Epstein used wealth to survive in jail, DoJ guards not cooperating with 'suicide' investigation

Eileen AJ Connelly and Mara Siegler
New York Times
Sat, 17 Aug 2019 15:18 UTC

© Corbis via Getty Images

Jeffrey Epstein

He couldn't buy his freedom — but he could buy vending machine snacks, the "friendship" of fellow inmates, and hours on end away from his cell meeting with lawyers.

Millionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein spread his wealth around as much as he could in the month before he committed suicide on Aug. 10 at the federal Manhattan Correctional Center, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Epstein deposited money in at least three other inmates' commissary accounts in an attempt to ingratiate himself and possibly buy protection from the hardened criminals in the MCC's Special Housing Unit, where he awaited trial on a massive underage sex trafficking indictment, outlet reported.

To escape the misery of his damp, mouse and roach infested cell, the disgraced money manager would pay a staff of lawyers to meet for up to 12 hours at a time in a private attorney-client meeting room.

His entourage would routinely empty the two adjacent vending machines of drinks and snacks.

"It was shift work, all designed by someone who had infinite resources to try and get as much comfort as possible," a lawyer who was often in the jail visiting clients told the outlet.

At times, at least, the perks worked to lift his spirits.

A lawyer who met with Epstein in early August claimed he was "very very upbeat" — an account that jibes with what sources told The Post about his spirits in the days before he apparently killed himself.

Attorney David Schoen told paper he met with Epstein for roughly five hours, and had expected to join his legal team.

"One thing I can say for sure is when I left him he was very, very upbeat," said Schoen, who was ultimately never hired.

But in the week before his death, Epstein appeared more and more haggard and unkempt, lawyers and prison staff told The Times.

Comment: People who met him at his home for business affairs reported that he would greet them relatively unkempt so this may not be that unusual.

"He's deprived of communication with third parties, looked disheveled, sleeping on the floor sometimes," one lawyer told the paper.

He spent his last day sitting for hours with his lawyers, and would have been well aware that a court had that day released a damaging trove of some 2,000 pages of documents from a prior defamation lawsuit by one of his accusers.

Then, back to the dankness and vermin of his cell, which The Times said was positioned so that a small window would have allowed Epstein to see if the guards tasked with monitoring him were awake or — as prison officials now charge — asleep.

The city Medical Examiner's Office has concluded his death was a suicide.

On Saturday, Epstein's former attorney Alan Dershowitz told The Post that despite the murder conspiracies swirling around the pedophile's death, he is certain his former client just gave up. "I think he killed himself because he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in prison," Dershowitz said.

"He did a cost-benefit analysis, and thought he'd be better off dead."

Comment: Zero Hedge reports on the prison guards who are rousing suspicions by being uncooperative with the DOJ investigation:

Employees at the Manhattan Metropolitan Correctional Center where convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein reportedly took his own life last week are not cooperating with the Justice Department investigators according to Fox News.

Two senior DOJ officials sent by Attorney General William Barr have been on-site at MCC while the agency's Inspector General investigates the situation. According to a senior DOJ official, Barr said that "serious irregularities" had been uncovered at the jail.

The night of Epstein's death, correctional officers did not check on the extremely high-profile prisoner for "several hours" before he died, despite being required to look in on him every 30 minutes. Moreover, guards are suspected of falsifying log entries to show that they were checking as required, according to the Associated Press.

In response, officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons have been on-site at MCC to assist with the investigation.

BOP officials from various regional offices have also been sent to the Manhattan facility to lend their expertise and insight. In addition, a separate BOP "After Action Team" went to MCC earlier this week in an effort to examine what happened the night Epstein died. The use of the "After Action Team" is part of BOP protocol whenever a "significant event takes place at a prison.

Epstein was found dead in his cell on Aug. 10. Earlier Friday, New York City's medical examiner officially ruled the 66-year-old's death a suicide by hanging.

Fox News has also learned that 20 of 21 prison staff posts were filled between the hours of 4 p.m. and 12 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 9, the day before Epstein was found. Of those prison workers, six of them were working voluntary overtime. Between 12 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 10, 18 of 19 staff posts were filled. Of those 18 staffers, 10 were working overtime and all but one of those were doing so voluntarily. -Fox News

Two staffers have been placed on administrative leave, while MCC's warden was reassigned pending the investigation.

"It is indisputable that the authorities violated their own protocols," said Epstein's attorneys, Martin Weinberg, Reid Weingarten and Michael Miller. "The defense team fully intends to conduct its own independent and complete investigation into the circumstances and cause of Mr. Epstein's death including if necessary legal action to view the pivotal videos - if they exist as they should - of the area proximate to Mr. Epstein's cell during the time period leading to his death."

Epstein's attorneys also addressed the deceased pedophile's controversial autopsy, which concluded that he hanged himself using bed-sheets, breaking his hyoid bone near the Adam's apple. This is typically only broken during strangulation victims, however they can also be broken via hanging - particularly if the person is older.

"We are not satisfied with the conclusions of the medical examiner," they said, adding "We will have a more complete response in the coming days" (and will bill Epstein's estate accordingly, we're sure).

Meanwhile, several women are suing Epstein's estate, claiming he sexually abused them.

The suit, filed Thursday in a federal court in New York, claims the women were working as hostesses at a popular Manhattan restaurant in 2004 when they were recruited to give Epstein massages. One was 18 at the time. The other was 20.

The lawsuit says an unidentified female recruiter offered the hostesses hundreds of dollars to provide massages to Epstein, saying he 'liked young, pretty girls to massage him,' and wouldn't engage in any unwanted touching. The women say Epstein groped them anyway.

One plaintiff now lives in Japan, the other in Baltimore. They seek $100 million in damages, citing depression, anxiety, anger and flashbacks.

Other lawsuits, filed over many years by other women, accused him of hiring girls as young as 14 or 15 to give him massages, then subjecting them to sex acts. -Daily Mail

Epstein had faced up to 45 years in prison if found guilty of exploiting dozens of underage girls at his residences in Manhattan and Florida between 2002 and 2005.

See also: NYT reporter: Epstein said criminalizing sex with teenage girls 'cultural aberration'; said he had dirt on powerful people