The OIG did not uncover who Epstein called. On the day before he was found dead in his prison cell, Epstein was also allowed by prison staff to make an unmonitored phone call, despite prison policy requiring all phone calls to be monitored. The OIG found that three prison employees allowed Epstein to have the excessive amount of linens, despite prison policy prohibiting the extra sheets. “As a result, Epstein was unmonitored and locked alone in his cell for hours with an excess amount of linens, which provided an opportunity for him to commit suicide,” the report says. The scrutiny around Epstein’s suicide and MCC’s failures only intensified after reports revealed Epstein was put on suicide watch after he was found in his cell with bruises on his neck only to be taken off the watch a day later.Īccording to the OIG report, Epstein was still under psychological evaluation after his first suicide attempt and despite an email being sent to over 70 prison employees notifying them that Epstein needed to be housed with a cellmate, he was alone in his cell on the evening of August 9 and into the next morning, when he died. The guards entered a deferred prosecution with the Justice Department, agreeing to complete 100 hours of community service and cooperate with the DOJ’s Inspector General review.Īccording to the IG’s report, the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York declined to prosecute other MCC employees who the OIG found certified or submitted false documentation regarding the inmate counts on the days surrounding Epstein’s death.
According to the initial indictment against the two guards, on the night of Epstein’s suicide, both individuals repeatedly failed to complete the required prisoners check during their watch. Two guards on duty the night of Epstein’s death later admitted to falsifying records at the time. The report indicated the Bureau of Prisons’ failings were troubling not only because they did not safeguard Epstein but also because they “led to numerous questions about the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death” and denied Epstein’s victims justice. The politically and socially well-connected financier’s death immediately spurned conspiracy theories and significant questioning and intrigue over the circumstances. Then, in August, only 35 days after his arrest, Epstein died by suicide by hanging in his jail cell at New York City’s Metropolitan Correctional Center where he was being held, according to New York City’s medical examiner. “Likewise, none of the interviewed inmates provided any credible information that Epstein’s cause of death was something other than suicide.”Įpstein was arrested in July 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking minors.
“All (prison) staff members who were interviewed by the OIG said they did not know of any information suggesting that Epstein’s cause of death was something other than suicide,” the report states. The OIG, however, did not find evidence “that contradicted the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) determination regarding the absence of criminality in connection with how Epstein died,” according to the report.
The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General on Tuesday issued a scathing rebuke of the Bureau of Prisons detailing the multiple failures that led to the death of high-profile financier Jeffrey Epstein following his arrest in 2019 but found no evidence to contradict the “absence of criminality” in his death.Īccording to the report, the failures that allowed Epstein time to die by suicide in his cell included multiple prison employees failing to conduct rounds and cell searches to check on Epstein, his access to extra bed linens – which he used to hang himself – and failure to assign Epstein a fellow inmate after he was placed on suicide watch.
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