Those who knew convicted sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein in prison say he was a target for harassment while incarcerated, leading him to become increasingly depressed in his final days.
Inmates from the Metropolitan Correctional Center say the late multimillionaire was extorted by other inmates and officers over his wealth and was subjected to unusually harsh treatment.
“He was saying he’s going to kill himself because the government is trying to kill him anyway,” one inmate told the New York Daily News.
Angelique Lopez, the niece of Epstein’s last cellmate who died last month from possible coronavirus complications, said her uncle mentioned that Epstein was not doing well mentally.
“Epstein was very depressed, and he mentioned to my uncle that he didn’t want to live anymore, and my uncle was telling him, ‘Don’t do any of this while I’m in the room,’” Lopez said. “My uncle just wanted to do his time and get out.”
Lopez alleged that staff at the prison treated Epstein poorly and forced him to sleep on the floor, refusing him a cot.
Two current inmates and one formerly incarcerated person, who all refused to be identified, said the conditions in the prison were poor in general but have worsened since Epstein’s high-profile suicide story.
The former inmate said Epstein was scammed out of thousands of dollars as soon as he entered the facility, apparently one time paying around $4,000 to inmates for contraband cellphones, some of which were never provided.
“A normal inmate will come in there, and they automatically assume you have money because you’ve just been arrested,” the former inmate said. “They’re trying to sell you everything — phones, electronics, a better cell. When he got in there, everyone was fighting over who would get him. He was getting ripped off left and right.”
One current inmate said Epstein was sometimes threatened for money, while others offered him security for a price.
“They’d slide papers under the door [that say,] ‘We’re going to kill you, you rapist, you pedophile,’” the inmate said.
The former inmate said Epstein agreed to offers for protection and wired thousands of dollars through Western Union to inmates’ families or made arrangements to meet families outside the prison.
Jack Donson, a retired Bureau of Prisons employee, said extortion and protection by cash are common in prison culture and are not limited to Epstein.
“It’s not this thing where Epstein is being singled out — this goes on everywhere,” Donson said.
Epstein, who registered as a sex offender as part of a nonprosecution agreement more than a decade ago, was arrested in July 2019 on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges for allegedly abusing girls as young as 14. He was 66 when he was found dead in his prison cell in August 2019, which the New York City medical examiner determined to be a suicide.
