THENEWYORKER, AUGUST 26, 2019 31
COMMENT
SEENOTHING
H
ow hard was it, really, to see what
Jeffrey Epstein was doing? In the
last hours of his life, early on the morn-
ing of August 10th, it shouldn’t have
been difficult at all. He was in a cell at
the Metropolitan Correctional Center,
awaiting trial on charges related to the
sex trafficking of minors, and a guard
was required to check on him every half
hour. That was less supervision than he
had when he was on suicide watch, in
late July—the watch was lifted after just
six days—but it should have been
sufficient. He was supposed to have a
cellmate, too, but he didn’t. And the two
guards on duty were, reportedly, asleep.
Those, anyway, were the basic con-
tours of the story as of the end of last
week. On Friday, New York’s medical
examiner determined that the cause of
death was suicide by hanging. Investi-
gations by the Bureau of Prisons, the
Justice Department’s inspector general,
and the F.B.I. are under way. The war-
den has temporarily been reassigned;
the guards, who may have been work-
ing an unacceptable level of overtime
and may also have doctored their logs,
have been placed on administrative leave.
A careful examination of the events
should also redress the conditions that
lead to the suicides of prisoners who
are not well known, and whose situa-
tions never come into view. It might
also help dispel many of the conspiracy
theories now attached to Epstein’s death.
But it won’t answer a central question
in the case: Was everybody asleep? For
years, Epstein was able to operate and
be fêted in the social, financial, and ac-
ademic worlds, despite barely bothering
to conceal his illicit activities. Visitors
to his various homes would see young
women there who looked as if they should
still be in school. In Florida, in 2008, he
had secured a shamefully lax plea deal,
which U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta
signed off on. (Acosta later became the
Labor Secretary for Donald Trump, who
had had his own interactions with Ep-
stein; so, as Trump has practically been
shouting on Twitter, did Bill Clinton.)
Prosecutors there knew of dozens of al-
leged victims who were minors, but Ep-
stein was allowed to plead guilty to a pair
of state prostitution charges, which both
hid and distorted the girls’ stories. The
lack of respect for young victims is an-
other pathology that extends beyond the
Epstein case. Before the Miami Herald
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOÃO FAZENDA
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
published an investigation of that deal
last November, Epstein had managed to
return to his life in New York, and to
evade accountability.
Money offers one explanation for why
people seemed to ignore what was plain
to see. But money, here, is really short-
hand for a range of ways to exert in-
fluence. Epstein used it to buy prestige,
donating millions to Harvard and host-
ing dinners for scientists and scholars;
and to buy protection, hiring ruthless
legal representation. Even now, though,
it’s not clear what his business was. Some
of the people who dealt with him were
wealthier than he was and, one would
think, at least as financially adept. Among
them are Les Wexner, the head of
L Brands; Leon Black, the founder of
the private-equity firm Apollo Global
Management; and Glenn Dubin, a co-
founder of Highbridge Capital Manage-
ment, whose wife, Eva, was an old friend
of Epstein’s. They all gave Epstein money
to manage, or retained him as an adviser
in personal financial matters, or allowed
him to be included in their deals. Why
they would do so isn’t obvious.
The Times, in an account of Epstein’s
relationship with JP Morgan, reported
that, in late 2008, compliance officers at
the firm’s private bank began conduct-
ing a review to identify problem clients
from whom it ought to disassociate it-
self. (The bank had had some unfortu-
nate dealings with Bernie Madoff.)
They flagged Epstein; this was after the
guilty plea, and after reports question-
ing the source of his wealth had sur-
faced. The bank kept working with him.
( JP Morgan denied to the Times that
