‘Negligence and misconduct’ by jail staff led to Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide

The disgraced financier hanged himself in his cell at the Metropolitan correctional center in Manhattan in August 2019, while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

The DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz noted “The combination of negligence, misconduct and outright job performance failures documented in the report all contributed to an environment in which arguably one of the most notorious inmates in BOP’s custody was provided with the opportunity to take his own life.” 

The inspector general said the staff at the Manhattan jail also failed to assign Epstein a cellmate and left him with access to additional bed linen which he used to kill himself.

The report further said there were issues with maintaining working security cameras. The prison guards failed to check on Epstein which requires staff to check on all inmates in solitary confinement at least twice an hour and later falsified logs to say they had done so.

But although jail staff “engaged in significant misconduct”, Horowitz wrote, “we did not uncover evidence contradicting the FBI’s findings that there was no criminality in connection with how Epstein died”.

The conclusion report by inspector general of DOJ that there was no foul play rebuts the conspiracy theories that Epstein was murdered to prevent him incriminating prominent figures said to have attended sex parties with underaged girls at his homes in New York and Florida and on his Caribbean island retreat.

The DOJ report is the last of several official inquiries into the death of Epstein, who was convicted in Florida in 2008 of soliciting a child for prostitution but benefited from a secret plea deal that allowed him to avoid serious prison time and granted immunity to co-conspirators.

Inspector general Horowitz supported the previous findings that some jail staff involved in guarding Epstein were overworked. The report also identified 13 employees with poor performance and recommended charges against six. 

In a statement, the Bureau of Prisons said it accepted all eight of Horowitz’s recommendations, had updated its suicide watch process and would apply other lessons learned “to the broader BOP correctional landscape”.

“We make every effort to create a controlled environment within our facilities that is both secure and humane, prioritizing the physical and emotional wellbeing of those in our care and custody,” it said.

Updated: 28 Jun 2023, 03:01 AM IST