Epstein’s final days far from luxurious
NEW YORK — Jeffrey Epstein, inmate 76318-054, hated his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. It was cramped, dank and infested with vermin, so Epstein, long accustomed to using his wealth to play by his own rules, devised a way out.
He paid numerous lawyers to visit the jail for as many as 12 hours a day, giving him the right to see them in a private meeting room. Epstein was there for so long that he often appeared bored, sitting in silence with his lawyers, according to people who saw the meetings. While they were there, he and his entourage regularly emptied the two vending machines of drinks and snacks.
“It was shift work, all designed by someone who had infinite resources to try and get as much comfort as possible,” said a lawyer who was often in the jail visiting clients.
Outside the meeting room, Epstein mounted a strategy to avoid being preyed upon by other inmates: He deposited money in their commissary accounts, according to a consultant who is often in the jail and speaks regularly with inmates there.
The jail was a sharp departure from his formerly gilded life, which had included a private is- land in the Caribbean, a $56 million Manhattan mansion and a network of rich and powerful friends.
But in his final days, Epstein’s efforts to lessen the misery of incarceration seemed to be faltering.
He was seldom bathing, his hair and beard were unkempt and he was sleeping on the floor of his cell instead of on his bunk bed, according to people at the jail.
Still, he convinced the jail’s leadership that he was not a threat to himself, even though an inquiry was already underway into whether he had attempted suicide on July 23. The federal jail was so poorly managed and chronically shortstaffed that workers who were not correctional officers were regularly pressed into guard duty.
On Aug. 9, lawyers crowded into the plastic chairs in the meeting room with Epstein as the world was riveted by news that a court had released a cache of previously sealed documents, providing disturbing details about the sex trafficking accusations against him.
A few hours later, on the overnight shift, only 18 workers were guarding a jail with roughly 750 inmates, according to records released by the Bureau of Prisons. Ten of the workers were on overtime.
One post was actually vacant, the records show.
On 9 South, the special unit where Epstein was housed, there were two guards, one of whom was a former correctional officer who had volunteered for duty.
The two guards were supposed to check on Epstein every 30 minutes but failed to do so for about three hours. At some point, the guards fell asleep, according to two Bureau of Prisons officials.
By the next morning, Epstein, 66, was dead. At 6:30 a.m., at least one of the guards discovered him in his cell, unresponsive and tinged blue, after he had hanged himself with a jail bedsheet, a prison official and a law enforcement official said.
A worker hit an alarm he was carrying to alert the jail that there was an emergency, according to one prison official.
Staff cut the bedsheet holding Epstein and tried to administer CPR, according to two prison officials. But an hour later, he was pronounced dead.
It is impossible to know why a person takes his own life. But an examination of Epstein’s last days by the New York Times, gathered from dozens of interviews with law enforcement officials, Bureau of Prisons employees, lawyers and others, suggests that Epstein’s death came after he started to realize the limits of his ability to deploy his wealth and privilege in the legal system.
The people who described their interactions with Epstein and the conditions in the jail almost all spoke only on condition of anonymity, in large part because Epstein’s death is now the subject of at least two major federal inquiries into the failure to closely monitor such a high-profile prisoner.
The wing where Epstein was housed, 9 South, is the less restrictive of the jail’s two most secure units, holding dozens of inmates, usually in groups of two in small cells.
There, he was allowed one hour of recreation per day and could shower every two to three days, according to prison officials. Aside from meetings with lawyers, his contact with the outside world was severely limited.
Beyond its isolation, the wing is infested with rodents and cockroaches, and inmates often have to navigate standing water — as well as urine and fecal matter — that spills from faulty plumbing, accounts from former inmates and lawyers said.
One lawyer said mice often eat his clients’ papers.
Epstein tried desperately to ingratiate himself with fellow inmates, the consultant who had spoken with inmates said. He had heard from two inmates that Epstein transferred money into at least three other inmates’ commissary accounts — an exercise often used in the jail to buy protection.
Epstein was found unconscious in his cell July 23, with marks on his neck.
His cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, a former suburban New York police officer accused of a quadruple homicide, summoned guards, and Epstein was revived, according to Tartaglione’s lawyer, Bruce Barket.
Prison officials investigated the incident as a suicide attempt, and Epstein was removed from 9 South and placed in the jail’s suicide prevention program.
Inmates there are housed alone in solitary rooms, naked except for a thick, heavy smock. Lights can be dimmed, but never turned off, and there are no bedsheets or materials that could be used for self-harm.
According to Bureau of Prisons policies, Epstein would have met on a daily basis with psychologists.
Six days later, July 29, he was taken off suicide watch and returned to 9 South.
In the wake of his death, the decision by the jail’s leadership to end the suicide watch has sparked criticism from elected officials and some mental health professionals.
“Any case where someone had a proven or suspected serious suicide attempt, that would be unusual to within two to three weeks take them off suicide watch,” said Dr. Ziv Cohen, a forensic psychiatrist who frequently evaluates inmates at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
Epstein’s own lawyers believed that he was fine and lobbied to have him taken off suicide watch, according to someone familiar with the negotiations.
Three days after Epstein was formally removed from the 24-hour suicide watch, he received a visit from David Schoen, a lawyer with whom he had consulted periodically over more than a decade.
They conferred in the meeting room for roughly five hours, talking about legal issues and the case.
Schoen said that by the time the meeting ended, Epstein seemed excited about their working together on the case.
“One thing I can say for sure is when I left him he was very, very upbeat,” said Schoen, who never had the chance to join the team.
The official autopsy results, announced Friday, showed that the cause of death was suicide by hanging.
The medical examiner’s findings did not placate Epstein’s lawyers.
“The defense team fully intends to conduct its own independent and complete investigation into the circumstances and cause of Mr. Epstein’s death,” they said in a statement. “We are not satisfied with the conclusions of the medical examiner.”