Officials apparently ignored order
Eight jail staffers knew of instructions not to leave Jeffrey Epstein alone before he was found dead.
WASHINGTON — At least eight Bureau of Prisons staffers knew that strict instructions had been given not to leave multimillionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein alone in his cell, yet the order was apparently ignored in the 24 hours leading up to his death, according to people familiar with the matter.
The fact that so many prison officials were aware of the directive — not just low-level correctional officers, but supervisors and managers — has alarmed investigators assessing what so far appears to be a stunning failure to follow instructions, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. They declined to identify the eight.
Investigators suspect that at least some of these individuals also knew Epstein had been left alone in a cell before he died, and they are working to determine the extent of such knowledge, these people said, cautioning that the apparent disregard for the instruction does not necessarily mean there was criminal conduct. The explanation, they said, could be simpler and sadder — bureaucratic incompetence spanning multiple individuals and ranks within the organization.
The Bureau of Prisons declined to comment.
“It’s perplexing,” said Robert Hood, a former warden at the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. “If people were given instructions that Epstein should not be left alone, I don’t understand how they were not followed.”
Hood, who also once served as the Bureau of Prisons’ chief of internal affairs, said it was disconcerting that officials might have thought they were putting Epstein on a less intensive form of suicide watch. “You’re either on suicide watch or you’re not. If you have any concern at all, you maintain the suicide watch,” he said.
Epstein, 66, was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center during the early morning of Aug. 10. He had been held at the facility in Lower Manhattan for more than a month on sex trafficking charges that could have led to a prison sentence of as much as 45 years. He had pleaded not guilty, and the case was due to go to trial next year.
Epstein apparently hanged himself using a bedsheet fastened to his bunk bed, and New York’s medical examiner has ruled the death a suicide — a finding not accepted by Epstein’s lawyers, who said they are conducting their own investigation.
The death has prompted investigations and a leadership overhaul at the Bureau of Prisons, the federal agency that runs the jail. On Monday, Attorney General William Barr named Kathleen Hawk Sawyer its new director, having replaced the detention center’s warden days earlier.
The circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death are being investigated by the FBI and the Justice Department’s inspector general.
Speaking Wednesday at an unrelated event in Dallas, Barr said that the investigation is “well along,” adding “I think I’ll soon be in a position to report to Congress and the public the results.”
Barr said there had been some delays in the investigation “because a number of the witnesses were not cooperative. A number of them required having union representatives and lawyers.”
He also said there were “serious irregularities at the center. At the same time I have seen nothing that undercuts the finding of the medical examiner that this was a suicide.”
The investigations already have found a troubling lack of follow-through by Bureau of Prisons personnel after a July 23 incident in which Epstein may have tried to kill himself, according to people familiar with them.
The death of such a high-profile defendant has brought intense scrutiny to the Justice Department and the Bureau of Prisons. Union officials have said such a suicide was inevitable, given long-term shortstaffing at the MCC and throughout the bureau, a situation that has led to employees working extensive overtime.
The two staffers assigned to check on Epstein the morning he died were both working overtime — one forced to do so by management, the other for his fourth or fifth consecutive day, the president of the local union has previously said.
“It’s perplexing. You’re either on suicide watch or you’re not.”
— Robert Hood, former warden in Florence, Colorado