when asked by a reporter for the British newspaper The Sunday Times, in September, about his relationship with the man who officials say killed himself in a federal detention center as he faced sex trafficking charges, Mr. Allen made no similar gesture toward embarrassment or contrition, calling him, instead “a substantial character.” The dinners were full of “illustrious people, college professors, scientists, Nobel laureates — accomplished people who were fun to listen to,” in Mr. Allen's view.

“He told us he’d been in jail and that he had been — I can’t remember the word — but that he’d been falsely put in jail in some way,” Mr. Allen said, suggesting a gullibility not often associated with Manhattan’s sophisticate class or, alternately, a sympathy for someone he thought might be a fellow traveler in the world of the wrongfully accused.

“Extorted?” the reporter asked. “Right, extorted,” Mr. Allen said. “He told us he was trying to make up for it now by being philanthropic and giving money to cutting-edge scientists and universities. He couldn’t have been nicer.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5809884&forum_id=2],#49507062)