“He loved humiliating and dangling prospects,” Dr. Botstein mentioned, including, “He was sadistic. He completely strung me alongside.”

Susan C. Beachy contributed analysis.