Faculties cancel class footage after on-line claims surrounding Lifetouch, Jeffrey Epstein

MALAKOFF, Texas (AP) – Some faculty 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 pictures large Lifetouch, which on Friday known as the claims “completely 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 annually, to the funding fund supervisor Apollo Global Management. Apollo’s former CEO is billionaire investor Leon Black, who met recurrently with Epstein and was suggested by Epstein on monetary issues.

Black led the corporate in 2019, when funds managed by Apollo purchased Lifetouch’s dad or mum firm, Shutterfly. The $2.7 billion deal closed in September 2019 — a month after Epstein’s demise by suicide behind bars as he awaited trial over allegations from federal prosecutors that he sexually abused and trafficked dozens of women.

Both 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 photographs.

“No Lifetouch executives have ever had any relationship or contact with Epstein and we have never shared student images with any third party, including Apollo,” Lifetouch mentioned in its assertion Friday. “Apollo and its funds also have no role in Lifetouch’s daily operations and have no access to student images.”

The canceled faculty footage are one other ripple impact over the discharge of tens of millions of information from the Epstein investigation, together with paperwork exhibiting Epstein’s common contacts with CEOs, journalists, scientists and outstanding politicians lengthy after a 2008 conviction on intercourse crimes prices.

In the small Texas city of Malakoff, the native faculty district canceled a scholar image day after a number of mother and father informed the district they weren’t snug with Lifetouch photographing their kids, spokesperson Katherine Smith mentioned in an announcement e-mailed Friday. Several different colleges and districts in Texas additionally canceled or modified plans, in addition to a constitution faculty in Arizona, in accordance with Facebook bulletins posted by the colleges.

“We decided our students and families would be best served by keeping all of our pictures in-house for the rest of this year, and we are looking at all of our options for the 2026-2027 school year,” Smith mentioned.

Parents involved about Lifetouch included MaKallie Gann, whose kids attend colleges in Howe, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) north of Dallas. She mentioned she was frightened about how a lot info Lifetouch collects on college students.

“Whenever you order the pictures, it has their name. It has the age, of course. It has their grade, their teacher, the school that they’re in,” she mentioned.

No proof of Epstein or anybody in his orbit seeing Lifetouch photographs has emerged from information organizations’ evaluate of hundreds of paperwork launched this month by the U.S. Department of Justice, although there are not less than 1.7 million data.

The evaluate exhibits Black’s title appeared 8,200 occasions, although that determine doubtless consists of some duplicate data. Black stepped down as Apollo’s CEO in March 2021, saying he wished to deal with his household, well being, and “many other interests.”

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 “family office,” however supplied no providers to Apollo or invested in no Apollo funds.

The report additionally mentioned the evaluate — which Black requested — discovered “no evidence” that he was concerned with Epstein’s alleged felony actions “in any way” or “at any time.”

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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas. Also contributing was Associated Press author Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota.

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