Blow the Whistle Pitch Deck
© 2021 Syncro Studios LTD.
Episode 6: The Pedophile on Campus
Cold Open: “I came forward against concealing the truth and protecting a pedophile.” Signe Swenson
The Crime: Funneling millions of Jeffery Epstein’s sex trafficking money through MIT Media Lab
The Witness: Signe Swenson
Gathering the Evidence: A backlog of emails indicating to keep the money anonymous and not report the full amount
Blowing the Whistle: After watching MIT management repeatedly lie to the public
The Retaliation: Career ruined. Having to start all over again, currently in design school
Unsolved: Joi Ito, the head of the lab resigned and the money was donated to charity
It’s January in Minneapolis, Minnesota and we can hear the ice crunch beneath Signe Swenson’s feet as she heads to class. Her breathe mists, forming a cloud in front of her eyes as she confesses - she helped a convicted pedophile and global sex trafficker launder money for years.
Even great institutions like M.I.T. took money from sex convict Jeffrey Epstein — and they worked very hard to keep his contributions anonymous. Top administrators knew about the gifts, felt conflicted about them, and accepted them anyway. The university’s president even signed a thank-you note. But some colleagues' relationships were even more sinister.
Swenson, a former development and alumni coordinator for MIT, blew the whistle, offering documents that showed M.I.T. Media Lab directors were aware of Epstein’s status as a convicted sex offender, even escorted possible sex workers onto campus with him, and that Epstein directed contributions to the lab far exceeding the amounts M.I.T. has publicly admitted.
Swenson laments, “We bent over backwards for anyone with money. It was who was popular at the moment, who was a billionaire that would want to be seen at our events. It became somewhat of a concierge service in academia. I saw people do bad things with no consequences.”
Head of MIT, Joi Ito secured at least $7.5m in donations from Epstein via a circle of donors connected to him, including Bill Gates and Apollo Global Management ’s Leon Black.
He had previously claimed the lab only received $525,000 in Epstein donations and that had been just an “error in judgment”.
Swenson elaborates, “I felt like my job was to protect secrets. When I took the job canvassing potential MIT donors, I was told one of my duties would be ‘to help the existing relationship between Joi Ito and Jeffrey Epstein along’. About three months into the job I was directed to ‘wipe every trace of Epstein from the university’s record.”
But in the larger picture, Swenson says she finds Ito’s denial that he ever saw anything suspicious over the course of his long friendship with Epstein, including trips to Epstein’s homes in New York, the Caribbean and New Mexico ‘implausible’. “I don’t want to think about the worst,” she says. “Joi spent time in Epstein’s homes and regularly socialized with him. And the idea that he thought nothing was underfoot is impossible to believe.”