AUTOPSY: HANGING
ME’s official result as probers eye Epstein pals
An official autopsy shows that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself by hanging, authorities said Friday.
The 66-year-old pedophile died in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan last Saturday, according to findings by the city Medical Examiner’s Office.
The multimillionaire was being held on federal child sex-trafficking raps that could have sent him to prison for 45 years. The autopsy and other evidence confirmed Epstein committed suicide, the ME’s Office said without elaborating.
Officials said earlier this week the autopsy had been completed but that the medical examiner needed “further information” before determining Epstein’s official cause of death.
Epstein’s lawyers issued a statement Friday night saying, “We are not satisfied with the conclusions of the medical examiner.”
“The defense team fully intends to conduct its own independent and complete investigation” into the cause of death and the “medieval conditions” and protocol violations at the jail, wrote lawyers Martin G. Weinberg, Reid Weingarten and Michael Miller.
Esptein was found with a bedsheet wrapped around his neck. It had been tied to the top of a bunk bed in his jail cell, and he was found kneeling, leaning forward, creating a lethal noose. Authorities say they will now target his accomplices. They could include heiress Ghislaine Maxwell.
There were questions about why Epstein wasn’t on suicide watch. He had been after being found in his cell in July with marks around his neck. But his lawyers had asked for him to be taken off the watch about a week later, and the MCC agreed. That meant instead of being checked on in his cell every 15 minutes, guards would now make a pass every 30 minutes.
In Epstein’s case, even that didn’t happen. It turned out he hadn’t been checked for hours before his death.
US Attorney General William Barr has opened a probe, and has reassigned the MCC warden, Lamine N’Diaye — who a wellplaced source told The Post on Friday has hired a prominent criminal-defense lawyer. N’Diaye starts a reassignment in Philadelphia next week, the source said.
The warden has no plans to sue anyone, the source said — this is strictly a defensive move. “He needs adequate representation,’’ the source said. “He is worried about losing his position’’ as a warden. Messages left at phone numbers listed for N’Diaye were not returned on Friday.
The developments came as it also surfaced Epstein had spent at least two hours alone with a casually dressed “young’’ and “pretty’’ woman the day after he was taken off suicide watch at the MCC, Forbes reported.
A lawyer visiting the facility said he witnessed the two and speculated that while “the optics were startling’’ — given what Epstein was accused of and the age and attractiveness of the woman — she was a junior lawyer assigned to his case.
No other people joined them, and she didn’t seem to be carrying any files, the source said.
“If I was him, I would have hired . . . an old bald guy,’’ the source said.