What you should know
- The Justice Department watchdog said Tuesday that a “combination of negligence and misconduct” allowed financier Jeffrey Epstein to take his own life in a federal jail in New York City while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
- Inspector General Michael Horowitz cited the failure of the Federal Bureau of Prisons to assign Epstein a cellmate after the previous one left and problems with surveillance cameras as factors in Epstein’s death.
- Workers assigned to protect Epstein were sleeping and shopping online instead of checking on him every 30 minutes as required, prosecutors said.
NEW YORK — The Justice Department watchdog said Tuesday that a “combination of negligence and misconduct” allowed financier Jeffrey Epstein to take his life in a federal jail in New York City while awaiting trial on traffic charges. sexual.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz cited the failure of the Federal Bureau of Prisons to assign Epstein a cellmate after the previous one left and problems with surveillance cameras as factors in Epstein’s death.
Horowitz also said Epstein was left in his cell with too much bedding, which is a safety concern and was used in his suicide death.
The inspector general issued a report detailing the findings of his investigation into Epstein’s death in August 2019, the latest of several official inquiries into the matter. He reiterated findings from other investigations that there was no indication of foul play, refuting high-profile conspiracy theories surrounding the death.
Horowitz echoed earlier findings that some jail staff involved in surveillance of Epstein were overworked. He identified 13 underperforming employees and recommended charges against six workers. Only the two workers tasked with protecting Epstein were charged, avoiding jail time in a plea bargain after admitting to falsifying records.
The report comes more than four years after Epstein took his own life at the Metropolitan Prison Center while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.
It also comes weeks after Associated Press obtain thousands of pages of records detailing Epstein’s arrest and death and its chaotic aftermath.
Workers assigned to protect Epstein were sleeping and shopping online instead of checking on him every 30 minutes as required, prosecutors said.
Nova Noel and Michael Thomas admitted to lying on prison records to make it appear they wrote the checks, but they avoided jail time thanks to a plea deal with prosecutors. They were released from the Bureau of Prisons in April 2022, agency spokesman Benjamin O’Cone said.
It is the second time in six months that Horowitz has blamed the death of a high-profile inmate on the failings of the Bureau of Prisons. In December, the inspector general found that management failures, flawed policies and widespread incompetence were factors in the 2018 beating to death of notorious gangster James “Whitey” Bulger at a troubled West Virginia prison.
The AP obtained more than 4,000 pages of documents related to Epstein’s death from the Federal Bureau of Prisons under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents, including a reconstruction of the events leading up to Epstein’s death by suicide, internal reports, emails, memos and other records, underscored how staff shortages and cutbacks contributed to Epstein’s death.
Epstein spent 36 days at the now closed Metropolitan Prison Center in Manhattan. Two weeks before his death, he was placed on suicide watch for 31 hours after what jail officials said was a suicide attempt that left his neck bruised and scraped.
The workers tasked with protecting Epstein the night he died were working overtime. One of them, who is not normally assigned to guard inmates, was working a fifth straight day of overtime. The other was working mandatory overtime, which meant a second eight-hour shift in one day.
Additionally, Epstein’s cellmate did not return after a court hearing the day before, and jail officials failed to pair another prisoner with him, leaving him on his own.
Sisak reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
