‘Serious failures’ led to Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 suicide, report finds

The Justice Department’s watchdog agency found that misconduct by prison guards and longstanding issues gave disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein “the opportunity to take his own life” before his suicide in 2019.

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Epstein died on Aug. 10, 2019, as he was awaiting trial at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York. The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General determined in a report issued Tuesday that “numerous and serious failures” by jail staff allowed Epstein to be alone and unmonitored in his cell with an excess of linens before he hanged himself.

In the report, officials said investigators found no evidence of foul play. Instead, they pointed to jail staff members who falsified records to make it appear as though they checked on inmates when they had not, the failure to assign Epstein a cellmate despite an earlier suicide attempt and the fact that nearly none of the cameras in the area where Epstein was housed were recording in the days around his death, among other factors.

“The combination of negligence, misconduct, and outright job performance failures … all contributed to an environment in which arguably one of the most notorious inmates in BOP’s custody was provided with the opportunity to take his own life,” according to the report.

After Epstein’s death, authorities charged two jail guards responsible for the 66-year-old’s care with falsifying records to make it look like they had carried out checks every half-hour on Aug. 9 and 10 when they had actually spent chunks of their shifts surfing the internet and sleeping. The charges against the guards were later dismissed after they met the terms of a deferred prosecution agreement, officials said.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to pursue charges against other MCC New York employees found to have lied about checking on inmates around the time of Epstein’s death, according to authorities.

In the report issued Tuesday, officials also highlighted longstanding issues in federal prisons, including staffing shortages, management failures and a disregard for Bureau of Prisons policies and procedures.

In a statement obtained by The Associated Press, BOP officials said the agency had accepted the eight recommendations made by Inspector General Michael Horowitz, including revamping policies for dealing with inmates deemed to be at high risk for suicide.

“We make every effort to create a controlled environment within our facilities that is both secure and humane, prioritizing the physical and emotional well-being of those in our care and custody,” the BOP said in the statement.

Epstein’s death, which happened as he was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges, prompted widespread speculation and spawned a slew of conspiracy theories. Shortly afterward, then-Attorney General William Barr said he was investigating “serious irregularities” in Epstein’s treatment at MCC New York. He later attributed Epstein’s death to “a perfect storm of screw-ups,” The New York Times reported.

Epstein was accused of sexually abusing and exploiting dozens of girls as young as age 14 between 2002 and 2005. He had pleaded not guilty.