The last man to share a jail with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein died last month in a Bronx apartment, reportedly after battling COVID-19 months before.
Efrain “Stone” Reyes, 51, was found dead in bed on Nov. 27 at his mother’s apartment, the New York Police Department confirmed to the New York Daily News. Reyes was the last person to be a cellmate with Epstein, but he was transferred to the Queens Detention Facility just one day before Epstein allegedly hanged himself, said the News.
“Reyes caught COVID-19 at the Queens private jail commonly known by the name of its operator, GEO. The News previously reported that the jail, which recently held rapper-turned-cooperator Tekashi69, was overrun with coronavirus early in the pandemic,” said the paper.
Reyes’s niece, Angelique Lopez, said Reyes cried when he told his family of his diagnosis. “He thought he wasn’t going to get out … alive. He thought that was going to be it, he was going to die there,” Lopez said.
But Reyes, who was jailed after he pleaded guilty to a narcotics conspiracy involving crack and heroin at Bronx housing projects, was released in April and died five months later.
“I can’t say COVID didn’t play a part [in his death]. He came back coughing more than normal. His lungs weren’t the same,” Lopez said.
After Epstein’s death, the FBI questioned Reyes. “He was a little worried about if he told on the security workers at [Metropolitan Correctional Center] they would somehow lash out at him. He was worried if they told them what they did to Epstein he was worried it would follow him and affect him negatively,” Lopez said.
“They were asking how Epstein was when he was in the cell, if he seemed suicidal. They were asking if he had any indication that he would do that. My uncle cooperated,” she said.
Epstein allegedly committed suicide early on Aug. 10, 2019. Federal prosecutors said he was alone in his prison cell the night of his death. But the pathologist hired by Epstein’s family to investigate his death said in October 2019 that Epstein’s body bore telltale signs of homicide.
“Mark Epstein, Jeffrey’s next of kin, had hired Baden to perform an independent investigation because the family wasn’t getting answers, the pathologist told Fox News. Last month, Baden, who observed the autopsy, told Fox News its findings were more consistent with homicidal strangulation than suicidal hanging. He noted that Epstein had two fractures on the left and right sides of his larynx, specifically the thyroid cartilage or Adam’s apple, as well as one fracture on the left hyoid bone above the Adam’s apple, Baden said,” Fox reported.
“Those three fractures are extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation,” Baden said at the time.
Bureau of Prisons Director Dr. Kathleen Hawk Sawyer said there is “no evidence to suggest” a cause of death other than suicide, according to The Associated Press.
“Two jail guards responsible for monitoring Epstein the night he killed himself were eventually charged with falsifying prison records to conceal they were sleeping and browsing the internet during the hours they were supposed to be keeping a close watch on prisoners,” said the AP.