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Comment by msghacq | Hacker News Reader

Joi Ito took money for MIT from Epstein after he became a convicted sex offender. He also allowed Epstein to co-invest in his startups and visited his houses (which were decorated with extremely provocative and possibly illegal photos). All investors do enough diligence that he would have known about the conviction before working and socializing with him.

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No one is allowed to accept charitable donations from felons? Or they can, but are morally on the hook if the felon commits another crime?

I would say, in the sphere of public opinion, one should be cautious accepting charitable donations from felons. However, there's certainly precedent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Milken#Philanthropy

I would say taking money from, investing with and visiting the houses of a convicted child sex trafficker is a really bad idea if you want to keep your and your institution's reputation intact. It's also recently come to light that Epstein continued to rape children during this time period (post-arrest). Two new lawsuits were just filed against his estate for it.

I'd argue it's at least morally questionable to assist in a convicted and apparently unrepentant felon's attempts to whitewash their reputation via large amounts of cash.

Charity and investments are two different things. Further there are felons who are particularly egregious, human trafficking of children for sex ranks up there.

Sounds like he was closer to him than just accepting his donations.

> No one is allowed to accept charitable donations from felons?

No, but the charges merit diligence. The facts and circumstances of Epstein's settlement, even knowing nothing more than the suspiciously-short jail time, should have raised red flags.

One of the downsides of hosting sex parties with trafficked minors is when you get caught all your guests come under suspicion, even if the party they attended had no sex at all

Unless there's an official register of everyone who attended each type of party, which seems unlikely.

Fortunately there is an official register or everyone who flew on the Lolita Express.

There is, but unfortunately only one of three pilots recorded names in the flight logs. Still, there is a lot of documentation.

I'm not sure that people who host parties with trafficked minors care much about the reputation of their guests.

Well certainly the type of felon matters, no? Epstein's crimes are particularly heinous.

I'm wondering why you merely couch this as accepting money from felons, when you know full well that Epstein was not only a pedophile, but ran an international sex trafficking ring.

We aren't discussing insider trading or possessing controlled substances.

You would have to decide if you find it immoral to accept a donation from a specific person, based on your own moral code and how the person behaves and live with that.

I'm trying to understand what general moral principle is that is being suggested. You can't accept money from sex criminals? Or only if you think they won't commit a future offense?

"You have to personally decide what's moral" isn't a very good response when a crowd is gathering to punish someone.

Epstein wasn’t just any felon. He was someone who was systematically using his wealth and influence to rape children and get away with it. If you accept charitable donations from him, you are increasing his influence and assenting that his crimes were not a big deal.

>No one is allowed to accept charitable donations from felons

Of course they're allowed. It's a free country.

We're discussing how reprehensible it is, and we focus on certain kinds of felons (not some guy who once did a victimless burglary or a DIU), and also on cases where they didn't just "accept donations", but visited the felons to their private lair...

> are morally on the hook if the felon commits another crime?

In the Age of Outrage, yes, even though it's stupid.

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