Jeffrey Epstein report: ‘Significant misconduct’ by prison officials led to Epstein’s suicide
A scathing report from the Justice Department (DOJ) watchdog has detailed a catalogue of errors by Bureau of Prisons officers leading up to the suicide of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General Michael Horowitz found negligence, misconduct and poor job performance by the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and workers at New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center enabled Epstein to take his own life in August 2019.
These included failing to check on the disgraced financier despite him being on suicide watch, a violation of Bureau of Prison (BOP) policy which requires staff to check on all inmates in solitary confinement at least twice an hour.
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 finds.
Mr Horowitz also cited problems with surveillance cameras as a factor in Epstein’s 2019 death at the age of 66 while awaiting trial for underage sex trafficking.
The DOJ report concluded that while there was extensive failures, no-one else was involved in his death, confirming a previous ruling of suicide by a medical examiner.
‘Significant misconduct’ led to Epstein’s suicide
Epstein died in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking
DOJ report confirms previous ruling of suicide by medical examiner
Death a result of ‘negligence and misconduct’, DOJ inspector general finds
Epstein was suffering from a range of serious health issues
Guards urged Epstein to ‘breathe’ after finding him unconscious
Multiple prison failures led to Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide
16:11 , Bevan Hurley
The Department of Justice has revealed “significant misconduct” by staff at a Manhattan detention centre led to Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide.
The DOJ’s Inspector General found multiple prison staff members failed to check on the disgraced financier – despite him being on suicide watch.
Epstein died in 2019 while awaiting trial for underage sex trafficking charges.
Rachel Sharp has the full story.
Scathing report outlines failures which led to Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide
Jeffrey Epstein’s final days detailed
16:17 , Bevan Hurley
In early June, the Associated Press was given access to a trove of documents from the federal Bureau of Prisons that documented Jeffrey Epstein’s final days in a Manhattan detention facility.
The documents shed new light on the lead-up to and aftermath of the infamous financier’s death.
They revealed an initial health screening recorded Epstein as suffering from sleep apnea, constipation, hypertension, lower back pain and prediabetes.
He had been previously treated for chlamydia and had reported 10-plus female sexual partners within the previous five years.
Sheila Flynn has more details.
Documents reveal details of Jeffrey Epstein’s final days
How did disgraced financier die?
16:32 , Bevan Hurley
Jeffrey Epstein died on 10 August 2019 inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, where he was confined ahead of a pending trial for allegedly recruiting dozens of teen girls to engage in sexual acts with him and his friends. He was facing up to 45 years in prison if he was convicted.
Epstein was found with a noose made out of a bedsheet and the authorities ruled the death a suicide.
Speculation has run rampant that Epstein did not kill himself, though authorities ranging from the medical examiner to former US attorney general Bill Barr have publicly declared that Epstein did take his own life.
The death also set off fevered speculation online, where the story overlapped with the themes of the increasingly influential QAnon conspiracy movement, which believes a cabal of paedophilic Democratic and media elites are conspiring to harm children.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s partner in a “pyramid scheme of abuse”, has also stated she believes the 66-year-old was assassinated.
Josh Marcus has the details.
What happened to Jeffrey Epstein?
Epstein’s long shadow forces a reckoning between JPMorgan and the US Virgin Islands
16:46 , Bevan Hurley
The Department of Justice has confirmed Jeffrey Epstein’s death in 2019 was a suicide resulting from “significant misconduct” at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York.
Nearly four years on, his decades-long underage sex trafficking scheme continues to be the subject of litigation among the powerful people who were sucked into his orbit.
A sprawling lawsuit taken by the US Virgin Islands against JPMorgan Chase is due to go to trial in October.
The USVI accused the Wall St bank of having “pulled the levers” through which Epstein paid his network of enablers.
The lawsuit claims that JPMorgan concealed wire and cash transactions that were part of a “criminal enterprise” whose currency was vulnerable and desperate women and girls, groomed and recruited over decades by Epstein and his chief lieutenant Ghislaine Maxwell.
JPMorgan have tried to shift blame for Epstein’s crimes onto high ranking USVI officials. Their lawyers have claimed in court that the USVI shielded him from accountability while “reaping the benefits of his wealth”.
Epstein’s long shadow forces a final reckoning for JPMorgan and the US Virgin Islands
DOJ Inspector General details ‘significant misconduct’
16:58 , Bevan Hurley
The Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued the following summary of his findings into Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide.
“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 Bureau Of Prison’s custody was provided with the opportunity to take his own life.
“The BOP’s failures are troubling not only because the BOP did not adequately safeguard an individual in its custody, but also because they led to questions about the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death and effectively deprived Epstein’s numerous victims of the opportunity to seek justice through the criminal justice process.
“The fact that these failures have been recurring ones at the BOP does not excuse them and gives additional urgency to the need for DOJ and BOP leadership to address the chronic problems plaguing the BOP.”
Mr Horowitz said the Bureau of Prisons had agreed with eight recommendations to improve management of correctional institutions.
DOJ outlines why it concluded Epstein died by suicide
17:11 , Bevan Hurley
A scathing report by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General has explained why it concluded Jeffrey Epstein had died by suicide.
“The Medical Examiner who performed the autopsy detailed for the (Office of Inspector General) why Epstein’s injuries were more consistent with, and indicative of, a suicide by hanging rather than a homicide by strangulation,” the report states.
“The Medical Examiner also cited to the absence of debris under Epstein’s fingernails, marks on his hands, contusions to his knuckles, or bruises on his body that evidenced Epstein had been in a struggle, which would be expected if Epstein’s death had been a homicide by strangulation.”
The report found that corrections staff last checked on Epstein at 10.40pm on 9 August. He was found unresponsive nearly eight hours later at 6.30am on 10 August.
Multiple prison failures led to Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide, scathing watchdog report finds
17:33 , Bevan Hurley
A damning report issued by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General on Tuesday found that a “combination of negligence, misconduct, and outright job performance failures” allowed Jeffrey Epstein to take his own life in 2019.
These included failing to check on the disgraced financier despite him being on suicide watch, a violation of Bureau of Prison (BOP) policy which requires staff to check on all inmates in solitary confinement at least twice an hour.
The failures contributed to an environment where “one of the BOP’s most notorious inmates was provided with the opportunity to take his own life”.
Rachel Sharp has the full story.
Scathing report outlines failures which led to Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide
Judge approves $290m settlement in suit accusing JPMorgan of ignoring Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking
17:47 , Bevan Hurley
On Monday, a federal judge in New York approved a $290m preliminary settlement in a lawsuit from alleged abuse victims accusing JPMorgan Chase of turning “a blind eye” to the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking ring.
The suit, filed in court last year on behalf of Epstein victims, under the name of an anonymous woman dubbed Jane Doe 1, accused the bank of ignoring Epstein’s troubled history, including continuing to do business with him for five years after the disgraced financier pleaded guilty in 2008 to child prostitution charges and registered as a sex offender.
Josh Marcus has more details.
$290m settlement approved in suit accusing JPMorgan of ignoring Epstein sex crimes
Epstein ‘blackmailed’ Bill Gates with threat to expose alleged affair
18:03 , Bevan Hurley
Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed Bill Gates and threatened to expose his alleged affair with a Russian bridge player, according to a recent report.
The late paedophile threatened to expose the Microsoft co-founder’s supposed affair with Mila Antonova if Mr Gates didn’t reimburse him for tuition costs that Epstein had initially covered for the woman to attend a software coding school, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Epstein blackmailed Mr Gates in the form of an email in 2017, the report claims, after he failed to convince the world’s fourth richest man to join a multibillion-dollar charity fund that he attempted to set up with JPMorgan Chase.
The bombshell report adds weight to longstanding speculation that Epstein may have been extorting his powerful network of friends.
Read on for the full story.
Jeffrey Epstein ‘blackmailed’ Bill Gates with threat to expose alleged affair
Four prison staff identified as committing potential crimes in Epstein suicide
18:31 , Bevan Hurley
Corrections staff at New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center were found to have of committed “numerous and serious” instances of misconduct by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General.
Four Bureau of Prison employees were identified as potential having committed criminal offences by Michael Horowitz.
Two of those, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, struck a deal with prosecutors to avoid prison time.
Investigators found they had altered records to make it look like they had performed checks on Jeffrey Epstein.
Charges against both men were dropped last year after they entered into a deferred prosecution agreement.
The report found two supervisors, identified only by their job titles, knowingly and willfully falsified records to make it appear as if they completed mandatory inspections of inmate locations on 9 and 10 August.
“A combination of negligence, misconduct, and outright job performance failures…all contributed to an environment in which arguable one of the most notorious inmates in BOP’s custody was provided with the opportunity to take his own life,” Mr Horowitz concluded.
‘Breathe Epstein, breathe’
18:53 , Bevan Hurley
New details about Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide have been revealed in a scathing Department of Justice Inspector General report into his death.
The report detailed the moments after two Bureau of Prisons guards carried out an inspection of Epstein’s cell at about 6.30am on 10 August 2019.
Michael Thomas, who was later criminally charged for falsifying records, would later say he got no response when he knocked on Epstein’s cell. After unlocking the door, he saw Epstein was hanging from a bed.
“Breathe Epstein, breathe,” Mr Thomas said, according to the report.
“We’re going to be in so much trouble,” he added.
Another guard, Tova Noel, told investigators she saw Mr Thomas lift Epstein from under his arms and lay him down on the ground to perform CPR.
She said she hit her body alarm within seconds.
“Noel said that when she saw Epstein, he looked blue and did not have a shirt on,” the report states.
Mr Thomas then performed chest compressions, and did not check for a pulse, she would tell investigators.
A supervisor who responded to the mayday call arrived soon afterwards, and asked what had happened.
Thomas reportedly replied: “Oh, it’s not her fault, we f***ed up.”
The officers’ cell was about 15 feet from Epstein’s cell, and Ms Noel assured supervisors that no-one could have entered without her knowledge.
She told investigators she had worked five days of overtime leading up to the day Epstein died.
The report found that Epstein hanged himself in his jail cell with an orange noose he fashioned from “a sheet or a shirt”.
Jeffrey Epstein’s final days
19:05 , Bevan Hurley
In early June, the Associated Press was given access to a trove of documents from the federal Bureau of Prisons that documented Jeffrey Epstein’s final days in a Manhattan detention facility.
The documents revealed an initial health screening recorded Epstein as suffering from sleep apnea, constipation, hypertension, lower back pain and prediabetes.
He had been previously treated for chlamydia and had reported 10-plus female sexual partners within the previous five years.
Sheila Flynn has more details.
Documents reveal details of Jeffrey Epstein’s final days
Ghislaine Maxwell claimed she was ‘blind’ to Epstein’s evil
19:29 , Bevan Hurley
During her 2021 trial for child sex trafficking, Ghislaine Maxwell sought to blame her former “partner in crime” Jeffrey Epstein for her legal woes.
Maxwell has continued to deny any wrongdoing as she appeals her conviction and 20 year prison sentence from her Florida prison cell.
In a January interview, the 61-year-old disgraced socialite claimed to have “no reason” to suspect Epstein was “capable of evil”.
“I didn’t know that he was so awful. I mean, obviously now, looking back with hindsight, of course,” she told filmmaker Daphne Barak.
“Clearly my association and the fact that I worked for him and spent time with him and knew him has devastated my life and hurt many people that I’ve loved and hold dear around me.”
Multiple prison failures led to Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide
19:45 , Bevan Hurley
The Department of Justice has revealed “significant misconduct” by staff at a Manhattan detention centre led to Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide.
The DOJ’s Inspector General found multiple prison staff members failed to check on the disgraced financier – despite him being on suicide watch.
Epstein died in 2019 while awaiting trial for underage sex trafficking charges.
Rachel Sharp has the full story.
Scathing report outlines failures which led to Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide
Four prison staff identified as committing potential crimes in Epstein suicide
20:15 , Bevan Hurley
Corrections staff at New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center were found to have of committed “numerous and serious” instances of misconduct by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General.
Four Bureau of Prison employees were identified as potential having committed criminal offences by Michael Horowitz.
Two of those, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, struck a deal with prosecutors to avoid prison time.
Investigators found they had altered records to make it look like they had performed checks on Jeffrey Epstein.
Charges against both men were dropped last year after they entered into a deferred prosecution agreement.
The report found two supervisors, identified only by their job titles, knowingly and willfully falsified records to make it appear as if they completed mandatory inspections of inmate locations on 9 and 10 August.
“A combination of negligence, misconduct, and outright job performance failures…all contributed to an environment in which arguable one of the most notorious inmates in BOP’s custody was provided with the opportunity to take his own life,” Mr Horowitz concluded.
Judge approves $290m settlement in suit accusing JPMorgan of ignoring Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking
20:30 , Bevan Hurley
On Monday, a federal judge in New York approved a $290m preliminary settlement in a lawsuit from alleged abuse victims accusing JPMorgan Chase of turning “a blind eye” to the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking ring.
The suit, filed in court last year on behalf of Epstein victims, under the name of an anonymous woman dubbed Jane Doe 1, accused the bank of ignoring Epstein’s troubled history, including continuing to do business with him for five years after the disgraced financier pleaded guilty in 2008 to child prostitution charges and registered as a sex offender.
Josh Marcus has more details.
$290m settlement approved in suit accusing JPMorgan of ignoring Epstein sex crimes
DOJ outlines why it concluded Epstein died by suicide
20:45 , Bevan Hurley
A scathing report by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General has explained why it concluded Jeffrey Epstein had died by suicide.
“The Medical Examiner who performed the autopsy detailed for the (Office of Inspector General) why Epstein’s injuries were more consistent with, and indicative of, a suicide by hanging rather than a homicide by strangulation,” the report states.
“The Medical Examiner also cited to the absence of debris under Epstein’s fingernails, marks on his hands, contusions to his knuckles, or bruises on his body that evidenced Epstein had been in a struggle, which would be expected if Epstein’s death had been a homicide by strangulation.”
The report found that corrections staff last checked on Epstein at 10.40pm on 9 August. He was found unresponsive nearly eight hours later at 6.30am on 10 August.
‘Breathe Epstein, breathe’
21:00 , Bevan Hurley
New details about Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide have been revealed in a scathing Department of Justice Inspector General report into his death.
The report detailed the moments after two Bureau of Prisons guards carried out an inspection of Epstein’s cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center at about 6.30am on 10 August 2019.
Michael Thomas, who was later criminally charged for falsifying records, would later say he got no response when he knocked on Epstein’s cell. After unlocking the door, he saw Epstein was hanging from a bed.
“Breathe Epstein, breathe,” Mr Thomas said, according to the report.
“We’re going to be in so much trouble,” he added.
Another guard, Tova Noel, told investigators she saw Mr Thomas lift Epstein from under his arms and lay him down on the ground to perform CPR.
She said she hit her body alarm within seconds.
“Noel said that when she saw Epstein, he looked blue and did not have a shirt on,” the report states.
Mr Thomas then performed chest compressions, and did not check for a pulse, she would tell investigators.
A supervisor who responded to the mayday call arrived soon afterwards, and asked what had happened.
Thomas reportedly replied: “Oh, it’s not her fault, we f***ed up.”
The officers’ cell was about 15 feet from Epstein’s cell, and Ms Noel assured supervisors that no-one could have entered without her knowledge.
She told investigators she had worked five days of overtime leading up to the day Epstein died.
The report found that Epstein hanged himself in his jail cell with an orange noose he fashioned from “a sheet or a shirt”.
Scathing watchdog report blames Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide on prison staff
21:20 , Bevan Hurley
A scathing report released on Tuesday found that multiple prison staff members failed to check on the disgraced financier in the hours leading up to his death – despite him being on suicide watch.
Four staff were potentially criminally responsible for falsifying records and lying to investigators, the Department of Justice’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz found.
In a clear violation of this policy, no checks were made for almost eight hours from around 10.40pm on 9 August until around 6.30am on 10 August – when the prolific sex offender was found dead.
Staff at the Manhattan jail also failed to assign Epstein a fellow inmate in his cell and left him with access to additional bed linen which he used to kill himself, the report finds.
Rachel Sharp has the full story.
Scathing report outlines failures which led to Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide
Jeffrey Epstein’s final days
21:40 , Bevan Hurley
In early June, the Associated Press was given access to a trove of documents from the federal Bureau of Prisons that documented Jeffrey Epstein’s final days in a Manhattan detention facility.
The documents revealed an initial health screening recorded Epstein as suffering from sleep apnea, constipation, hypertension, lower back pain and prediabetes.
He had been previously treated for chlamydia and had reported 10-plus female sexual partners within the previous five years.
Sheila Flynn has more details.
Documents reveal details of Jeffrey Epstein’s final days
Epstein’s long shadow forces a reckoning between JPMorgan and the US Virgin Islands
22:02 , Bevan Hurley
The Department of Justice has confirmed Jeffrey Epstein’s death in 2019 was a suicide resulting from “significant misconduct” at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York.
Nearly four years on, his decades-long underage sex trafficking scheme continues to be the subject of litigation among the powerful people who were sucked into his orbit.
A sprawling lawsuit taken by the US Virgin Islands against JPMorgan Chase is due to go to trial in October.
The USVI accused the Wall St bank of having “pulled the levers” through which Epstein paid his network of enablers.
The lawsuit claims that JPMorgan concealed wire and cash transactions that were part of a “criminal enterprise” whose currency was vulnerable and desperate women and girls, groomed and recruited over decades by Epstein and his chief lieutenant Ghislaine Maxwell.
JPMorgan have tried to shift blame for Epstein’s crimes onto high ranking USVI officials. Their lawyers have claimed in court that the USVI shielded him from accountability while “reaping the benefits of his wealth”.
Epstein’s long shadow forces a final reckoning for JPMorgan and the US Virgin Islands
Epstein ‘blackmailed’ Bill Gates with threat to expose alleged affair
22:20 , Bevan Hurley
Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed Bill Gates and threatened to expose his alleged affair with a Russian bridge player, according to a recent report.
The late paedophile threatened to expose the Microsoft co-founder’s supposed affair with Mila Antonova if Mr Gates didn’t reimburse him for tuition costs that Epstein had initially covered for the woman to attend a software coding school, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Epstein blackmailed Mr Gates in the form of an email in 2017, the report claims, after he failed to convince the world’s fourth richest man to join a multibillion-dollar charity fund that he attempted to set up with JPMorgan Chase.
The bombshell report adds weight to longstanding speculation that Epstein may have been extorting his powerful network of friends.
Read on for the full story.
Jeffrey Epstein ‘blackmailed’ Bill Gates with threat to expose alleged affair
Guards walked on ‘eggshells’ around Epstein, inmates say
22:21 , Bevan Hurley
Corrections officers walked on “eggshells” around Jeffrey Epstein, a damning Inspector General’s report into his suicide found.
Michael Horowitz’s report found irregularities in guards’ treatment of the disgraced financier, who died by suicide at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in August 2019.
On the night before he died, Epstein was allowed to place an unrecorded call after asking to call his mother, who was deceased at the time.
He was also allowed to have hours-long meetings with his attorneys and excess bedding, which he later used to hang himself, the report found.
Despite Epstein’s special treatment, the report found no evidence that anyone had entered Epstein’s cell on the night he died.
Four prison staff identified as committing potential crimes in Epstein suicide
22:40 , Bevan Hurley
Corrections staff at New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center were found to have of committed “numerous and serious” instances of misconduct by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General.
Four Bureau of Prison employees were identified as potential having committed criminal offences by Michael Horowitz.
Two of those, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, struck a deal with prosecutors to avoid prison time.
Investigators found they had altered records to make it look like they had performed checks on Jeffrey Epstein.
Charges against both men were dropped last year after they entered into a deferred prosecution agreement.
The report found two supervisors, identified only by their job titles, knowingly and willfully falsified records to make it appear as if they completed mandatory inspections of inmate locations on 9 and 10 August.
“A combination of negligence, misconduct, and outright job performance failures…all contributed to an environment in which arguable one of the most notorious inmates in BOP’s custody was provided with the opportunity to take his own life,” Mr Horowitz concluded.
‘Breathe Epstein, breathe’
23:02 , Bevan Hurley
New details about Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide have been revealed in a scathing Department of Justice Inspector General report into his death.
The report detailed the moments after two Bureau of Prisons guards carried out an inspection of Epstein’s cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center at about 6.30am on 10 August 2019.
Michael Thomas, who was later criminally charged for falsifying records, would later say he got no response when he knocked on Epstein’s cell. After unlocking the door, he saw Epstein was hanging from a bed.
“Breathe Epstein, breathe,” Mr Thomas said, according to the report.
“We’re going to be in so much trouble,” he added.
Another guard, Tova Noel, told investigators she saw Mr Thomas lift Epstein from under his arms and lay him down on the ground to perform CPR.
She said she hit her body alarm within seconds.
“Noel said that when she saw Epstein, he looked blue and did not have a shirt on,” the report states.
Mr Thomas then performed chest compressions, and did not check for a pulse, she would tell investigators.
A supervisor who responded to the mayday call arrived soon afterwards, and asked what had happened.
Thomas reportedly replied: “Oh, it’s not her fault, we f***ed up.”
The officers’ cell was about 15 feet from Epstein’s cell, and Ms Noel assured supervisors that no-one could have entered without her knowledge.
She told investigators she had worked five days of overtime leading up to the day Epstein died.
The report found that Epstein hanged himself in his jail cell with an orange noose he fashioned from “a sheet or a shirt”.
