New York Post, Tuesday, August 13, 2019nypost.com7By LARRY CELONA
and BRUCE GOLDINGJeffrey Epstein was found hang-
ing in his lower-Manhattan jail cell
with a bedsheet wrapped around
his neck and secured to the top of
a bunk bed, The Post has learned.
The convicted pedophile, who
was 6 feet tall, apparently killed
himself by kneeling toward the
floor and strangling himself with
the makeshift noose, law-
enforcement sources said Mon-
day. He hadn’t been checked on
for several hours, sources said.
Epstein was “unresponsive”
when he was discovered in his
cell at the Special Housing Unit
of the Metropolitan Correctional
Center at around 6:30 a.m. on Sat-
urday, the federal Bureau of Pris-
ons has said.
Staffers attempted to revive
him, and he was taken to an infir-
mary inside the lockup, then
transported by ambulance to the
NewYork-Presbyterian Lower
Manhattan Hospital, where he
was pronounced dead.
The FBI and the Justice Depart-
ment are both investigating the
incident, which US Attorney
General William Barr on Monday
blamed on “serious irregularities
at this facility.”
Barr vowed that authorities
would “get to the bottom of whathappened,” saying the case
against Epstein was “very impor-
tant to the Department of Justice
and to me personally.”
“Most importantly, this case
was important to the victims who
had the courage to come forward
and deserved the opportunity to
confront the accused in the
courtroom,” Barr said during the
keynote address to the biennial
conference of the Fraternal Order
of Police in New Orleans.
One of the two workers who
were assigned to guard Epstein in
the 9 South unit wasn’t even a
full-fledged federal correction of-
ficer, The Associated Press re-
ported Monday evening, noting
that because of staff shortages,
federal jails have resorted to us-
ing support staffers — including
clerical workers and jail teachers
— fill in for officers.
It wasn’t clear what position the
person who’s not a guard holds.
On Sunday, reports said the two
workers were both on overtime,
with one on his fifth straight day
of extra hours and the other
forced to work overtime that day.
Epstein was taken off a 24-hour
suicide watch — which required a
check every 15 minutes — follow-
ing a July 23 incident in which he
was found with marks on his neck.
He had been downgraded to
“special observation status,”which required two guards to
make separate checks on him ev-
ery 30 minutes, but that proce-
dure was not followed, a source
has told Reuters.
Under that status, Epstein also
was supposed to have a cellmate,
but that inmate apparently left —
possibly for a court appearance
or another appointment — and
was not immediately replaced as
required by protocol, The Wall
Street Journal reported.
Epstein was removed from sui-
cide watch at the request of his de-
fense lawyers, who had been meet-
ing with him for up to 12 hours a
day before asking that his supervi-
sion be eased, the Journal said.
The decision to remove an in-
mate from suicide watch would
normally have to be approved by
the prison’s suicide-prevention
program coordinator and also by
its warden, according to NBC
News, which cited protocols.
“Once an inmate has been
placed on watch, the watch may
not be terminated, under any cir-
cumstance, without the program
coordinator or designee perform-
ing a face-to-face evaluation,” ac-
cording to guidelines issued by
the Bureau of Prisons in 2007.
One of Epstein’s lawyers, Marc
Fernich, declined to comment,
citing the federal probes into his
client’s death.How too-tall Epstein
hanged self with sheet
GONER: Convicted pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein is brought to NewYork-Presbyte-
rian Lower Manhattan Hospital on Saturday after being found “unresponsive” in his jail cell.William Farringtonmansion at 116 E. 65th St.,
about nine blocks from Ep-
stein’s townhouse at 9 E. 71st
St., was purchased for $5 mil-
lion in July 2000 by a limited-
liability company that was
represented by Epstein’s long-
time lawyer Darren Indyke.
The property was sold for
nearly $15.1 million in April
2016, records show.
Workers in the neighbor-
hood said that they often saw
Maxwell jogging in the morn-
ing and that she would wave
while walking her dog, a
Hungarian vizsla, until she
abruptly moved out.
“She was very nice lady,”
said a parking attendant who
works nearby.
“When I read in the news-
paper she was working as a
madam, I couldn’t believe it.”
The super at a building on
the block described Maxwell
as a “very elegant lady, a
beautiful woman.”
“Nice dog, too,” he added.
Meanwhile, as part of their
probe, FBI agents raided sev-
eral locations, including Ep-
stein’s private island, Little St.
James, in the US Virgin Is-
lands on Monday, law-en-
forcement sources told The
Post.
The feds were looking for
sex toys and other evidence
that could corroborate the
claims of women who say
they were sexually abused by
Epstein when they were
underage.
A team of feds was seen
swarming around the Carib-
bean island in golf carts at
around 10:30 a.m., NBC News
reported, and several were
photographed on a thatched-
roof dock where a catamaran
was tied up against a back-
ground of tropical greenery.
Additional reporting by Alex
Taylor
[email protected]