DOJ Inspector General Reports ‘Numerous and Serious Failures’ by NY Prison That Led to the Suicide of Jeffrey Epstein

The Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

A new report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General confirms that “numerous and serious failures” on the part of New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center led to the jail cell suicide of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The report, issued by DOJ Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, outlines the circumstances and conditions that ultimately left Epstein alone in his cell where he hanged himself with bed linens in August 2019. He was in FBI custody while awaiting trial for charges of sex trafficking.

Horowitz reported that it was up to the Federal Bureau of Prisons to ensure that while he was a prisoner in their custody, Epstein always had a cellmate, that guards checked on him every 30 minutes, and that surveillance cameras were functioning. On all these counts, the BOP failed:

On August 9, Epstein’s cellmate was transferred out of MCC New York. MCC New York staff knew that Epstein did not have a cellmate but did not take steps to ensure that he was assigned a new cellmate….

Had Epstein’s cell been searched as required, the search would have revealed that Epstein had excess prison blankets, linens, and clothing in his cell. The OIG also found that [Special Housing Unit] staff did not conduct any 30-minute rounds after about 10:40 p.m. on August 9 and that none of the required SHU inmate counts were conducted after 4:00 p.m. on August 9….

Although video cameras in the SHU provided live video feeds to monitoring stations, system deficiencies resulted in nearly all of the cameras in and around the SHU where Epstein was being housed to not record video starting in late July 2019 and continuing through the date of Epstein’s death.

But while responsibility also fell on the staff of the MCC, some of whom were “sleeping and online shopping” on the job, it was also found that several members of the staff were overworked due to staffing shortages. Charges against the two workers directly responsible for monitoring Epstein, who admitted to falsifying their records on when they checked on Epstein, were dropped in late 2021.

Conspiracies have swirled since Epstein’s death, with many believing that Epstein was murdered to silence him. The Inspector General’s report put the kibosh on this theory by concluding that there was “no criminality associated with Epstein’s death”:

The BOP’s failures are troubling not only because the BOP did not adequately safeguard an individual in its custody, but also because they led to questions about the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death and effectively deprived Epstein’s numerous victims of the opportunity to seek justice through the criminal justice process.

Last week, some of Epstein’s victims asked a federal judge to approve a $290 million settlement with JP Morgan Chase over allegations the bank enabled Epstein’s criminal behavior by turning a “blind eye.”

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