A new report from the Department of Justice’s internal watchdog offers a detailed picture of events surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s mysterious 2019 death inside a Manhattan jail cell, concluding there was “no criminality” because no one entered the area where he was held in the hours before his body was found.
The department’s Office of the Inspector General’s report on the disgraced financier and sex trafficker, who was hanged in his cell inside the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), affirms the findings of the New York City medical examiner, who previously determined that Epstein had died by suicide. The new report gives a minute-by-minute account of the moments leading up to Epstein’s death and its immediate aftermath, which has since sparked speculation that he was the victim of foul play.
The report, released Tuesday, corroborated accounts from staff inside the facility’s Special Housing Unit (SHU) who have maintained that at approximately 8 p.m. on August 9, all inmates were locked in their cells for the evening. The inspector general found that video surveillance “did not identify any staff or other individuals” approaching Epstein’s cell area from the SHU common area between approximately 10:40 p.m. on August 9 and about 6:30 a.m. the next morning.
The OIG interviewed three inmates assigned to the same SHU tier as Epstein at the time he died. The inmates resided in cells opposite Epstein’s and could see his cell. One of the inmates said a count was last conducted within the SHU on August 9, 2019, just before noon. The inmate did not see or hear anyone go into Epstein’s cell from that point until the next morning when a corrections officer found Epstein’s body and a commotion ensued.
According to the OIG report, the corrections officer bent down to shake his body, saying, “Epstein, Epstein,” then tried to pick up Epstein from behind, with his arms wrapped around Epstein. The officer fell alongside Epstein‘s body, then started giving Epstein chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
“At this point, the officer said, ‘F***!’ and asked the female CO, who was standing near the L Tier gate, if she has pressed the button. The female officer said, ‘Yeah, a long time ago,’” the OIG report continued.
A lieutenant came to Epstein’s cell with a male nurse who tried in vain to revive Epstein.
The report noted that only one prison security camera was working in the SHU area of Epstein’s cell because of a malfunction of MCC New York’s Digital Video Recorder system that occurred on July 29, 2019.
“While the prison’s cameras continued to provide live video feeds, recordings were made for only about half the cameras,” the report states.
Yet the available recorded video footage from the working camera captured “a large part of the common area of the SHU and portions of the stairways leading to the different SHU tiers, including Epstein’s cell tier,” the report pointed out. “Thus, anyone entering or attempting to enter Epstein’s SHU tier from the SHU common area would have been picked up by that video camera.”
“The OIG reviewed the video and found that, between approximately 10:40 p.m. on August 9 and about 6:30 a.m. on August 10, no one was seen entering Epstein’s cell tier from the SHU common area,” the report added.
The report noted that Epstein had previously been placed on suicide watch and psychological observation and that numerous nooses made from the excess prison sheets were found in his cell on the morning of August 10. Epstein signed a new Last Will and Testament on August 8.
The OIG offered various recommendations to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), many of which it acknowledged have been implemented. It was unclear if one recommendation, that the BOP ensure that security camera systems have the capacity to record video, has been put in place.
“The BOP concurred with this recommendation but did not provide any additional information,” the report states. “The OIG will consider whether to close this recommendation after the BOP (1) enhances existing policies regarding institutional camera systems to include the recommended language update; (2) communicates the policy update to all relevant BOP employees; and (3) provides documentation of the policy update and communication to the OIG.”