Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in Cambridge, MA in 2004. Epstein is connected with several prominent people including politicians, actors and academics.
Rick Friedman | Corbis News | Getty Images
Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide by hanging himself in his jail cell, the New York medical examiner said Friday.
Epstein, 66, was found in his cell in Manhattan federal lockup Saturday morning and transferred to a nearby hospital, where he was subsequently pronounced dead. His autopsy was performed Sunday, NBC News reported, citing two law enforcement officials.
Epstein was remanded to jail pending trial on charges of sex trafficking of minors and sex trafficking conspiracy, which were lodged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan last month. He was accused of abusing dozens of underage girls in his mansions in New York and Palm Beach, Florida, between 2002 and 2005.
He had pleaded not guilty to the charges, which carried a maximum sentence of 45 years in prison if convicted.
Epstein, a former friend of Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, had been found semi-conscious and with marks on his neck in his cell less than three weeks before his death. He was placed on suicide watch in a so-called Special Housing Unit for at-risk inmates — but was reportedly taken back off suicide watch after about a week.
A lawyer for Epstein’s former cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, told NBC that the cellmate had been cleared of any wrongdoing in that July 23 incident. Tartaglione, a former upstate New York police officer, was arrested in December 2016 on charges that he killed four men as part of a drug distribution conspiracy. He has pleaded not guilty.
The death of possibly the most high-profile inmate in the country infuriated officials and allowed conspiracy theories to about a possible murder to run wild, especially on social media.
Attorney General William Barr, whose Department of Justice oversees the Bureau of Prisons, said he was “appalled” that Epstein had died while incarcerated. Barr also vowed that the FBI and the DOJ’s internal watchdog office would investigate the “serious irregularities” at that jail, the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan.
The DOJ said Tuesday that the jail’s warden at the time, Lamine N’Diaye, would be replaced on Barr’s orders.
The Washington Post’s report Thursday only fueled more suspicion by reporting that Epstein had broken his hyoid bone in his neck — a circumstance that some experts say is more common in strangulations than in hangings.
Epstein was a super-wealthy money-manager who had forged contacts with a long list of rich and powerful figures, and some of them had been implicated in his alleged crimes by his accusers.
Authorities have signaled they plan to continue investigating Epstein’s case despite his death. FBI and NYPD agents searched his private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands this week, and appeared to seize Epstein’s computers, drone footage of the raids showed.
Meanwhile, lawsuits brought by some of Epstein’s accusers are still active. Jennifer Araoz, who accuses Epstein of raping her when she was 15 years old, filed a lawsuit Wednesday against his estate and multiple women he employed — including his alleged procurer of young girls, Ghislaine Maxwell.
On Thursday, two more alleged victims sued Epstein’s estate and his “recruiter” in a $100 million lawsuit.
Epstein was a registered sex offender as a result of pleading guilty in 2008 to state charges filed in Florida related to prostitution involving an underage girl.
He signed a non-prosecution deal with federal prosecutors as part of his plea agreement, and spent 13 months in a state jail, where he was allowed out on work release most days.
Alex Acosta, the top prosecutor in Florida at the time, resigned as Trump’s Labor secretary shortly after Epstein’s arrest last month, amid scorching criticism of his handling of the Florida case.
