Jeffrey Epstein is Dead

 

Jeffrey Epstein, the millionaire financier and convicted sex offender, was found dead by suicide in his jail cell on Saturday morning. Epstein was awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center after being accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls. He was 66.

The details of his death

According to NBC News, Epstein hanged himself overnight in his cell and was taken to a local hospital from the MCC on Saturday morning in cardiac arrest. Per the Department of Justice’s official statement:

On Saturday, August 10, 2019, at approximately 6:30 a.m., inmate Jeffrey Edward Epstein was found unresponsive in his cell in the Special Housing Unit from an apparent suicide at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York, New York. Life-saving measures were initiated immediately by responding staff. Staff requested emergency medical services (EMS) and life-saving efforts continued. Mr. Epstein was transported by EMS to a local hospital for treatment of life-threatening injuries, and subsequently pronounced dead by hospital staff. The FBI is investigating the incident.

Epstein had been taken off suicide watch despite an earlier attempt

Three weeks before his death, on July 23, Epstein had been found semiconscious in his cell with marks on his neck — though it was not clear if he had tried to harm himself or had been attacked. Prison officials investigated the injury as a possible suicide attempt and put Epstein on suicide watch, which would entail being placed in a special cell where he could be constantly monitored by prison personnel and prevented from having access to any means by which he could take his own life. Epstein was also subject to a daily psychiatric evaluation during this time, according to a source who spoke with the New York Times.

But for reasons still unknown as of Saturday afternoon, Epstein was taken off of suicide watch on July 29 and returned to the MCC’s special housing unit, according to the Times. Typically, that should have only happened if the prison’s chief psychologist approved the change after evaluating the inmate and justifying why they are no longer at risk of harming themselves.

There had also been unconfirmed rumors that Epstein’s earlier injury had been the result of an attack, but he was reportedly found dead alone in his cell on Saturday morning.

Here is what the Daily Beast reported regarding the earlier possible suicide attempt and an purported glimpse of Epstein’s behavior:

Epstein had initially been held in general population at MCC, where he’d been targeted for extortion as a wealthy pedophile, a source with knowledge of his circumstances told The Daily Beast, describing Epstein’s injuries from his prior alleged suicide attempt as small abrasions around his neck. …

At the time of [that] attempt, he shared a cell with Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer charged with kidnapping and murdering four people in 2016. …

Tartaglione’s lawyer, Bruce Barket, told authorities his client had saved Epstein’s life during the first suicide attempt by alerting corrections officers. He claimed Tartaglione was being implicated in the suicide attempt because he’d recently complained about conditions at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, saying in a statement at the time, “we warned the judge that officials at the jail would retaliate against Nick because we have been exposing the inhumane conditions at the facility.”

A source added that while protocols were followed after his previous apparent suicide attempt, Epstein received no preferential treatment.

The Beast’s source said that Epstein “lived like a pig in a sty” after his first attempted suicide, eating meals off the floor and making frequent requests for toilet paper.

The Department of Justice announced on Saturday that the FBI had opened an investigation into the circumstances of Epstein’s death. Attorney General William Barr additionally announced that the Justice Department’s inspector general would be conducting an investigation. Barr said he was “appalled to learn” that Epstein had taken his own life while in federal custody and that the incident “raises serious questions that must be answered.”

The impact on the case against Epstein and investigation into his crimes

One major consequence of Epstein’s death will be its effect on the investigation into his abuse of countless underage girls, as well as the potential consequences for his accomplices.

According to former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti, the case against Epstein dies with him:

Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide ends the criminal case against him because no one else was charged in the indictment. … [It] means that there won’t be a public trial or other proceedings that could reveal evidence of his wrongdoing. Evidence collected via grand jury subpoena won’t be released to the public. It’s still likely that the public will learn additional information from civil cases by victims against his estate or non-criminal investigations (for example, the DOJ OIG investigation).

At the Cut, Matthew Schneier points out that after Epstein’s death, “thousands of questions may never have satisfactory answers, and focus is likely to intensify on his collaborators, co-conspirators, enablers, and friends.” Schneier then highlights what a trove of newly unsealed court documents says about Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s best friend and alleged accomplice.

Justice denied — the response from Epstein’s victims

The Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown passed along some reactions from Epstein’s stunned victims:

Jena-Lisa Jones, who was molested by him when she was 14, said that Epstein took the coward’s way out. “I just can’t believe it, we were finally feeling that we might have some justice after all these years,’’ she said, her voice cracking.

Eva Ford, the mother of victim Courtney Wild, was angry. “How does someone who is this high profile commit suicide? They had to have cameras on him! Someone must have been paid to look the other way,’’ Ford said.

“I just want wanted him to be held accountable for his actions. I would never wish that somebody would die but he took the easy way out,’’ said victim Michelle Licata.

Added Jack Scarola, an attorney representing several of Epstein’s victims:

It is inexplicable how such a high-profile person on suicide watch could commit suicide without help. … Epstein once again cheated his victims out of an opportunity for justice. While I’m sure none of them regret his death, all of them regret the information that died with him. The one expectation is that Epstein’s death not derail the investigation into others who participated in his criminal activities. There are named and unnamed co-conspirators who still need to be brought to justice

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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Previously  2018

With the Saturday arrest of billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein on charges of sex-trafficking minors – days after a judge ordered that nearly 2,000 documents be made public following a 2017 court motion originally brought by filmmaker and author Mike Cernovich, the internet is once again abuzz with speculation over who exactly might be implicated by the new evidence.

4 December 2018

Epstein pleaded guilty to one count of soliciting prostitution from a 14 year old girl in 2008 for which he served 13 months in jail in a sweetheart deal with the DOJ brokered by current Labor Secretary Alex Acosta. The sealed records appeal, meanwhile, stemmed from a separate 2015 defamation lawsuit in New York brought by Epstein victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell. Giuffre says Maxwell helped Epstein traffic herself and other underage girls to sex parties at the billionaire pedophile’s many residences.

The case was settled in 2017 and the records were sealed – leading to an appeal by Cernovich, who was later joined by the Miami Herald and several other parties including lawyer Alan Dershowitz – who seeks to clear his name in connection with Epstein’s activities.

And while Democrats have suggested that the new evidence may implicate President Trump – who once called Epstein a “Terrific guy” who “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side” (yet reportedly kicked the billionaire pedophile out of his Mar-a-Lago club for trying to recruit an underage girl) others are focusing on the Clintons.

A the NY Post detailed in 2016, Epstein and the Clintons are close.

Epstein has spent the bulk of his adult life cultivating relationships with the worlds most powerful men. Flight logs show that from 2001 to 2003, Bill Clinton flew on Epsteins private plane, dubbed The Lolita Express by the press, 26 times. After Epsteins arrest in July 2006, federal tax records show Epstein donated $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation that year.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Superdelegate daughter Christine quipped on Twitter “It is quite likely that some of our faves are implicated but we must follow the facts and let the chips fall where they may.”

Following a 2018 financial settlement between Florida attorney Bradley Edwards – who represented one of Epstein’s accusers, only to be later sued by Epstein, Edwards claimed that Donald Trump was the ‘only person’ who provided assistance when Edwards served subpoenas and notices to high-profile individuals connected to Epstein.

Meanwhile, as we noted in 2017, opposition research firm Fusion GPS tried and failed to find evidence of a close relationship between then-candidate Donald Trump and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, whose ‘Lolita Express” private jet ferried powerful clients to his private island, “Little St. James.”

While trying to tie Trump to Epstein in an attempt to push the narrative to at least two reporters, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS – the firm behind the unsubstantiated “Trump-Russia” dossier, found that the Trump-Epstein link appears purely social, according to the Washington Times, which writes “Journalist sources told The Washington Times that Simpson pushed the idea of a close relationship between Mr. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein,” adding “Ken Silverstein, the reporter who ultimately wrote an Epstein-Trump report, confirmed to The Times that Fusion had sourced the story.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-07/trump-was-only-one-help-prosecutor-2009-epstein-case?fbclid=IwAR3lMJA8Ezr7JSTU3AtTx5QofjlL-QBnHt4t_DCWdOcYrE-bw2Wqqje7er4

Mr. Silverstein, who wrote the Vice.Com story, was asked by The Washington Times if Fusion pushed the Epstein-Trump story.

Since you asked, yes, they helped me with that, Mr. Silverstein said. But as you can see, I could not make a strong case for Trump being super close to Epstein, so they could hardly have been thrilled with that story. [In my humble opinion], that was the best story written about Trumps ties to Epstein, but I failed to nail him. Trumps ties were mild compared to Bill Clintons. –Washington Times

In January 2016, Vice.com ran Silverstein’s story on Trump’s ties to Epstein, which framed them as more social – including dinner parties, two plane trips, and Epstein hanging out at Trump’s Mar-a-lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. As Radar reported last April, “According to an investigation by Radar, Trump was among dozens of renowned New Yorkers who knew Epstein socially but ostracized him after Palm Beach police uncovered the financiers sleazy double life,” adding that Trump “once barred child molester Jeffrey Epstein from his famed Mar-a-lago club after the presidential candidate caught him hitting on a young girl.”

Attorney Bradley Edwards Explains the Latest on Jeffrey Epstein’s Prosecution

 

Edwards: The only thing that I can say about President Trump is that he is the only person who, in 2009 when I served a lot of subpoenas on a lot of people, or at least gave notice to some pretty connected people, that I want to talk to them, is the only person who picked up the phone and said, let’s just talk.  I’ll give you as much time as you want.  I’ll tell you what you need to know, and was very helpful, in the information that he gave, and gave no indication whatsoever that he was involved in anything untoward whatsoever, but had good information. That checked out and that helped us and we didn’t have to take a deposition of him in 2009.