He was placed on suicide watch and, later, psychiatric observation. His injuries didn’t require going to the hospital. ![]() Four days later, Epstein was found on the floor of his cell with a strip of bedsheet around his neck.Įpstein survived. If convicted, he faced up to 45 years prison. He had $566 left in his account when he died.Įpstein’s outlook worsened when a judge denied him bail on Jraising the prospect that he’d remain locked up until trial and, possibly longer. Two days before he was found dead, Epstein bought $73.85 worth of items from the prison commissary, including an AM/FM radio and headphones. He signed up for a Kosher meal and told prison officials, through his lawyer, that he wanted permission to exercise outside. Medical records showed he was suffering from sleep apnea, constipation, hypertension, lower back pain and prediabetes and had been previously treated for chlamydia.Įpstein did make some attempts to adapt to his jailhouse surroundings, the records show. He requested a brown uniform for his near-daily visits with his lawyers.ĭuring an initial health screening, the 66-year-old said that he had 10-plus female sexual partners within the previous five years. He spent 22 hours in the jail’s general population before officials moved him to the special housing unit “due to the significant increase in media coverage and awareness of his notoriety among the inmate population,” according to the psychological reconstruction of his death.Įpstein later said he was upset about having to wear an orange jumpsuit provided to inmates in the special housing unit and complained about being treated like he was a “bad guy” despite being well behaved behind bars. Copies of some of those logs were included among the documents released Thursday, with the guards’ signatures redacted.Īnother investigation, by the Justice Department’s inspector general, is still ongoing.Įpstein arrived at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on July 6, 2019. Noel and Thomas admitted to falsifying the log entries but avoided prison time under a deal with federal prosecutors. Prosecutors alleged they were sitting at their desks just 15 feet (4.6 meters) from Epstein’s cell, shopped online for furniture and motorcycles, and walked around the unit’s common area instead of making required rounds every 30 minutes.ĭuring one two-hour period, both appeared to have been asleep, according to their indictment. Epstein’s cellmate did not return after a court hearing the day before, and prison officials failed to pair another prisoner with him, leaving him alone. The workers tasked with guarding Epstein the night he killed himself, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, were charged with lying on prison records to make it seem as though they had made their required checks before Epstein was found lifeless. “It’s sad, it’s tragic, that it took this kind of event to finally cause the Bureau of Prisons to close this regrettable institution,” Weinberg said Thursday in a phone interview. It spurred an AP investigation that has uncovered deep, previously unreported problems within the agency, the Justice Department’s largest with more than 30,000 employees, 158,000 inmates and an $8 billion annual budget.Īn internal memo, undated but sent after Epstein’s death, attributed problems at the jail to “seriously reduced staffing levels, improper or lack of training, and follow up and oversight.” The memo also detailed steps the Bureau of Prisons has taken to remedy lapses Epstein’s suicide exposed, including requiring supervisors to review surveillance video to ensure officers made required cell checks.Įpstein’s lawyer, Martin Weinberg, said people detained at the facility endured “medieval conditions of confinement that no American defendant should have been subjected to.” ![]() According to a memo from a unit manager, Epstein told a jail employee that he was calling his mother, who’d been dead for 15 years at that point.Įpstein’s death put increased scrutiny on the Bureau of Prisons and led the agency to close the Metropolitan Correctional Center in 2021. ![]() ![]() The night before Epstein’s death, he excused himself from a meeting with his lawyers to make a telephone call to his family. The letter itself was not included among the documents turned over to the AP.
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