Jeffrey Epstein‘s death was a result of “negligence and misconduct” from guards that allowed him to commit suicide, a Justice Department watchdog determined.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons failed to assign Epstein a cellmate and guards allowed too many bed linens to be left in his cell, which aided in his suicide, Inspector General Michael Horowitz said. Epstein died by suicide in New York City in August 2019.
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Horowitz determined that there were problems with surveillance cameras and that some members of the jail staff were overworked. He identified 13 employees with poor performance and recommended charges against six of them. Only two workers tasked with guarding Epstein, Nova Noel and Michael Thomas, were charged, but they avoided jail time through a plea deal.
The inspector general’s report comes over four years since Epstein’s death, which occurred at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. He was awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges at the time of his suicide.
Epstein was put on suicide watch two weeks before his death for 31 hours after a suicide attempt that left his neck bruised and scraped. The guards working the night of his death were working overtime, and one of them did not typically guard prisoners.
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The workers assigned to guard Epstein were sleeping and shopping online instead of checking on him every 30 minutes as required, prosecutors said in thousands of pages of records obtained by the Associated Press. Noel and Thomas admitted to lying on prison records to make it seem as though they made the rounds.
Epstein’s suicide is the second death Horowitz has blamed on the Bureau of Prisons. The records, which included internal reports, emails, and memos, showed the prison system’s corner-cutting and short staffing contributed to Epstein’s suicide.
