Diane Lopez is seen at Langdell Library. (Photo: Kris Snibbe/Harvard)

With the help of outside counsel at Foley Hoag, Harvard University general counsel Diane Lopez has begun a full review of donations made by and ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire convicted sex offender who died in jail recently in an apparent suicide while facing new charges.

Lopez said in a recent memo to the campus community that anyone with knowledge of Epstein's donations could send information to her office by emailing it to [email protected]. If they wish to remain anonymous, she said they can share information via the Harvard University Anonymous Reporting Hotline at 877-694-2275.

The Lopez memo said, "This review, led by Harvard's Office of the General Counsel, is ongoing. We will continue to work to gather facts, review relevant materials, and speak to people across the University with pertinent information."

Besides Epstein's outright gifts to the school, Lopez is expected to look into the issue of gifts given by donors at Epstein's suggestion. She also may be looking at individuals who helped solicit or facilitate donations, or professors at Harvard who accepted individual donations.

Lopez oversees an office of 17 attorneys. She was reported in meetings all day Monday and not available for comment.

Although she has been an in-house attorney at Harvard for 25 years, Lopez just became general counsel in June.

She knew then she could be at the center of controversies. In a statement at the time, Lopez said, "Many lawyers' careers have one or two cases that get national attention. Here, almost every week you have something that you're working on that is at least going to get attention in the Crimson [student newspaper], as well as local and often national media attention."

Before joining Harvard, Lopez, a Columbia Law School graduate, was a commercial litigator for eight years in the New York office of O'Melveny & Myers.

University President Lawrence Bacow acknowledged in a campus memo on Sept. 12 that at the time it was known Epstein donated nearly $9 million to the university between 1998 and 2007. Bacow said the school did not take a gift from Epstein after his sex offender guilty plea in 2008.

Bacow also said the university would give $186,000 in unspent funds to organizations that help victims of human trafficking and sexual assault.

"Jeffrey Epstein's crimes were repulsive and reprehensible. I profoundly regret Harvard's past association with him," Bacow wrote in the memo.

Epstein's behavior, he said, raises significant questions about how institutions review and vet donors, not just at Harvard but elsewhere.

Other schools looking at the same question include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where general counsel Mark DiVincenzo is overseeing an investigation by Goodwin Procter into links to and donations from Epstein. Purdue University, Ball State University and the University of Alabama are also reviewing recent non-Epstein gift issues.

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