Jeffrey Epstein, locked away
Whether the injuries that sent Jeffrey Epstein to the hospital on Tuesday morning were self-inflicted or the work of another person remains unknown. Either possibility is a consequence of the sex crime allegations he is facing. Having already been convicted of them in Florida, chances are he did it. He is what’s known as a rapo to his future fellow convicts, prison staff and ex-cons like me; that inevitably leads to injuries.
Over my 10 years upstate for amateur robberies committed as a heroin addict in 2003, I must have met thousands of rapos. The DOC reports 6,400 new commitments for sex offenders out of 26,000 total prison admissions in an equivalent year, so that’s about every fourth convict. Rapists and child molesters did everything possible to conceal their charges inside, but I definitely met plenty.
Besides, Epstein’s known. Bill Cosby may be the most famous rapo nationally, but Epstein will take the crown in New York.
Is the top rapo any better off? Twice I became close with pedophiles. The first was a man who ended our friendship once I found out the
truth. He’d been a Franciscan monk. The other rapo, an engineer, admitted his crime and expressed regret for it. He served 15 years for having oral sex with an 11-year-old.
They confirmed what I’d heard about the lives of rapos. Sex offenders were treated neutrally until their crimes were revealed, often by guards bending the rules. This led to extortion attempts, financial demands, humiliation, violence and the threat of rape. Most sex between prisoners is consensual these days, but if anyone gets raped inside, it’s a rapo.
Child molesters and statutory rapists, anyone with a “bad case,” are the most vulnerable inmates. Even the correction officers aren’t keen to protect them. And Epstein, a wealthy white Jew, is already part of a despised minority in the joint.
Assuming, after his stint in jail, he winds up in prison, his fame and the cringingly light sentence he received in Florida will hurt Epstein’s chances of serving his time peacefully. But he does have one advantage so powerful that it can make his life as a sex offender different from that of any other: Epstein is the richest rapo ever seen.
When his Upper East side mansion was searched, an Austrian passport was discovered with Epstein’s face on it, but not his name. Expensive preparation: Austria is not a third-world country that sells citizenships like some Pacific or Caribbean island states do; a St. Kitts passport only costs a $150,000 donation, while Portuguese citizenship is €500,000.
The man has the means to escape his coming conviction, and if his injuries were a suicide attempt, seemingly the will. Epstein apparently knows how hard it will be to serve a sentence.
A man was questioned about the incident, a former police officer who is facing murder charges. But the two were reportedly friends. Of course it’s possible another inmate could have choked Epstein, leaving him lying in the fetal position on the floor of his cell.
It’s all a preview for a horror movie: Rikers Island would be worse, and the upstate prisons are going to be a world of fear for Epstein.
Unless he uses the ace up his sleeve. Most New York prisoners do not receive funds from home. They live off the pay earned at prison jobs, which starts at 10 cents an hour and averages a little more than 50 cents. You can work six hours a day and holidays are not compensated.
Many of these men are therefore broke, but also tough, hardened, violent criminals. It may be prison code to hate rapos and persecute them, but a thousand dollars a month will buy off even the most determined ideological enemy inside. Epstein wouldn’t even notice hiring a dozen of them for his protection.
His money may not save him from the law this time, but it could save him from some of the worst punishment that comes after.
Genis is a writer and ex-con whose memoir of incarceration will be published soon.