Was Epstein’s DEATH REALLY SUICIDE
Missing CCTV footage. Guards who failed to check his cell. Unusual injuries to his neck. As Ghislaine Maxwell insists he was murdered, read our gripping account of the paedophile financier’s final hours and judge for yourself...
EVER since the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell in a New York prison on August 10, 2019, conspiracy theories have abounded.
Officially, the 66-year-old tycoon committed suicide. But, given that he was facing charges of trafficking underage girls for sex, and the number of high-profile and powerful people, from Prince Andrew to Bill Gates, he had associated with, conspiracists believe some would have preferred him dead before he testified.
Last month, his former companion and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell made a frank intervention from her prison cell.
‘I believe that he was murdered,’ she said in a TV interview. ‘I was shocked. Then I wondered how it had happened because . . . I was sure he was going to appeal.’
Using written records that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has released, we reconstruct the final days and hours of Epstein’s life to find out what really happened on that fateful night in jail…
Saturday, July 6, 2019, Past 4pm
FBI agents are waiting on the Tarmac as Epstein’s private jet lands at Teterboro airport, New Jersey. He has flown from Paris and has already confided to his butler, Gabriel, that he is about to be arrested.
Epstein is taken to New York’s notorious Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), a grim 12-storey concrete building that is overcrowded, understaffed and infested with cockroaches and rats.
It’s a spectacular fall from grace for a man used to mixing with the rich and famous, counting the likes of Bill and Melinda Gates, Prince Andrew and the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak among his close associates.
There were rumours that Epstein had considered hiding in Israel, but is now hoping the American authorities will offer him a plea deal, like the controversial bargain he struck in 2006 after his arrest for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. (He pleaded guilty to that charge and served only 13 months.)
Oddly, the prison’s ‘intake screening’ describes him as a black male with no previous sexual convictions. This leads to Epstein being categorised as lowrisk, so he is held with the ‘general inmate population’ in the area with the lowest level of security.
His cell is an 8ft by 8ft room with no direct sunlight and bare white walls, toilet and sink — a far cry from the luxurious homes he owns in New York and Palm Beach, Florida, or his private island in the Virgin Islands.
Past 7pm
AN ADMINISTRATOR reports that Epstein seems ‘distraught, sad and a little confused’. She emails three officials: ‘He seems dazed and withdrawn . . . Just to be on the safe side and prevent any suicidal thoughts, can someone from Psychology come and talk with him?’
Sunday, July 7, about 10am
THE head of the prison, Lamine N’Diaye, realises the initial screening error and transfers Epstein to the Special Housing Unit (SHU) due to ‘concerns for his personal safety’ as a high-profile inmate. Epstein is put in a cell with one inmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, who is awaiting trial for four murders. SHU inmates have to wear orange jumpsuits and are given orange bedding. They are allowed three showers a week and are taken to the shower block in handcuffs. Most spend 23 hours a day in their cell, but Epstein will find a way around this.
Monday, July 8, 9.30am
AS IS normal procedure, before the cell door is opened by staff, Epstein offers his hands through the food slot to be cuffed.
He is taken for psychological evaluation. The examining team fear he could be suicidal: he has a court hearing later and is unlikely to be granted bail. They don’t know how he will cope.
Past 11am
EPSTEIN meets his legal team.
He will pay them to visit all day, every weekday, during his stay in prison, enabling him to get out of his cell and out of his cuffs.
Past 2pm
LOOKING exhausted, his grey hair a mess, Epstein arrives at court and holds his head high as he pleads not guilty to charges of sex trafficking conspiracy and sex trafficking. A journalist says he maintains ‘a stoic air’.
Bail is denied.
Past 7pm
AS A result of this setback, Epstein is put under ‘psychological observation’. Specially appointed inmates record his behaviour every 15 minutes.
This is a less stringent regimen than full ‘suicide watch’, which the prison psychology team have decided is unnecessary.
The inmates’ short, handwritten notes reveal Epstein’s unwillingness to let go of his life outside prison: ‘Inmate Epstein is talking about business and investing’; ‘Inmate Epstein and I are talking about the escort business’; ‘Inmate Epstein is talking about celebs he knows.’
Tuesday, July 9, 1.52am
A TWITTER user called ‘JJ Truth’ posts a picture of Bill Clinton with a young girl called Rachel Chandler, allegedly taken on Epstein’s private plane.
Thousands reply, calling for his famous friends — chief among them Clinton and Donald Trump — to be charged.
Past 9am
EPSTEIN is assessed for potential suicide risk. The psychologist doing the assessment finds him polite, cooperative, humorous and ‘future-orientated’.
He seems to be in an ebullient mood — he calls himself a banker with a ‘big business’ and declares that ‘being alive is fun’. He requests a phone call, a meeting with his lawyer, a shower and to be able to brush his teeth.
Wednesday, July 10
EPSTEIN asks to be moved to a single cell. The request is denied.
Thursday, July 11, Past 9am
EPSTEIN meets the psychologists again. This time he has a long list of complaints: he has slept badly; it is cold in his cell; there isn’t enough water in the room where he meets his lawyers.
Despite these frustrations, the psychologists report that Epstein is not in distress. He is given some coping strategies and appears to be receptive. He assures them that he is definitely not suicidal and would never be.
Monday, July 15, 10am
ANOTHER court appearance. Epstein’s lawyers make a further application for bail. They argue for house arrest, at his expense, and offer a bond on his New York home, which is valued at $56 million.
But Alex Rossmiller, the prosecutor, has a dramatic announcement. That very morning, investigators broke into a safe in Epstein’s New York property and found piles of cash, ‘many, many’ photographs of young-looking girls, dozens of diamonds and ‘a passport appearing to be issued from a foreign country with a photo of the defendant and a name on that passport that is not the defendant’s name’.
Rossmiller insists that Epstein poses an escape risk.
Epstein shows no emotion as two of his accusers give evidence.
Courtney Wild, 31, tells the court that when she was 14 years old, growing up in poverty in Florida, a friend asked her if she’d like $200 to give an old man a massage. She didn’t hesitate. The massage led to sexual assault.
Then Annie Farmer, 42, tells the
court she was 16 when Epstein flew her to his New Mexico ranch, where she met Ghislaine Maxwell. The couple showered her with gifts, but in this isolated setting, sexual assaults — by both — began. She had nowhere to run.
Thursday, July 18, 9.30am
JUDGE Richard M Berman rejects Epstein’s bail application, citing the powerful testimonies of the women. He doesn’t believe Epstein’s ‘excessive attraction to sexual conduct with or in the presence of minor girls...is likely to be controllable’.
Post 7pm
EPSTEIN returns to his cell. No one assesses the psychological impact of the bail rejection. It’s a strange omission. For the next four days, Epstein has minimal attention from officials, so what happens next apparently takes everyone by surprise.
Tuesday, July 23, 1.27am
PRISON officers find Epstein semi-conscious on his cell floor, in a foetal position with a strip of bedsheet round his bruised neck. He is taken to the hospital wing.
Prison officials open an investigation into whether this was a suicide attempt, a staged incident or an assault. Rumours circulate on social media that Epstein has been attacked by his cellmate, the multi-murder suspect Nicholas Tartaglione.
Tartaglione’s lawyers deny their client is involved and claim he tried to resuscitate Epstein. They try to obtain video footage taken outside his cell that day but the tape is lost, then apparently found. It turns out to be from the wrong video camera.
Officials finally admit that the footage from outside Epstein’s cell that night has been permanently deleted and the mystery remains unsolved.
An anonymous source suggests to NBC news that Epstein staged the incident in an attempt to be moved to another cell, as he was scared of Tartaglione.
Wednesday, July 24, Past 9.30am
DESPITE his ordeal, Epstein appears chipper. He is still denying having suicidal thoughts.
He tells the psychology team that he has a ‘wonderful life... I have no interest in killing myself’. He calls himself a ‘coward’, insisting he doesn’t like pain: ‘I would not do that to myself.’ He reminds them that he is Jewish and suicide is against his religion.