Jeffrey Epstein obit

Jeffrey Epstein Dead in Suicide at Jail, Spurring Inquiries

He was not on the list.

Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who was long dogged by accusations of sexual abuse of girls and who was able to cultivate an array of high-profile friends despite his lurid lifestyle, killed himself in his Manhattan jail cell, officials said on Saturday.

Mr. Epstein’s death quickly reverberated from New York to Washington to Florida, spurring federal inquiries into why he was not being more closely monitored and angering his accusers, who said they had hoped to have his crimes aired in open court.

Mr. Epstein hanged himself, and was found at around 6:30 a.m. Saturday at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, officials said.

Last month, after being denied bail on federal sex trafficking charges, Mr. Epstein was found unconscious in his jail cell with marks on his neck. Prison officials had been investigating the incident as a possible suicide attempt.

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Mr. Epstein was placed on suicide watch after the incident on July 23 and received a daily psychiatric evaluation, according to a person familiar with his detention. He was removed from suicide watch on July 29 and returned to the special housing unit, a segregated area of the prison with extra security, this person said.

The authorities did not immediately explain why he was taken off suicide watch. The F.B.I. said it was investigating, and Attorney General William P. Barr said in a statement that a special inquiry would be opened into what happened.

“I was appalled to learn that Jeffrey Epstein was found dead early this morning from an apparent suicide while in federal custody,” Mr. Barr said. “Mr. Epstein’s death raises serious questions that must be answered.”

In addition to the F.B.I., the Inspector General, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog, will open an investigation into Mr. Epstein’s death, Mr. Barr said. The Metropolitan Correctional Center is run by the federal Bureau of Prisons.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan last month charged Mr. Epstein, 66, with sex trafficking of girls as young as 14 and sex trafficking conspiracy. The indictment renewed attention on how Mr. Epstein — who had opulent homes, a private jet and access to elite circles — had escaped severe punishment in an earlier investigation of sexual abuse more than a decade ago in Florida.

He had avoided federal criminal charges in 2008 after prosecutors brokered a widely criticized deal that allowed him to plead guilty to state charges of solicitation of prostitution from a minor and serve 13 months in jail. Even while in custody, Mr. Epstein was able to leave the jail for 12 hours a day, six days a week, to work at his office in Florida.

The new federal indictment also focused scrutiny on luminaries in government, politics, business, academia, science and fashion with whom Mr. Epstein had associated over the years, including Donald J. Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew of Britain and the retail billionaire Leslie H. Wexner.

ImageThe Southern District of New York announced charges against Jeffrey Epstein last month.

The Southern District of New York announced charges against Jeffrey Epstein last month.CreditJefferson Siegel for The New York Times

Mr. Epstein’s defense team — the lawyers Reid Weingarten, Marty Weinberg and Michael Miller — declined to comment on the circumstances of death. “We are enormously sorry to learn of today’s news. No one should die in jail,” they said in a statement.

A fourth member of Mr. Epstein’s legal team, Marc Fernich, blamed a host of actors — from prosecutors to victims’ lawyers to the media — for bearing “some responsibility for this calamity.”

Mr. Epstein’s suicide derailed a prosecution that his accusers had hoped would finally show how he had been allowed to commit what they said was a string of depraved crimes for so many years — and what role his wealth, privilege and connections played.

Jennifer Araoz, who said she had been raped by Mr. Epstein after being recruited into his circle in 2001 outside her Manhattan high school, said she was angry that he would not have to face his accusers in court.

“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,” Ms. Araoz said. She said she hoped investigators would pursue charges against people who had aided and protected Mr. Epstein.

The United States attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey S. Berman, said in a statement that the investigation into Mr. Epstein’s misconduct would continue, pointing specifically to the conspiracy charge, which suggested Mr. Epstein was assisted by others who helped facilitate his illegal acts.

“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,” Mr. Berman said.

The apparent demise of the new federal prosecution also led to widespread airing of unfounded conspiracy theories online on Saturday, with people questioning who would benefit from Mr. Epstein’s death. President Trump, who has a history of promoting unfounded conspiracy theories, retweeted one of those posts without comment, fueling the wild speculation.

Until last year, it seemed that Mr. Epstein had largely been able to avoid further scandal over his dealings with young women and girls.

But then new questions were raised about the earlier plea agreement in an investigative report published by The Miami Herald in November 2018 which quoted four of Mr. Epstein’s victims, who are now adults, on the record for the first time.

In February, the Justice Department said it had opened an investigation into the nonprosecution agreement. The inquiry is reviewing whether prosecutors committed professional misconduct in their handling of the earlier Epstein case.

At the same time, federal prosecutors in Manhattan, apparently spurred by The Miami Herald investigation, opened their own inquiry into accusations of sex trafficking by Mr. Epstein.

The United States attorney in Florida who handled the 2008 case was R. Alexander Acosta, who was President Trump’s labor secretary. After the new charges were announced against Mr. Epstein in July, Mr. Acosta’s work on the earlier case came under intense criticism, and he resigned.

Mr. Epstein was arrested on July 6 at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey after his private plane landed on a flight from Paris.

He was accused of hiring dozens of girls as young as 14 to perform nude massages on him, at which point he would masturbate and touch their genitals with his hands or with sex toys. The abuse was said to have occurred at both his Upper East Side mansion and his palatial waterfront home in Palm Beach, Fla., between 2002 and 2005.

The girls were paid hundreds of dollars in cash for the encounters and, once recruited, were asked to return to his homes several times, where they were abused again, the indictment against him said.

Prosecutors said Mr. Epstein asked some of the girls to recruit other girls, creating a network of vulnerable victims.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges. If convicted, he would have faced up to 45 years in prison.

Mr. Epstein had initially sought home detention at his Upper East Side mansion while he awaited trial. His lawyers had proposed allowing Mr. Epstein to post a substantial bond and stay in his luxurious seven-story townhouse, watched by 24-hour security guards, at his expense.

But a federal judge denied the request, concluding that Mr. Epstein was a flight risk and citing his “vast wealth,” which prosecutors have placed at more than $500 million.