epstein
Jeffrey Epstein did not kill himself because he was preparing a multi-layered legal and media strategy to fight his case, the late pedophile's lawyer has claimed.

David Schoen, who Epstein asked to lead his legal team in his final days, said he planned to mount legal and factual defenses to the sex trafficking allegations against him.

During a five-hour meeting with Epstein nine days before his death, Schoen said Epstein was 'upbeat and excited' and looking forward to clearing his name.

But Epstein was in a 'dangerous situation' in jail and suggested other prisoners were considering blackmailing him.

They would see him on TV inside the prison and tell Epstein: '$70 million mansion, huh?'

Schoen speaks out in a new documentary about Epstein's death called Who Killed Jeffrey Epstein?

The first episode began streaming online on Investigation Discovery on Monday and will be premiered on TV on May 31.

The three-part series questions whether or not the financier took his own life last August while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, as the official autopsy claimed.

Epstein's death sparked a slew of conspiracy theories, which were bolstered by the apparent failures at the prison where he was being held.

The guards at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan allegedly did not check on him all night - and the cameras outside of his cell were not working.

Schoen is based in Atlanta, Georgia and had been giving Epstein sporadic legal advice for 11 years before his arrest last July.

He claims that despite his vast finances, Epstein's legal team was in turmoil and he sought out Schoen to lead them to trial.

Speaking to DailyMail.com Schoen even called Jay Lefkowitz, one of Epstein's longtime lawyers, a 'numbskull'.

Central to Epstein's legal strategy was that the prosecution in New York was the same as the one in 2008 for which he agreed to a plea deal with federal prosecutors.

Schoen explained Epstein 'asked me to take over the whole case' and that they discussed factual rebuttals.

He said: 'People who were coming forward he'd never seen before and had nothing to do with.

'I thought he was getting killed in the media when he could respond, he should at least explain and respond. There was a miserable failure to do so and his lawyers were dysfunctional.'

The plan to push back included 'appealing to the public sense of fairness' because Epstein had not been formally accused of anything since 2005.

Schoen wanted to talk about the 'political pressure' that led to Epstein's arrest and the 'extortion attempts' by victims' lawyers.

In one case a lawyer supposedly sent Epstein a letter demanding $25 million to make the victim's claims go away - Epstein did not pay.

Schoen said: 'At least I wanted people to report on the fact how much lawyers were making off this thing. I'd hope that some people agree that some of these women tricked him.'

During their five hour meeting at the MCC on August 1, Epstein and Schoen had 'mapped out a strategy and he was upbeat and excited'.

Schoen said: 'We were in the area where prisoners meet lawyers. At one point a prison psychiatrist came in and asked me to leave so she could talk to Epstein on his own.

'They talked for five minutes and he seemed relaxed. He was smiling as she left.

'He had plans to really fight this case. He'd made arrangements to hire me'.

Schoen did not reveal the contents of his discussions with Epstein but said Ghislaine Maxwell, his alleged madam, 'never came up'.

Epstein had a lot of 'powerful friends' who he did favors for and Schoen was 'disappointed' they did not offer help to him after his arrest.

He said: 'I'd hoped that Prince Andrew would be the one guy who stood up and said he was a friend, I didn't know anything about it'.

Instead the Duke distanced himself from Epstein in a BBC interview a few months after he died.

When Schoen learned Epstein had been found dead, he immediately told his legal team to hire renowned pathologist Michael Baden to be present for the autopsy.

Baden was brought on board and concluded that Epstein's injuries were not consistent with suicide by hanging, as the New York City Medical Examiner said.

Instead Baden believes the broken bone in Epstein's neck suggests he had been killed.

As Schoen says in the documentary: 'I think it was a homicide but I don't know who killed him'.

Schoen said he was especially concerned about Epstein's former cellmate Nicholas Tartaglione, a hulking ex-cop accused of four murders.

Tartaglione was Epstein's cellmate during his first apparent suicide attempt on July 23 last year and some reports suggested he beat Epstein up, a claim his lawyer strongly denied.

Schoen said: 'The first incident that happened which the newspapers reported as a possible suicide attempt, Epstein didn't want to discuss any further. He told the prison officers he couldn't remember what happened, he didn't want to answer any more questions.

'Look, he was in a dangerous situation. He's a very wealthy guy accused of sex offences stuck in with a guy accused of four murders.

'First of all he shouldn't have been locked up in the general population, that's reprehensible.

'He'd have guys who watch the nightly news on the prison TV and say to him, $70 million mansion, huh?

'I've been through this with other clients and I told him to keep him an eye on this and tell me if anyone was extorting him'.