Here’s the deal: In 2024, the Interlochen Center for the Arts hired an outside law firm to examine its own sordid history with sexual abuse. Over the last two years, investigators conducted 180 interviews, and what came back were 70 firsthand accounts of sexual abuse and misconduct involving 47 adults, faculty, administrators, dorm staff, and even trustees spanning seven decades.
Epstein was one of the names who came up in those interviews. And his connection to this place runs deep. Epstein attended the summer camp himself in 1967. He became a major donor from 1990 to 2003, contributing more than $400,000. A lodge on campus was even built in his name, and he was allowed to stay in it a few weeks a year, on a campus full of teenagers, apparently with minimal supervision from other adults.
And here’s what’s new: two Interlochen alumni told investigators that Epstein had sexual contact with them about five years before his first criminal conviction. One says it happened inside his lodge on campus. The other says Epstein had offered to pay her tuition and retracted that money after she refused his advances.
Now, remember what Interlochen said publicly after Epstein’s 2008 conviction, and again, after he was charged in 2019. Officials there said they reviewed their records and found no reports of misconduct involving Epstein. Two internal reviews. Two times, they came up empty. It took an outside firm working for two years to begin uncovering the truth.
And that brings us back to Lansing, because this year, a bipartisan group of Michigan lawmakers tried to do exactly this. State Rep. Penelope Tsernoglou introduced House Resolution 284, which would create a select committee with subpoena power to investigate Epstein’s ties to Interlochen. More than 40 lawmakers signed on, including three Republicans. House Speaker Matt Hall never brought it up for a vote.
And one day after Tsernoglou held a press conference asking him to take action, he decided to strip her of every legislative committee assignment she had. Hall said it had nothing to do with Epstein. The argument against that resolution was always that Interlochen had already looked into this. With this new report in hand, we’re now learning what those reviews have missed.
So what? Well, Interlochen has now turned over all 47 names to the Grand Traverse County prosecutor and the sheriff’s office. The school apologized, is funding counseling for survivors, and says it will keep taking reports. But about a third of the people named here are dead, and most of this happened decades ago. Which means criminal charges may never come for the vast majority of these cases. That’s exactly why a legislative investigation still matters.
Get the full story in this edition of so what? Michigan.
