US Justice Department watchdog details 'serious failures' that led to Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide

By Iclal Turan

WASHINGTON (AA) - A report Tuesday by the Justice Department's inspector general found "numerous and serious failures" by prison staff that resulted in Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide in his prison cell.

“These failures resulted in Epstein being unmonitored and alone in his cell with an excessive amount of bed linens, from approximately 10:40 p.m. on August 9 until he was discovered hanged in his locked cell on August 10 at approximately 6:30 a.m.," said the DOJ OIG (Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General).

The report argued that prison staff failed to ensure Epstein was assigned a cellmate while accusing the staff of failing to undertake required measures designed to ensure Epstein and other inmates were accounted for and safe.

Epstein, the US financier and disgraced millionaire, committed suicide in his cell in 2019, while waiting for trial on sex trafficking charges.

He was being held in a federal lock-up in Manhattan while facing one count of sex trafficking minors, which carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, and another count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors, which carries a maximum sentence of five years.

Epstein allegedly committed the crimes at his Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida properties, where he abused dozens of underage girls, some as young as 14, and conspired to commit sex trafficking, according to prosecutors.