© William FarringtonEMTs attempt to revive Jeffrey Epstein as he's wheeled into New York Downtown Hospital.
Update: The warden of the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) where Jeffrey Epstein died
has been temporarily reassigned to the Bureau's Northeast Regional Office by Attorney General William Barr, according to a Tuesday statement by the Justice Department. Meanwhile, two prison employees who had been assigned to Epstein's unit have been placed on administrative leave pending ongoing investigations, according to
CNBC.
Department of Justice spokewoman Kerri Kupec, in a prepared statement said, "Today, the Attorney General directed the Bureau of Prisons to temporarily assign the warden at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York to the Bureau's Northeast Regional Office pending the outcome of the FBI and OIG investigations into the apparent suicide of Jeffrey Epstein, a former MCC inmate."
"FCI Otisville Warden James Petrucci has been named Acting Warden of the MCC New York. The Bureau of Prisons also placed on administrative leave two MCC staff assigned to Mr. Epstein's unit pending the outcome of the investigations. Additional actions may be taken as the circumstances warrant." -CNBC
The morning of Jeffrey Epstein's death, "
shouting and shrieking" could be heard from his jail cell, according to
CBS News - while guards attempting to revive him were saying "
breathe, Epstein, breathe."
Epstein, who was reportedly in 'good spirits' recently - meeting with his lawyers for up to 12 hours a day to discuss his case - was found hanging in his Lower Manhattan jail cell with a bedsheet around his neck, which was reportedly secured to the top of a bunk bed, according to the
New York Post.
On Monday, Attorney General William Barr said that the Epstein case "was personally important to him," and that the prison had "serious irregularities."
Notably, the staff at MCC reportedly
violated prison protocol by failing to check on the high-profile inmate every 30 minutes, according to the
Washington Post. Epstein, whose defense attorneys
successfully lobbied for him to be taken off suicide watch about a week before he was found dead, was also supposed to have had a cellmate.
...he also should have had a cellmate, according to the person familiar with the matter and union officials representing facility employees.
But a person who had been assigned to share a cell with Epstein was transferred on Friday, and — for reasons that investigators are still exploring — he did not receive a new cellmate. -Washington Post
In a rare show of bipartisanship, the House Judiciary Committee has sent a letter to the acting director of the Bureau of Prisons, Hugh Hurwitz, demanding answers - and stating that Epstein's reported death by hanging "demonstrates severe miscarriages of or deficiencies in inmate protocol and has allowed the deceased to ultimately evade facing justice," according to the
Miami Herald.
On Monday, the FBI raided Little St. James - Epstein's so-called 'orgy island,' according to the
Daily Mail, which captured footage of a dozen officers docking speedboats on the island before exploring the property on golf carts. Some agents were spotted on top of Epstein's luxury home. All officials wore jackets with the letters 'FBI' in clear view.
Potential co-conspirators?With Epstein dead, four women accused of recruiting underage girls for sex with the pedophile financier are coming into focus, including British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell - who has denied all claims. On Monday, AG Barr said that Epstein's alleged co-conspirators
"should not rest easy" just because Epstein won't have his day in court.
"Let me assure you that case will continue on against anyone who was complicit with Epstein," said Barr in remarks to a New Orleans law enforcement group, "Any co-conspirators should not rest easy. Victims deserve justice and will get it."
Maxwell is said to be Epstein's ex-girlfriend turned business associate. Her current location is unknown.
"She was more of a partner in his obsession, really," said Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown, who spent more than two years looking into Epstein's controversial 2008 plea deal. "And there are allegations that she was involved in having sex with some of these girls as well."
Court documents from 2011 reveal Epstein controlled several apartments in a building just blocks from his $77 million New York townhouse and allegedly housed "underage girls from all over the world." -CBS News
According to
CBS News, Epstein's estranged brother Mark has identified the body. Meanwhile, the autopsy reports are
still pending.
Comment: And the questions of the circumstances surrounding the most high-profile suicide in recent times continue to mount.
The
New York Post reported there were no cameras trained on Epstein's cell, though this was ultra-maximum security facility
Although there are cameras in the 9 South wing where the convicted pedophile was being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, they are trained on the areas outside the cells and not inside, according to sources familiar with the setup there.
As Paul Joseph Watson comments, "How convenient."
Epstein had been
taken off suicide watch,
apparently at the request of his lawyers. Why was Epstein's cellmate
removed?
"Epstein was supposed to have a cellmate," reports Fox News. "But the person who was assigned to share a cell with Epstein was transferred on Friday before the 66-year-old's death."
"It was not immediately clear why the cellmate was transferred nor why no one else was assigned to room with Epstein."
The warden and guards on duty at the time appear to be being made
the patsies in the affair, and like to be subject to disciplinary action.
The warden of the federal jail in New York City where wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein killed himself was replaced Tuesday on orders of Attorney General William Barr pending investigations into the incident, the Justice Department said.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons also placed two staffers at the Metropolitan Correctional Center who had been assigned to Epstein's cell unit on administrative leave as probes into the death of the accused child sex trafficker continue.
"Additional actions may be taken as the circumstances warrant," said Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec.
Lamine N'Diaye is being replaced at MCC by acting warden James Petrucci, who had been warden of the federal prison in Otisville, New York.
Breitbart
adds:
Two New York City prison guards in charge of checking up on Jeffrey Epstein reportedly fell asleep and later falsified documents in an attempt to cover up their mistake on the eve of the alleged child sex trafficker's apparent suicide.
According to the New York Times, the guards dozed off for three hours, causing them to miss the Metropolitan Correctional Center's routine prisoner check. They then forged their supervision logs, which could come with criminal charges. On Tuesday, federal authorities removed the prison warden and the pair of guards from their roles.
The move by the Justice Department came amid mounting evidence that the chronically understaffed Metropolitan Correctional Center may have bungled its responsibility to keep the 66-year-old Epstein from harming himself while he awaited trial on charges of sexually abusing teenage girls.
Security at the Manhattan Correctional Center has been
described as 'intense':
Dana Gottesfeld's husband Martin, who is serving a 10-year sentence for hacking, has spent three months in New York's Metropolitan Correctional Center and has even drawn a picture of the special unit Epstein was imprisoned in.
"When you enter the prison it says something to the effect of, 'one of the harshest SHU's - that's a segregated housing unit - in the country,'" she told RT. "They're locked down for 23 to 24 hours a day, they get one 15 minute call a month."
"It's really harsh," she added. Security was "really intense" at the prison, she said, explaining that as a high profile case, her husband had "two guards and a lieutenant to transfer him between his solitary room to the visiting room."
"So they're very, very keen on security. They pay very special attention to high profile cases, so it's hard to imagine that Epstein would not be given at least a three guard escort," Gottesfeld said.
Apparently though, security at this tough prison can be
breached, for those with the right means:
Last year, a prison guard at the jail, Victor Casado, pleaded guilty to taking more than $25,000 in cash bribes to smuggle cellphones, alcohol and food to a wealthy Turkish gold trader between 2016 and 2017.
He also received thousands of dollars in payments from another inmate, which were given to him by the prisoners relatives and a paralegal representing him.
Casado was sentenced in January to three years in prison by a judge who called the crime an assault on 'our entire system of justice'.
Reza Zarrab, who was the Turkish gold trader involved with bribing the guard, was in prison over a money laundering scheme to Iran.
He has previously testified in court that someone tried to assassinate him at the prison when he implemented Turkey's President Recep Tayip Erdogan in the scheme that would launder billions of dollars from the U.S. to Iran.
'I came face to face with an individual who was trying to take my life, and he had pulled a knife on me, and I was about to lose my life,' Zarrab testified in 2017.
'He said that he had received instructions to kill because I was cooperating.'
A former CIA employee, Joshua Adam Schulte, is also accused of leaking classified files while he was locked up in the federal prison.
Schulte was charged last year with stealing classified national defense information from the CIA in 2016. He is believed to be behind the 'Vault 7' and 'Vault 8' documents released by WikiLeaks.
Authorities found multiple cellphones in his cell at the prison when they raided it in October last year. Officials also found 13 email and social media accounts that Schulte was allegedly using to communicate with others outside the prison.
Comment: And the questions of the circumstances surrounding the most high-profile suicide in recent times continue to mount.
The New York Post reported there were no cameras trained on Epstein's cell, though this was ultra-maximum security facility As Paul Joseph Watson comments, "How convenient."
Epstein had been taken off suicide watch, apparently at the request of his lawyers. Why was Epstein's cellmate removed? The warden and guards on duty at the time appear to be being made the patsies in the affair, and like to be subject to disciplinary action. Breitbart adds:
Security at the Manhattan Correctional Center has been described as 'intense': Apparently though, security at this tough prison can be breached, for those with the right means: