As of Tuesday night, results of Jeffrey Epstein’s autopsy, completed Sunday, have not been released. The coroner only said he “needed more information.” Also, closed-circuit video of the cell block where Epstein was held has not been made available either. Now, the New York Times reports:
The two guards who were in the jail unit where Jeffrey Epstein apparently killed himself fell asleep and failed to check on him for about three hours, then falsified records to cover up their mistake, a law enforcement official and a prison official said on Tuesday.
Those disclosures came as the two guards were placed on administrative leave and the warden of the jail, the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, was temporarily reassigned, pending the outcome of the investigation into Mr. Epstein’s death, the Justice Department announced.
The two correctional officers in the special housing unit where Mr. Epstein was held — 9 South — falsely recorded in a log that they had checked on the financier, who was facing sex trafficking charges, every 30 minutes, as was required, the officials said. Such false entries in an official log could constitute a federal crime.
In fact, the guards had been asleep for some or all of the three hours, the officials said.
There is no explanation at this time as to why, six days after Epstein had attempted suicide on July 23, he was taken off of suicide watch. He was returned to his cell, initially with a cellmate, and then the cellmate was removed.
He had apparently hanged himself with a bedsheet, likely fastening the sheet to a top bunk and pitching himself forward, law-enforcement and prison officials said.
I guess if you’re determined, you can kill yourself that way. An “after-action team” from the Bureau of Prisons is investigating “to determine whether employees and officials followed protocols in the days and weeks before Mr. Epstein died.” So far, it would appear that dereliction of duty is the order of the day in that facility. And maybe that is what was to be expected, even for a high profile prisoner in a controversial case, with national and international dimensions. Again, not to proselytize conspiracy theory, but something sure seems fishy here.
Mismanagement all around.
It’s beyond mismanagement. The guards committed fraud by filling out forms saying they had checked on Epstein when he was deader than a doornail. I find this incredible.
I don’t find it incredible. I find it all too normal.
Nothing incredible there. Since there has been a hiring freeze in the federal government, along with the budget slashing by the Republicans in Congress, the FedBOP (and other agencies) has been hit with staff shortages. This has resulted in prison guards pulling mandatory overtime where the average work week is anywhere from 60 to 80 hours. And this has been going on for weeks. So the guards fell asleep, there is a total fuck up in the system, and the guards falsify the documents to cover their ass. Pretty typical behavior. The guards will be fired, will lose their benefits and probably get some unsupervised probation for the misdemeanor charges. FedBOP will continue to be undermanned and overworked, no one will care, and the world will continue to turn.
No, it’s more than that, a case like that, with such a high profile ‘client list’ ? I call bullshit on that.
Everyone is entitled to their conspiracy theory of choice. I’m not inclined to go down a rabbit hole until there is much more corraborating evidence.
What we do know is that all FedBOP facilities are short on staff due to a hiring freeze, guards are pulling insane overtime hours which results in total fuck ups. Guards will do what they can to cover their own asses, including falsifying documents. I used to work in that area of law and have seen it on more than one occasion in more than one lock up facility. Yes, I’m well aware that money talks inside prisons/jails and anyone can be offed at any time. But we have no evidence of that in this case at this time.