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By JOHN HANNA and KENDRIA LAFLEUR
MALAKOFF, Texas (AP) — Some college districts within the U.S. dropped plans for sophistication footage after widespread social media posts linked a billionaire with ties to Jeffrey Epstein to the images large Lifetouch, which on Friday known as the claims “utterly false.”
The disruption to highschool image plans in Texas and elsewhere started after on-line posts linked Lifetouch, which pictures tens of millions of scholars every year, to the funding fund supervisor Apollo International Administration. Apollo’s former CEO is billionaire investor Leon Black, who met repeatedly with Epstein and was suggested by Epstein on monetary issues.
Black led the corporate in 2019, when funds managed by Apollo purchased Lifetouch’s father or mother firm, Shutterfly. The $2.7 billion deal closed in September 2019 — a month after Epstein’s dying by suicide behind bars as he awaited trial over allegations from federal prosecutors that he sexually abused and trafficked dozens of women.
Each Lifetouch and Apollo famous that timeline in statements Friday, two days after Lifetouch CEO Ken Murphy mentioned in an Instagram publish that neither Black nor any of Apollo’s administrators or traders ever had any entry to Lifetouch pictures.
“No Lifetouch executives have ever had any relationship or contact with Epstein and we’ve got by no means shared scholar pictures with any third celebration, together with Apollo,” Lifetouch mentioned in its assertion Friday. “Apollo and its funds additionally haven’t any position in Lifetouch’s each day operations and haven’t any entry to scholar pictures.”
The canceled college footage are one other ripple impact over the discharge of tens of millions of recordsdata from the Epstein investigation, together with paperwork displaying Epstein’s common contacts with CEOs, journalists, scientists and outstanding politicians lengthy after a 2008 conviction on intercourse crimes expenses.
Within the small Texas city of Malakoff, the native college district canceled a scholar image day after a number of mother and father instructed the district they weren’t comfy with Lifetouch photographing their kids, spokesperson Katherine Smith mentioned in a press release e-mailed Friday. A number of different colleges and districts in Texas additionally canceled or modified plans, in addition to a constitution college in Arizona, based on Fb bulletins posted by the faculties.
“We determined our college students and households can be finest served by retaining all of our footage in-house for the remainder of this yr, and we’re taking a look at all of our choices for the 2026-2027 college yr,” Smith mentioned.
Dad and mom involved about Lifetouch included MaKallie Gann, whose kids attend colleges in Howe, about 60 miles north of Dallas. She mentioned she was nervous about how a lot info Lifetouch collects on college students.
“Everytime you order the photographs, it has their identify. It has the age, in fact. It has their grade, their instructor, the varsity that they’re in,” she mentioned.
No proof of Epstein or anybody in his orbit seeing Lifetouch pictures has emerged from information organizations’ assessment of 1000’s of paperwork launched this month by the U.S. Division of Justice, although there are no less than 1.7 million information.
The assessment exhibits Black’s identify appeared 8,200 occasions, although that determine possible contains some duplicate information. Black stepped down as Apollo’s CEO in March 2021, saying he needed to concentrate on his household, well being, and “many different pursuits.”
That was two months after a committee of the corporate’s board issued a report concluding that Epstein had suggested Black personally on property planning, tax points, charitable giving and operating his “household workplace,” however supplied no providers to Apollo or invested in no Apollo funds.
The report additionally mentioned the assessment — which Black requested — discovered “no proof” that he was concerned with Epstein’s alleged prison actions “in any manner” or “at any time.” ___
Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas. Additionally contributing was Related Press author Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota.
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