A renowned MIT computer scientist is under fire for apparently defending Jeffrey Epstein by speculating in a series of leaked emails that one of the pedophile’s alleged victims was “entirely willing.”
“The word ‘assaulting’ presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex,” famed computer scientist Richard Stallman allegedly wrote, referring to an article about Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre’s testimony that she was forced to have sex with MIT professor Marvin Minsky.
“The most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing,” Stallman wrote, according to a copy of the email published Friday by Vice.
Stallman allegedly blasted the email out Thursday to a mailing list for MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, according to an MIT alumni who leaked the message, Selam Jie Gano.
Stallman was apparently responding to an email alerting students of an anti-Epstein protest at MIT.
The university has come under fire after Giuffre’s allegations and revelations its highly acclaimed Media Lab accepted donations from Epstein.
The director of the Media Lab, Joichi Ito, resigned from the college earlier this month following claims he attempted to conceal donations from Epstein. Ito also stepped down from his position on the boards of the New York Times, the MacArthur Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.