I suppose this extremely charitable reading is possible, but it still doesn't exonerate Minsky. Not only did he fail to confirm she was of age ("I never asked how old she was" is not a defense), he maintained professional and academic ties with someone who (as far as he supposedly knew) was sending extremely young prostitutes to him and his peers.

Given that even the Virgin Islands locals took to calling it "Pedophile Island," it's a pretty good guess that most of the people who went to the parties there had at least an inkling of their true nature. But no-strings-attached money (or worse, other "favors") were a powerful motivator to look the other way.