Documents collected by the RT investigative unit The Detail under the Freedom of Information Act includes shocking information demonstrating how the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP) attempted to stifle all public debate concerning Jeffrey Epstein’s death.
The Bureau made an announcement stating to journalists and Epstein’s family after he was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on August 10, 2019 that he had committed suicide as shown in the records. As a result, foreign news sources reported Epstein had committed suicide from the start, despite Chief Medical Examiner Barbara Sampson’s inability to draw a verdict at the time and making plain in a statement the next day that the inquiry was open and ongoing.
Sampson did not publicly proclaim Epstein’s death to be a suicide until August 16. Leading forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, who had been commissioned by the billionaire’s brother to oversee the autopsy process, challenged the ruling. Two months later, he told the Miami Herald that “the autopsy did not support suicide,” and that the pathologist who performed it had noted this.
“Then Dr. Sampson changed it a week later, manner of death to suicide. The brother has been trying to find out why that changed,”Baden erupted in rage asking “What was the evidence?”
In the years afterwards, no answers have been released, however a shocking Washington Post piece a day before Sampson’s statement could have played a role in the apparent volte-face. According to sources acquainted with the autopsy, numerous bones in Epstein’s neck, including the hyoid, were shattered during the procedure, and such breakages “are more common in victims of homicide by strangulation” than hanging.
Another possibility could be Robert Nagle, BOP’s national suicide prevention coordinator, who was compiling a “psychological reconstruction” of Epstein’s death at the time. Nagle – whose identity is redacted in the files – arrived at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on August 13 to begin his probe, according to files supplied by the Bureau to The Detail.
Nagle mentioned in his report that the FBI had confiscated a video of an indeterminate sort relating to the “major incident” before the investigation began. He also claimed that he was unable to conduct official interviews with prison employees “to avoid interference with pending investigations” by the Justice Department,and that most of the information “typically gathered” in psychological reconstructions was unavailable.
These constraints, Nagle wrote, “severely limited the ability to establish accurate timelines, confirm subjective reports, establish converging and diverging lines of facts, or discover new areas of inquiry.”
He couldn’t put together a “detailed description” of what the cops found when they located Epstein, because they “did not write memorandums and could not be interviewed.” Furthermore, because Epstein’s pre-sentence report had not been completed prior to his death, many aspects of the reconstruction – such as a review of the inmate’s “social history” – were blatantly lacking.
Despite the obvious lack of clear evidence, the document determined that Epstein had indeed committed suicide. His decision was based on his difficulty to sleep owing to an,“inability to tolerate the noise of prison,” as well as the recent unsealing of thousands of records relating to his 2008 conviction for child sex offences and the threat of spending the rest of his life behind bars.
Though Nagle brought repeated attention to Epstein labelling himself a “coward” on multiple occasions in the weeks leading up to his purported suicide as evidence of suicidal intent, one can argue that this is sound logic. True, the prisoner was recorded making such words — but they were said specifically in the context of denying any intention, or even ability, to commit suicide.
“He said he is not the type who likes pain or would ever attempt to harm himself,” one psychological assessment noted. “[He] even does not like when he has to give blood.”
This can only be described as a shockingly dishonest reversal of Epstein’s remarks. Nagle’s alterations went unnoticed in an internal examination of the reconstruction by Metropolitan Correctional Center Warden Marti Licon-Vitale. Nonetheless, in a section under “documentation accuracy,” she criticized officials for failing to log an incident report in a timely manner and for providing seemingly contradictory reports on the same incident.
Court room artist's drawing of Jeffrey Epstein FILE – In this courtroom artist’s sketch, defendant Jeffrey Epstein, center, sits with attorneys Martin Weinberg, left, and Marc Fernich during his arraignment in New York federal court, Monday, July 8, 2019. © AP / Elizabeth Williams
“Professional responsibility requires taking into account multiple descriptions of an incident as noted in your response. However, when discrepancies exist these should be compiled and noted in documentation to decrease the likelihood of conflicting conclusions,” she wrote. “Preconceived notions challenge the ability to remain open about alternative explanations … Please develop and provide local training for all staff that at a minimum reviews the timeframe for writing incident reports and offers guidance when there is not clear evidence of an infraction.”
While the specific episode critiqued by Licon-Vitale is completely deleted, it’s safe to assume that this portion alludes to the strange facts revealed by The Detail in the first episode of this investigation series. In a nutshell, the initial incident report on Epstein’s purported suicide on July 23, 2019, mentioned “hanging/asphyxiation,” but a week later, it was strangely altered to include “self-mutilation” by laceration, resulting in him being reprimanded for a penal code violation.
Apart from these issues, the BOP’s higher-ups were ecstatic about Nagle’s reconstruction. Hugh Hurwitz, the agency’s director, hailed his “outstanding” job in an internal email dated August 23, saying it was “unbelievable all you report without the benefit of interviews or video.” This communication is incredibly ironic, because it is genuinely “unbelievable” that a conclusive suicide verdict could be made without access to fundamental and crucial facts.
Attorney General William Barr had abruptly removed Hurwitz from his position four days prior. Could this be due to an attempt to control the narrative surrounding Epstein’s death before the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department Inspector General finished their respective investigations?
Whatever the case may be, there is one further enigmatic aspect of the “psychological reconstruction” that no official or media outlet has ever mentioned. One of Epstein’s lawyers “was depositing funds” into the commissary account of Efrain ‘Stone’ Reyes, Epstein’s final cellmate, “for unknown reasons,” according to a study of financial activities related with Epstein’s prison sentence.
This could explain why Reyes was questioned by the FBI after becoming a person of interest in the investigation. He was moved to a minimum security correctional centre in Queens, New York, where he was housed alongside high-value cooperating witnesses like rapper Tekashi69. He reportedly feared cooperating with the Bureau would “affect him negatively,” but in exchange for his assistance, he was moved there.
While there, he was reportedly personally interrogated by Attorney General William Barr as part of the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General’s investigation, and he was thanked for his contributions. Interestingly, the department has refused to confirm or refute the report, despite the fact that Kerri Kupec, the department’s previous spokesperson, claims it is “100% false.”
Reyes died in September 2020, five months after being released from prison, as a result of a facility-wide Covid-19 pandemic and supposedly as a result of virus-related complications. His niece then told mainstream news sources that her uncle had expressed serious doubts that the six-foot Epstein could have hanged himself from the bunk frames in the cell because they were simply not tall enough.
Despite requests for disclosure from journalists, federal prosecutors decided in January 2021 to keep all records relating to Reyes concealed owing to the potential impact on topics purportedly unrelated to Epstein. Authorities highlighted information about the billionaire included in all files pertaining to Reyes, which ran to two pages – all of it redacted – in denying the request.
Almost a year later, the Inspector General report on Epstein’s death was nearing completion, with a Justice Department investigator claiming that all the team needed to do now was “dot their I’s and cross their T’s,” and that they’d be “surprised if it wasn’t released in the next 30 days or so.”
It’s unclear whether it will provide any light on the plethora of major issues revealed by the declassified Bureau of Prisons materials, while The Detail has requested that the seal be revisited in light of the news that Reyes received payments from Epstein’s lawyers.