Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / Survivors Detail Abuse at Interlochen and Encounters With Jeffrey Epstein (7/29/26)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
- 0:03Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. Over the past twenty four hours, we have
- 0:07Speaker 1: received a ninety seven page investigation about interlock In Center
- 0:13Speaker 1: for the Arts, the school in Michigan where Jeffrey Epstein
- 0:18Speaker 1: had a cabin on campus, and what that rapport found
- 0:21Speaker 1: is absolutely terrifying. According to that report, over seventy students
- 0:26Speaker 1: were abused, not only by Jeffrey Epstein, but by others
- 0:30Speaker 1: as well. So in this episode, we're diving into an
- 0:33Speaker 1: article from the Detroit News and the headline interlock In
- 0:37Speaker 1: report finds seventy students accused forty seven adults of sex abuse.
- 0:43Speaker 1: This article was authored by Max Reinhardt. And if you
- 0:47Speaker 1: were wondering why Jeffrey Epstein was welcomed up on campus,
- 0:50Speaker 1: well here you go. So, of course, the next question
- 0:55Speaker 1: is were any of those other people connected to Jeffrey
- 0:58Speaker 1: Epstein who were involved in abusing those kids? That has
- 1:03Speaker 1: to be the next question, right, And even if it
- 1:06Speaker 1: wasn't Jeffrey Epstein, whoever was involved, whoever did it needs
- 1:09Speaker 1: to be indicted, convicted and then hung by their feet
- 1:13Speaker 1: with the families able to beat them like a pinata.
- 1:16Speaker 1: Decades of allegation of grooming. Sexual abuse and secrecy at
- 1:20Speaker 1: one of Michigan's premier youth art academies were detailed in
- 1:24Speaker 1: seventy first hand accounts from students, according to the release
- 1:27Speaker 1: Tuesday of an independent report. The ninety seven page investigation
- 1:32Speaker 1: by Massachusetts based Saying Jave Law Office detailed sexual abuse
- 1:36Speaker 1: reports spanning the nineteen fifties through the twenty tens at
- 1:40Speaker 1: Interlock and Center for the Arts, the Northern Michigan school
- 1:44Speaker 1: at Summer Camp, where a financier, pedophile and human trafficker
- 1:48Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein recruited some of his victims. The fact that
- 1:52Speaker 1: this dude had a cabin on that campus should have
- 1:55Speaker 1: been a tell right away. Who the hell would approve?
- 2:01Speaker 1: Oh yeah, sure, Jeffrey Epstein. There's no rumors about him.
- 2:03Speaker 1: Nobody's ever heard anything on the wards about Jeffrey Epstein.
- 2:07Speaker 1: Let's give him a cabin and access to children, and
- 2:10Speaker 1: every single person who played a role in giving him
- 2:13Speaker 1: that cabin, they should be held accountable. The Center hired
- 2:17Speaker 1: the firm, which has experienced probing historical claims of abuse,
- 2:21Speaker 1: to lead the review in summer of twenty twenty four
- 2:24Speaker 1: after leaders at the school were contacted about decades old
- 2:27Speaker 1: sexual misconduct involving former faculty. Oh, they were just contacted. Huh,
- 2:32Speaker 1: nobody ever talked about it. Then. It's always funny that
- 2:35Speaker 1: after the fact they're like, well, there were all these
- 2:37Speaker 1: glaring signs and we just missed them. No, you didn't
- 2:40Speaker 1: miss them, you ignored them. In the following years, investigators
- 2:44Speaker 1: spent hundreds of hours conducting about one hundred and eighty
- 2:48Speaker 1: separate interviews with approximately one hundred and fifty former interlock
- 2:52Speaker 1: In students and camp attendees, resulting in seventy first hand
- 2:56Speaker 1: accounts alleging physical sexual misconduct. The bulk of the allegation
- 3:00Speaker 1: center around conduct from before the year two thousand and
- 3:03Speaker 1: range from inappropriate comments to sexual assault and long term
- 3:07Speaker 1: sexual relationships between adults and students. And the truth is,
- 3:12Speaker 1: this kind of stuff is more widespread than we know.
- 3:17Speaker 1: I mean, how many people like Jeffrey Epstein are out there?
- 3:20Speaker 1: That's the real question that we should be asking ourselves,
- 3:23Speaker 1: And unfortunately the answer is a lot. Now, maybe not
- 3:28Speaker 1: to the level as far as being as connected, but
- 3:30Speaker 1: there's a lot of sick people out there, folks, a
- 3:33Speaker 1: whole lot of them. And unfortunately, some of them have
- 3:37Speaker 1: access to your kids. I mean, who sends their kid
- 3:39Speaker 1: to interlock In to go and learn some music or
- 3:42Speaker 1: whatever and expect some shit like this. Nobody, not one
- 3:47Speaker 1: single parent, but you have to be on the lookout
- 3:50Speaker 1: for it, unfortunately. And look, I don't have kids, but
- 3:52Speaker 1: if I did, I wouldn't leave them in the presence
- 3:55Speaker 1: of any stranger. To tell you the truth, the accusations
- 3:58Speaker 1: involved forty seven different adults with the Northern Michigan School
- 4:02Speaker 1: in Camp, including faculty, board members, administrators, camp counselors, trustees, donors,
- 4:08Speaker 1: visiting artists, and other staff. Oh everybody was in on it, huh,
- 4:12Speaker 1: had yourselves a fucking buffet of little children? You sick,
- 4:16Speaker 1: degenerate bastards. Helicopters, volcanoes for everybody that's guilty. In a
- 4:24Speaker 1: public statement, interlock And President Trey Davy and board chair
- 4:27Speaker 1: Barrett Rollins thanked participants for helping facilitate and honest reckoning
- 4:32Speaker 1: with past harms reported by our alumni and other members
- 4:35Speaker 1: of our community. I'm sure nobody reported it earlier. I'm
- 4:39Speaker 1: sure nobody just swept it under the rug. I'm sure
- 4:42Speaker 1: nobody just ignored it. I mean, you guys, obviously were
- 4:45Speaker 1: on your game. You had Epstein on campus, so that
- 4:47Speaker 1: tells us everything we need to know. On behalf of Interlockin,
- 4:51Speaker 1: we're deeply sorry for the harm experience by members of
- 4:54Speaker 1: our community and extend our apologies to those impacted by
- 4:58Speaker 1: abuse at Interlochan. The joint statement reads, we also want
- 5:03Speaker 1: to say clearly interlock In will not tolerate predators or
- 5:06Speaker 1: those who enable them. Oh well, that's nice twenty five
- 5:10Speaker 1: years later, who do they think they're kidding? Well, for
- 5:14Speaker 1: forty years, fifty years, we didn't protect anybody, but now
- 5:17Speaker 1: now we're paying attention. Interlock And officials said the school
- 5:23Speaker 1: had no direct influence over the report's content. The report
- 5:28Speaker 1: stresses that the document's purpose is to archive and preserve
- 5:31Speaker 1: alumni accounts rather than to determine legal culpability or liability. So,
- 5:36Speaker 1: in other words, cover your ass. That way, if they
- 5:39Speaker 1: get sued, they can say, look, we had this external
- 5:41Speaker 1: report and you know this is what it found. But
- 5:47Speaker 1: if you have something like this going on and we
- 5:49Speaker 1: have what forty seven people, seventy people, whatever it is,
- 5:53Speaker 1: I would say that there's some culpability and some liability,
- 5:57Speaker 1: and considering it happened on this campus. Then I I'd
- 6:00Speaker 1: say that interlock In is culpable and they're liable. One
- 6:05Speaker 1: of lum said that during a party at an interlock
- 6:07Speaker 1: In in the sixties, a faculty member made all kinds
- 6:10Speaker 1: of innuendos towards her and later pinned her against the
- 6:13Speaker 1: wall and French kissed her. She told an investigator she
- 6:16Speaker 1: could feel that he had an erection. Hell of a teacher,
- 6:19Speaker 1: that guy, huh. Another former student who attended interlock In
- 6:24Speaker 1: in the seventies said that a staff member initiated an
- 6:27Speaker 1: unwanted sexual relationship with her after he wrote her a
- 6:30Speaker 1: flattering poem. At one point, the staff member proceeded to
- 6:34Speaker 1: have sex with the student even after she said no,
- 6:37Speaker 1: don't do that. During the encounter, he also told her
- 6:40Speaker 1: to be quiet after she coughed loudly, according to the report,
- 6:45Speaker 1: So who the fuck is that person? Staff member proceeded
- 6:48Speaker 1: to have sex with her, just random staff member Casper
- 6:52Speaker 1: the ghost who was an actual person? Right? Well, that
- 6:56Speaker 1: person should have to answer for their bullshit. And if
- 6:59Speaker 1: these reports were series and they really had teeth, that's
- 7:02Speaker 1: what would happen. But too many times these reports are
- 7:05Speaker 1: nothing more than a Whitewash. In the nineteen eighties, an
- 7:09Speaker 1: interlock In arts faculty member and a student took a
- 7:12Speaker 1: trip together and shared a hotel room during a spring break. Yo,
- 7:16Speaker 1: who the fuck is sharing a hotel room with a
- 7:20Speaker 1: faculty member during spring break? That seems a bit out
- 7:23Speaker 1: of pocket. No, they're the adult through the student on
- 7:27Speaker 1: the bed and forcefully had anal sex with her, leading
- 7:30Speaker 1: her to later seek medical attention. Hell of a guy,
- 7:33Speaker 1: that faculty member. Imagine sending your kids to this place
- 7:38Speaker 1: interlock In, and then you see this report come out.
- 7:41Speaker 1: Find out this has been going on for decades. And
- 7:44Speaker 1: remember if interlock In wasn't embarrassed over the Epstein affair,
- 7:47Speaker 1: none of this would have ever come out. Interviewees describe
- 7:52Speaker 1: certain adults that interlock In as creepy. Into the two thousands,
- 7:55Speaker 1: one student from that time period set an arts faculty
- 7:58Speaker 1: member narrowed in on getting close to her emotionally and
- 8:01Speaker 1: saying that she was really special and was mature beyond
- 8:05Speaker 1: her years. Through report states hello, groomer, nice grooming activity
- 8:11Speaker 1: you're engaging in. In total, forty seven different adults associated
- 8:17Speaker 1: with the school are accused of some level of misconduct
- 8:20Speaker 1: Epstein's name is mentioned fifty two times in the report,
- 8:23Speaker 1: while his sex trafficking partner, Glenn Maxwell's name appears thirteen times. Epstein,
- 8:29Speaker 1: who attended the school's summer arts camp as a youth,
- 8:32Speaker 1: donated one hundreds of thousands of dollars to interlock In
- 8:35Speaker 1: in the nineties and two thousands. All Right, how many
- 8:38Speaker 1: people that were accused of abuse were connected to Jeffrey Epstein.
- 8:43Speaker 1: I think that's a pretty important fact that we need
- 8:45Speaker 1: to learn, right. The newly released report includes allegations from
- 8:50Speaker 1: alumni who reported sexual contact with Epstein after meeting them
- 8:54Speaker 1: through interlock In more than five years before his first
- 8:57Speaker 1: criminal conviction in two thousand and eight. They alleged Epstein
- 9:01Speaker 1: used his donor status and repeated visits to befriend female students,
- 9:06Speaker 1: promising scholarships or career opportunities, obtaining their contact information, and
- 9:12Speaker 1: in some cases later recruiting them into his sexual exploitation network. Well,
- 9:16Speaker 1: that's a fact, And we heard from what two girls
- 9:21Speaker 1: that went to interlock In that told us about Epstein
- 9:24Speaker 1: and his bullshit and about the cabin. Most individuals accused
- 9:29Speaker 1: him the report are not identified by name either to
- 9:31Speaker 1: protect survivor's privacy, or because doing so may interfere with
- 9:36Speaker 1: ongoing or future law enforcement investigations. Officials said, well, that's nice.
- 9:41Speaker 1: Seventy people say they were abused, Probably a good idea
- 9:44Speaker 1: to have an investigation that's led by the police. Individuals
- 9:49Speaker 1: who are named include Thomas Klower, an arts faculty member
- 9:52Speaker 1: at the school from two thousand and three to two
- 9:55Speaker 1: thousand and five. Clower was convicted of criminal sexual content
- 10:00Speaker 1: duck in two thousand and five, after interlock And fired
- 10:03Speaker 1: him and reported him to the police. Byron Hanson, a
- 10:07Speaker 1: long time faculty member and administrator from nineteen sixty through
- 10:10Speaker 1: twenty fifteen who was now deceased. John Hood, a faculty
- 10:16Speaker 1: member and administrator from sixty three to seventy nine who
- 10:19Speaker 1: continued to serve in seasonal positions until two thousand and four.
- 10:24Speaker 1: Charlie mccorter, a former trustee at interlock In from nineteen
- 10:28Speaker 1: seventy to nineteen ninety nine. Many alumni believe that many
- 10:33Speaker 1: adults at the school either suspected or outright knew about
- 10:37Speaker 1: the inappropriate conduct, and that leadership at the institution felt
- 10:40Speaker 1: to take appropriate steps to curb it. One alum shared
- 10:45Speaker 1: that she could not say which trauma was greater, the
- 10:47Speaker 1: conduct of the adult abuser at interlock In towards her
- 10:51Speaker 1: or the way she was treated by interlock In staff
- 10:54Speaker 1: once she reported the conduct, and that's something that has
- 10:57Speaker 1: to be looked at and if it comes out that
- 10:58Speaker 1: that's the truth, and then the school holds a whole
- 11:02Speaker 1: bunch of liability if people knew and nobody acted. Time
- 11:07Speaker 1: to back up the bringstruck because people are about to
- 11:10Speaker 1: get paid. Wan Alum noted that her awareness of conduct
- 11:12Speaker 1: of a sexual nature by adults at interlock In while
- 11:16Speaker 1: she was there added to a feeling that students were
- 11:19Speaker 1: on their own and had defend for themselves. The report
- 11:23Speaker 1: states that investigators at Saying Jave did not make judgments
- 11:26Speaker 1: regarding whether the institutional response to allegations were adequate. They
- 11:31Speaker 1: don't seem adequate to me. Seems like a bunch of
- 11:34Speaker 1: bullshit actually, and just more of a cover story. Oh look,
- 11:38Speaker 1: we had an investigation. It's all over and done with now, though, Yeah,
- 11:41Speaker 1: why didn't you expose it back in the day when
- 11:43Speaker 1: it was happening and people knew about it. Why did
- 11:47Speaker 1: you ignore it? Then? Few incidents have been reported in
- 11:51Speaker 1: the past twenty five years and according to the report,
- 11:54Speaker 1: none of the individuals accused in the document are still
- 11:56Speaker 1: employed by Interlogan. The school said it has instituted safety mechanisms,
- 12:02Speaker 1: including mandatory reporting requirements, background checks, trainings, and reviews to
- 12:07Speaker 1: ensure these practices are utilized effectively. Interlock In today is
- 12:14Speaker 1: fundamentally different from the institution described in this report, Devi
- 12:18Speaker 1: and Rowlin said in their statement. The school also established
- 12:22Speaker 1: a fund to help cover future therapeutic care for impacted individuals,
- 12:26Speaker 1: overseen and administered by an independent third party with experience
- 12:30Speaker 1: working with survivors of abuse. Official said it also plans
- 12:34Speaker 1: to commission a permanent art installation honoring survivors. Well that's
- 12:39Speaker 1: all fine and well, but what were you doing when
- 12:41Speaker 1: they were being abused? This all seems like reputation enhancement
- 12:47Speaker 1: and providing therapeutic services for these people. Sure they're going
- 12:51Speaker 1: to trust you after all this bullshit, after we ignore
- 12:54Speaker 1: them for all these years. Now they trust you and
- 12:56Speaker 1: they're going to go see your therapists. Interlock In will
- 13:01Speaker 1: refer information about all individuals implicated in the report to
- 13:05Speaker 1: Grant Rover as County's prosecutor and sheriff to consider the
- 13:08Speaker 1: possibility of criminal charges. The school also said it will
- 13:12Speaker 1: review buildings and other items named after individuals to ensure
- 13:15Speaker 1: none after whom the buildings are named or accused of wrongdoing.
- 13:20Speaker 1: Epstein's ties to the camp. Epstein's financial contributions included funding
- 13:25Speaker 1: for a cabin that was referred to as Jeffrey E.
- 13:28Speaker 1: Epstein Scholarship Lodge and knowing what we know now, how
- 13:32Speaker 1: fucking creepy is that? Interlock In renamed the building Green
- 13:37Speaker 1: Lake Lodge in two thousand and nine, following Epstein's first
- 13:40Speaker 1: criminal conviction. The school has since planned to tear the
- 13:43Speaker 1: building down, and the interlock And Board of trustees has
- 13:47Speaker 1: approved the demolition. Well, that's good, and they should offer
- 13:50Speaker 1: the survivors people who were abused there, the chance to
- 13:52Speaker 1: come in with some sledgehammers and help knock it down
- 13:55Speaker 1: a little destruction therapy. Interlock In, the located on twelve
- 14:01Speaker 1: hundred acres in Grand Traverse County, is considered the home
- 14:04Speaker 1: of prestigious Summer Arts camp and what it describes as
- 14:07Speaker 1: the nation's premier arts boarding high school. It's described as
- 14:11Speaker 1: a global destination for artists and art enthusiasts of all ages.
- 14:15Speaker 1: Officials encouraged anyone who has additional information about misconduct to
- 14:19Speaker 1: reach Investigator Elizabeth Saying Jave at Elizabeth at Sanghavilaw Office
- 14:24Speaker 1: dot com by October. After that date, reports can be
- 14:29Speaker 1: made directly to interlock In at investigation at interlockin dot org.
- 14:34Speaker 1: All right, so this has been a long time coming,
- 14:37Speaker 1: this report, and now that it's out, we're going to
- 14:40Speaker 1: dive into it at some point, but I wanted to
- 14:42Speaker 1: give you guys a basic rundown of what was found
- 14:44Speaker 1: in that report and what they say was going on
- 14:48Speaker 1: on this campus over the decades. And I have the
- 14:51Speaker 1: actual report, so at some point we'll get that added
- 14:54Speaker 1: to the catalog, but for now, that's going to do
- 14:56Speaker 1: it for this one. All the information that goes with
- 14:59Speaker 1: this app episode can be found in the description box.