In what is a surprise and a non-surprise, child rapist, trafficker, and pimp for the elite Jeffrey Epstein “committed suicide” in his prison cell:
Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, 66, has died inside a Manhattan correctional facility in what the Bureau of Prisons called an “apparent suicide.”
The mysterious multimillionaire—already a convicted sex offender in Florida—has been held without bail at the MCC since his surprise arrest on charges of child sex trafficking at New Jersey’s Teterboro airport in early July, after he arrived on his private jet from Paris.
Epstein had initially been held in general population at MCC, where he’d been targeted for extortion as a wealthy pedophile, a person with knowledge of his circumstances told The Daily Beast, before being transferred to a cell with a roommate in the Special Housing Unit separated from the rest of the prison and with extra security.
He had been placed on suicide watch after he was found in his cell in that unit “in medical distress” on July 23 with “apparent bruising on his neck” and was taken off the suicide watch six days later, The New York Times reported Saturday.
The person described the injuries from Epstein’s first alleged suicide attempt as small abrasions around his neck, and said that while protocols were followed, Epstein had received no preferential treatment afterward.
He did get a cell to himself in the unit, where the rich man “lived like a pig in a sty” after that attempt, the person said, eating his meals off of the floor and constantly requesting more toilet paper.
In conversations with other inmates, he at times asked for their inmate numbers, presumably to put money into their accounts.
A spokeswoman for the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner confirmed they had Epstein’s body, and said, “We are investigating this death. Cause and manner are pending.”
At 6:39 a.m., staff at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan called the Fire Department, which transported Epstein to New York Presbyterian-Lower Manhattan Hospital. He was pronounced dead there, a spokesman confirmed.
Attorney General William Barr—whose father had hired Epstein to teach math at the tony private school Dalton in the late 70s—said in a statement Saturday morning: “I was appalled to learn that Jeffrey Epstein was found dead early this morning from an apparent suicide while in federal custody. Mr. Epstein’s death raises serious questions that must be answered. In addition to the FBI’s investigation, I have consulted with the Inspector General who is opening an investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Epstein’s death.”
Southern District U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said in a statement Saturday afternoon that “Today’s events are disturbing, and we are deeply aware of their potential to present yet another hurdle to giving Epstein’s many victims their day in Court.” He pointedly noted that “our investigation of the conduct charged in the indictment — which included a conspiracy count — remains ongoing.”
The financier’s sudden demise comes only a day after newly unsealed court documents show one of his accusers claimed that he and socialite Ghislaine Maxwell trafficked her to powerful men for sex. Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who says Maxwell recruited her as a 16-year-old during her summer job at Mar-a-Lago, testified that Epstein and Maxwell lent her out for kinky sex with foreign heads of state, a wealthy Wall Streeter, a former U.S. senator, a highly-regarded scientist, and Britain’s Prince Andrew.
“The fact that Epstein took his own life within 24 hours of the unsealing of detailed and devastating documents and exhibits in Virginia Giuffre’s lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell, which informed the public of the scope, scale and sophistication of the international sex trafficking operation Epstein conducted, is no coincidence,” Sigrid McCawley, a lawyer for Giuffre and other victims, and a partner at Boies, Schiller & Flexner, said.
“We are hopeful that the government will continue to investigate and will focus on those who participated and facilitated Epstein’s horrifying sex trafficking scheme that damaged so many,” she added.
None of the other men accused have been charged of a crime and all deny the allegations—as has Maxwell, a British socialite who was Epstein’s girlfriend and served as his assistant.
Epstein’s death leaves behind a host of baffling questions which now may never be answered. That includes how he built his fortune—he claimed to manage money for billionaires, and served on the board of family charities for financial titans Leon Black and Les Wexner, but experts are dubious of his story and say he instead appeared to have expertise in moving money offshore. Others have speculated that he was blackmailing wealthy clients after luring them to his legendarily lusty parties with beautiful young girls on his private Caribbean island and at his palatial Manhattan townhouse.
Also unanswered: What Epstein was doing with a safe full of cash, loose diamonds, and an Austrian passport under an assumed name (and with a Saudi address), which feds uncovered when they raided his New York mansion.
What is known is that Epstein moved in circles of astounding wealth and influence. He counted President Donald Trump as a friend—until the two fell out over real estate—and flew President Bill Clinton around on his private plane. He palled around with Prince Andrew, went into business with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and hosted salons and getaways for scientific geniuses.
But behind his glittering facade, Epstein peddled in darkness.
Scores of young women have come forward over more than a decade to accuse Epstein of sexual abuse, starting with dozens of underage girls in Florida. Two sisters have also claimed that Epstein and Maxwell raped one of them in Wexner’s Ohio mansion, and molested the other while she was underage at the financier’s remote Zorro Ranch in New Mexico.
But the U.S. Attorney’s office in Miami decided not to pursue federal charges against the well-connected money man in 2007, allowing him instead to plead guilty in a sweetheart deal to a pair of state prostitution charges. He served 18 months, most of it in the Palm Beach County jail on a lenient work release program.
The plea deal—which also gave broad immunity to any of Epstein’s potential co-conspirators—is now under intense scrutiny, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis directing state law enforcement to take over a probe into how Epstein was allowed to leave his cell for 12 hours a day to visit his office and his home. At least one woman has claimed that Epstein abused her while on his work release.
Meanwhile, the feds will soon have to answer how the high-profile inmate managed to kill himself inside a secure lockup and after he’d been previously placed on suicide watch.
At the time of Epstein’s first apparent suicide attempt, he shared a cell with Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer charged with kidnapping and murdering four people in 2016. Tartaglione had been housed in the SHU, bunking with Epstein, because corrections officials had allegedly found a cellphone in Tartaglione’s previous cell.
Tartaglione’s lawyer, Bruce Barket, told authorities his client had saved Epstein’s life during the first suicide attempt by alerting corrections officers. He claimed Tartaglione was being implicated in the suicide attempt because he’d recently complained about conditions at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, saying in a statement at the time that “we warned the judge that officials at the jail would retaliate against Nick because we have been exposing the inhumane conditions at the facility.”
Following Epstein’s death, MCC cancelled all visits, both family and legal ones, with prisoners on Saturday.
With Epstein’s death, victims and their advocates have again been denied their day in court. Julie Brown, whose reporting for the Miami Herald helped reignite the Epstein case, said on CNN Saturday morning that the focus will now turn on who else should be held accountable to bring justice to the young women whose childhoods were robbed by Epstein.
“The fact that Jeffrey Epstein was able to commit the selfish act of taking his own life as his world of abuse, exploitation, and corruption unraveled is both unfortunate and predictable,” said Brad Edwards, a lawyer for Epstein’s victims who has pursued the financier for years.
“While he and I engaged in contentious legal battles for more than a decade, this is not the ending anyone was looking for. The victims deserved to see Epstein held accountable, and he owed it to everyone he hurt to accept responsibility for all of the pain he caused. We will continue to represent his victims and will not stop in their pursuit of finality and justice. It is never too late to come forward with information.”
Victim Jennifer Araoz, who says Epstein and his minions recruited her from a New York high school and raped her when she was just 15, expressed anger on hearing the news of Epstein’s suicide. “We have to live with the scars of his actions for the rest of our lives, while he will never face the consequences of the crimes he committed the pain and trauma he caused so many people. Epstein is gone, but justice must still be served,” she said.
“I hope the authorities will pursue and prosecute his accomplices and enablers, and ensure redress for his victims.” (source, source)
Now there are a lot of people online on the “right” saying that “it was the Clintons who did it.” In fairness, there is a possibility they could be right, like with many things in life, as one is not fully sure. But how probable or reasonable is this?
Let’s consider the situation.
First, the nature of the suicide. Either Epstein killed himself, or he did not. If he killed himself- and it is perfectly reasonable to assume that he may have done this -then it speaks for itself. However, nobody really knows what happened.
The FBI says they are investigating, but given the political nature of this case and how the FBI has been shown to have a history of orchestrating false attacks or instigating violence while at the same time lying when in testimony before Congress on television, not to mention how the US intelligence agencies have bragged that they are professional liars, how trustworthy will they be in such a highly-politicized investigation as this? In reality, one can only conclude based on the publicly available evidence that it does not favor them, which is very unfortunate.
The other option is that Epstein was murdered. Given that Epstein, whose real job was that of a pimp for the very powerful of the world to satisfy their perverted lust for small children, could theoretically jeopardize not only major companies and their investments but the very people who run and finance governments around the world, he is naturally a target for extermination. If Epstein sings, there is the possibility that like the Dutroux case in Belgium, entire nations could suffer long-term political and social consequences. On the other hand, a 25 cent bullet or a 10 cent piece of piano wire could put all of those concerns to permanent rest. It is quite obvious, taking the perspective of a man who values power above all with respect to none and is seeking to protect himself regardless of the cost, what he would do, and it certainly is not to tell the truth.
The Clintons are well-known for their frienship with Epstein. It is very difficult to believe that they would be “innocent” of claiming legitimate ignorance of his crimes, especially with the fact that they were connected to other well-known child sexual abusers and traffickers, and even have been caught using language associated with the abuse of children in the emails exposed by Wikileaks in what has been referred to as the Pizzagate scandal. It is only plausible that the Clintons would, like the many other people of great power and standing, would have a potential interest in seeing Mr. Epstein’s demise.
But there is another person that would also have an interest in getting rid of Epstein and who many on the right would not want to talk about: President Trump.
Consider the following facts.
We know that Trump was very close friends with Mr. Epstein for at least 15 years.
We know that Trump has spoken in praise of Epstein
We know that Trump openly claimed that Epstein likes “very young girls.”
We know that Epstein was friends with the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world, all at the same time that he has been coincidentally accused of being a pimp for child sex slaves.
We know that Epstein is a convicted child rapist, pedophile, and trafficker.
We know that Trump has been to Epstein’s house multiple times.
We know that Epstein was legitimately accused of recruiting girls for his pedophile ring at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort.
We know that Alex Acosta, the attorney who helped Jeffrey Epstein escape justice for his crimes, works in the Trump administration.
We know that Trump is a sex fiend who has had countless sexual liasons with married women, unmarried women, overpriced pornographic whores, and brags about his groping ventures.
We know that Trump has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in hush money to pornographic whores to hide his philandering activity with them.
In the words of a former associate of Epstein who knew him back in the 1980s and cut him out of his circle of friends:
Jeffrey Epstein didn’t abuse underage girls in a vacuum. He had enablers. And friends. For a few years in the ‘80s, I was one of his friends — in the transactional, Manhattan meaning of that word — and I got a preview of his sickness.
When we met in 1986, Epstein’s double identity intrigued me — he said he didn’t just manage money for clients with mega-fortunes, he was also a high-level bounty hunter. Sometimes, he told me, he worked for governments to recover money looted by African dictators. Other times those dictators hired him to help them hide their stolen money.
Epstein was pleased that I was interested in writing about him. Not a profile. A book. That prospect convinced him that I should see a sample of his craft, so we met in the lobby of an office building on Park Avenue South and took an elevator to a law firm, where he intended to serve a subpoena. He didn’t get past the receptionist.
I thought this episode . . . odd. A major financial figure trying to serve a subpoena? Don’t you hire someone to do that? My interest lapsed.
My wife-to-be was then a military historian, with a book about to be published. Interview Magazine photographed her in a buttoned-up military shirt, with a taut khaki tie. A witty photo of an attractive woman. But not a sexy look. Jeffrey Epstein had chatted her up at a few parties. The military look fooled him not at all.
The night before our marriage, Epstein called. “It’s your last free night,” he told my wife-to-be. “Why don’t you come over and fuck me?”
That was how, in June of 1987, Jeffrey Epstein became dead to me.
Over the years, I heard the stories making the rounds about him: how Leslie Wexner either gave him the biggest townhouse in Manhattan or sold it to him for a dollar, how he worked out of Bennett Cerf’s old office and had no computer, how his friends included Donald Trump and Bill Clinton and the Duchess of York. And more. Should I rethink a book about Epstein? I wavered.
In the early ‘90s, at a Joan Rivers dinner party, my wife and I encountered Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of disgraced British publishing mogul Robert Maxwell and Epstein’s girlfriend for a brief period in the ’90s. She has been accused of recruiting and grooming girls and women for Epstein; she denies this. I’d met her several times with Epstein; we were also “friends,” in that transactional Manhattan way. And might now become better friends. “If you lose 10 pounds, I’ll fuck you,” she said, with my wife standing next to me. And she too became dead to me. (source, source)
How in essence is this different than the Clinton’s relationship with Epstein?
I’m not saying that the Clintons are good, or right, or that they should be supported. Indeed, there is much evidence that indicates malicious activity on their part. However, Trump must not be allowed to escape scrutiny because he was an open friend with this person whose life was defined by being a child pimp and he himself was also known to engage in sexually deviant behavior. In fact, it is arguable that Trump has had more contact with Epstein than the Clintons, and naturally should be subject to more scrutinty.
Was Trump potentially caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar- or perhaps better phrased -with his pants down for the world to see? One can only guess, and while Trump denies the charges as he would naturally do so, the evidence of what we do know strongly suggests that Trump knows a lot more about Epstein than what he is willing to admit to because it would likely incriminate him.
Now remember too that Trump is the President. The President has direct control over the Executive Branch of government, and this includes the FBI and the CIA.
It is a known fact the US government- as with most governments -carries out politically targeted assassinations.
One may say that the president technically cannot carry out direct orders for assassination under law. However, the force of a law is as only as strong as the will to enforce it. Likewise, that is why the intelligence agencies exist- because they do the illegal and immoral activities that governments around the world do in order to “get things done” for political, economic, or social reasons that they cannot admit to because they are crimes.
Do you really think that because “the law says he cannot do this” that it is going to stop him? It certainly didn’t stop the entire FBI scandal with Peter Strzok’s lies before Congress. If such prolific lies will be told before the public on really what is a political show meant to distract the masses, what is to be said of a serious political crisis that would have a direct impact on many people’s lives?
What the Democrats do in public the Republicans do in secret, but they all do the same things because ultimately the all adhere to the same philosophy of power over all with respect to none.
The Clintons have been long scrutinized, and that should continue. However, Trump is the man in power right now with the resources at his disposal and the people in place to make “things happen,” as he so often boasts of himself. Indeed, when it comes to protecting those things he has interests in- such as satisfying the demands of the Israeli lobby by releasing the convicted human trafficker and criminal Shalom Rubashkin in spite of his horrendous crimes -he is very quick to use his “executive authority”. Trump will protect Trump before anything else.
Perhaps if Epstein really was murdered, looking at “the Left” is not only the incorrect thing, but what those in power want right now, as it would only serve to solidify a Trump 2020 re-election as well as distract people from those who have the available resources to cause “accidents” to happen and then cover them up.