A new report from The New York Times provides insight into the final hours of the notorious late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s life before he allegedly committed suicide in his Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial for charges stemming from an underage sex trafficking ring he was suspected of facilitating for years.
The Times is convinced that the documents it obtained from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit undermine the theory posited by the general public as well as Epstein’s family and attorneys that the shadowy financier did not, in fact, kill himself.
But I’ll let you be the judge.
In the days leading up to his death, Epstein would tell jail psychologists that he had a “wonderful life” and had much to live for, that he was afraid of pain and too much of a “coward” to take his own life, and even went as far as to state that his Jewish faith forbade him from doing so.
“I have no interest in killing myself,” he reportedly told one of the facility’s mental health workers, according to documents from the Bureau of Prisons just made public for the first time.
“I would not do that to myself,” he said.
However, the Times explained, the collection of notes, logs and documents the newspaper obtained paint the picture of a man who was growing increasingly despondent as it seems to have begun to dawn on him that he was not going to be getting out of jail anytime soon.
“After a life of manipulation, Mr. Epstein created illusions until the very end, deceiving correctional officers, counselors and specially trained inmates assigned to monitor him around the clock, according to the documents,” the Times reported.
“The clues prompted too little action by jail and bureau officials, who made mistake after mistake leading up to Mr. Epstein’s death,” the records reveal.
Epstein, as you may recall, was a well-connected financier with a long and sordid history of sexual offenses and alleged underage sex trafficking.
Before he was arrested in 2019, he had previously been convicted for soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008.
In the years since, his notoriety increased as stories continued to swirl that he was in the habit of procuring underage girls to satisfy the appetites of his wealthy and powerful friends, who he would invite to his various extravagant residences in Manhattan, Palm Beach and his private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands — Little St. James, or as its rumored the locals called it, “Pedo Island.”
Said wealthy and powerful friends reportedly include the likes of former President Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and the U.K.’s Prince Andrew, although all have denied anything other than a mere casual acquaintance with Epstein.
It is largely due to his high-up connections, however, that, almost as soon as news broke that the notorious billionaire was found lifeless in his jail cell on Aug. 1, 2019, and later said to have died by suicide that the meme “Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself” was born.
The reason, of course, is that the American public generally believed that Epstein, well … didn’t actually kill himself.
The theory was universally appealing, as leftists believed the Trump administration had an interest in covering up Epstein’s crime due to now-former President Donald Trump’s own loose connections to the financier, those on the right believed that Epstein had the capacity to take down Pizzagate-esque sexual offenders in high places, and pretty much everyone believed that when it comes to Clinton associates and “suicide,” there is good reason to suspect foul play.
It didn’t help matters much, however, that the prison where Epstein died seems to have done so little to prevent the high-profile prisoner from taking his own life, that it created the “perfect storm of screwups” under which he was able to, supposedly, do so, as then-Attorney General William Barr said at the time.
If you’ve been following the scandal from day one, the Times report confirms some of the biggest concerns that the public had about Epstein’s death, although the newspaper drew the conclusion that it now appears rather clear that he did, indeed, take his own life.
“The newly obtained records offer no support to the explosion of conspiracy theories that Mr. Epstein’s death was not a suicide,” it stated. “They also shed no light on questions raised by his brother and one of his lawyers that he might have been assisted in killing himself. But they do paint a picture of incompetence and sloppiness by some within the Bureau of Prisons, which runs the federal detention center.”
You can say that again.
Epstein’s behavior, as recorded by those observing him, including “inmate companions,” shows a man who would at times chat happily about his celebrity friends and investments, at other times sit sadly on his bed, head in hands.
He rejected meals, complained about his prison conditions and slept poorly. He took particular issue with a running toilet in his cell and having to wear an orange jumpsuit.
The report details numerous instances in which it was recommended that Epstein get a psychological evaluation and yet this was either delayed or neglected altogether.
Epstein, by their estimation, was able to charm the jail psychologists and specially trained inmates tasked with keeping an eye on him that he had no intention of ending his own life, to the point that he was taken off suicide watch and, ultimately, left alone on the night that his life ended.
“He stated he lives for and plans to finish this case and to go back to his normal life,” one psychologist wrote, although they suggested placing him on observation out of an “abundance of caution.”
One odd and unexplained document included in the trove the Bureau of Prisons forked over to the Times as part of its settlement included a sign which read, “MANADATORY ROUNDS MUST BE CONDUCTED EVERY 30 MINUTES ON EPSTEIN #76318-054 AS PER GOD!!!!”
“Mandatory” was misspelled as well as underlined with a question mark. Prison officials wouldn’t answer questions from the Times over what this meant.
Epstein was allowed to make what would be a final phone call in the hours before his death, although he lied to the unit manager who assisted him, telling him that he was calling his mother, who died years ago.
Instead, the Times reported, he called his girlfriend, 30-year-old Belarusian Karyna Shuliak.
There is no log of the phone call, but according to a report by The New York Daily News in 2020, a prosecutor from the Southern District of New York sought to obtain a recording of the phone call.
Shuliak, who was reportedly shocked to hear he’d taken his own life and had no idea he intended any such thing after speaking with him hours earlier, declined.
The Times report ends with a rather interesting bit of evidence from an inmate who emailed the jail psychologists about two months after Epstein’s death purporting that, according to an inmate he had spoken to who was in the cell next to Epstein’s on that fateful night, his death was most certainly suicide.
“Jeffrey Epstein definitely killed himself. Any conspiracy theories to the contrary are ridiculous,” the inmate reportedly told the author of the email.
He claimed to have heard Epstein “tearing up his sheet before committing suicide.”
“He wanted to kill himself and seized the opportunity when it was available,” he opined. “Such is life — or death, in this case.”
On that night, Epstein had been alone as his previous cellmate had been transferred out and had yet to be replaced.
The guards on duty that evening were said to have mostly surfed the web and appeared to nap by prosecutors. Interestingly, earlier this year, the two prison offers entered into a deferred prosecution agreement as they’d been charged with falsifying records to give the impression they’d checked on Epstein.
So as I said, you be the judge.
Is this the portrait of a man who wove a web of lies to allow himself the opportunity to kill himself amid a “perfect storm of screw-ups” that seems to have been almost tailor-made to allow him to be alone?
Or is this just further evidence that there was nothing coincidental about the fact that he just so happened to have no cellmate on the night that incompetent guards failed to check up on him after he’d been taken off suicide watch?
If someone was capable of arranging Epstein’s death, would they not have been easily just as capable of fabricating a casual conversation between two inmates in which one claimed to have heard sheets being torn up in the next cell over?
The Times may be satisfied that their documents indicate there was no foul play, but in my own humble opinion, I think the evidence is as inconclusive as ever.