Jeffrey Epstein, the sex pervert, convicted molester, and Deep State financier, committed suicide by hanging himself in his jail cell, New York City’s medical examiner ruled on Friday. But too many questions about the finding of “suicide” remain to dismiss foul play.
Epstein’s lawyers say they will investigate his death independently, and connections that plugged him into the world’s political and financial elites and their secrets suggest a Deep State hit.
Epstein, a registered sex offender who trafficked teen girls, was in jail on a federal indictment for his crimes, and faced 45 years in prison if convicted, when he was found dead in his cell at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York seven days ago.
His death leaves more than questions, too. His estate must fight or settle multiple lawsuits from victims, including one filed Friday that seeks $100 million.
The woman believed to have been Epstein’s procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell, has also been sued.
“Careful Review”
Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Barbara Sampson, the Associated Press reported, officially settled the suicide question “after careful review of all investigative information, including complete autopsy findings.”
As well, AP reported:
Sampson’s announcement came as a Justice Department official told The Associated Press that some prison staffers believed to have relevant information aren’t cooperating with investigators.
Epstein’s lawyers said they were “not satisfied” with Sampson’s conclusions and that they would conduct their own investigation, including seeking to obtain any video of the area around Epstein’s cell from the time leading to his death.
Whether Epstein actually committed suicide became a question because of the odd concatenation of events before his death.
After a suicide attempt in July, the facility had Epstein on suicide watch. But it quickly removed him from that surveillance.
The autopsy turned up a broken hyoid bone, which is usually the result of strangulation, not hanging.
Guards who were supposed to check his cell every 30 minutes left him alone for hours, the Washington Post disclosed, and his cellmate was removed just before he died.
Epstein, a member of the Trilateral Commission and Council on Foreign Relations, died after the release of 2,000 pages of documents that detailed his perversions and named famous politicians, lawyers, and even Britain’s Prince Andrew as participants in the molestation of teen girls. The connection to the prince or intelligence agencies might have been the reason he skated on similar federal charges in 2008. One of his victims said he wanted her to have sex with his high-powered friends to get compromising information about them.
As far as Epstein’s being left alone, the AP reported on Wednesday that MCC guards are “suspected of falsifying log entries to show they were checking on inmates in his unit every half hour, when they actually weren’t.”
On Monday, U.S. Attorney General William Barr said “we are now learning of serious irregularities at this facility that are deeply concerning and demand a thorough investigation.”
Epstein’s lawyers agreed. “It is indisputable that the authorities violated their own protocols.”
Though the attorneys called the conditions in the facility “harsh” and “medieval,” Forbes magazine disclosed that he spent two hours alone with a young, casually-dressed woman in an attorney-client meeting room. And NBC disclosed that Epstein paid his lawyers to sit with him for as many as eight hours a day to get out of his jail cell.
Another Lawsuit
Epstein’s estate faces multiple lawsuits.
Jennifer Araoz, a victim who says Epstein recruited her at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort 20 years ago, sued Epstein’s estate and Maxwell, the 57-year-old British socialite accused of being his procurer.
Vanity Fair reported that Maxwell admitted that to a friend.
And yesterday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, two more women sued the estate and the unknown woman who recruited them. They seek $100 million.
The lawsuit identifies the recruiter as “Sue Roe,” CNBC reported, and includes “other unnamed defendants, dubbed ‘ Roes 2-10.’”
It claims that the two plaintiffs, both aspiring models, were working in a Manhattan restaurant around 2004 when they were approached by a woman who offered hundreds of dollars to massage Epstein at his mansion.
“Both women were struggling financially,” the complaint says, so they “reasonably believed that the opportunity to make money by giving massages would and could provide much-needed financial support.”
During one plaintiff’s massage, Epstein “became increasingly more aggressive, made sexual advances, and masturbated” before he “forcefully and without warning, grabbed Jane Doe 1′s breasts and vagina and then masturbated to completion.”
The recruiter also asked that victim to “scout other women for money,” which she refused.
The lawsuit says the women “suffered psychological trauma affecting several areas of their lives,” CNBC reported, and “must relive their sexual assault everyday due to the inescapable coverage of Epstein’s federal criminal sex-trafficking case.”
Their attorney, Lisa Bloom, said the victims were 18 and 20 at the time, and while they also hold the recruiter responsible,“it is likely that she was a victim too. We intend to serve the complaint upon her and then reach out to her to invite her to work with us toward restorative justice for our victims and all others she may have recruited.”
Photo of Jeffrey Epstein: New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP
