A medical examiner performed an autopsy Sunday on accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who died in his cell at the Manhattan Correctional Center of an apparent suicide early Saturday morning, but no cause of death has officially been made public yet.
Dr. Barbara Sampson, New York City’s chief medical examiner, released a statement obtained by the Washington Examiner Sunday evening saying that the medical examiner’s final determination is “pending further information at this time.” She did not elaborate on what that further information might be.
On Saturday, a representative for the medical examiner’s office stressed that “there is no official cause of death yet” because “the medical examiner has to do their job.” NBC News reported Sunday that suicide still remains the presumed cause of death, according to multiple people briefed on the investigation.
MORE: Multiple briefed on the Epstein investigation tell NBC News that suicide remains the presumed cause of death.
The ongoing FBI investigation may further inform the M.E.’s office which will allow them to make a determination with complete confidence. Reported w @jonathan4ny https://t.co/5NJipdNUe2
— Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) August 11, 2019
The Bureau of Prisons said on Saturday that Epstein was found “unresponsive in his cell” in the Special Housing Unit that morning following “an apparent suicide.” Many questions remain about why Epstein was reportedly taken off suicide watch despite allegedly being found nearly unconscious on his cell floor with marks on his neck back in July, as well as about why such a high-profile prisoner wasn’t being closely monitored.
The New York Times reported Sunday that the two prison guards on duty in the wing of the prison where Epstein was being held did not follow protocol and failed to check on Epstein every half hour as required, noting that both guards were working overtime. The New York Post reported that there is no video of Epstein’s apparent suicide inside his cell because cameras are trained on rooms and corridors outside the cells rather than capturing what is going on inside the cells themselves.
Dr. Sampson said Sunday evening that, at the request of those still representing Epstein in death and with the awareness of prosecutors from the Southern District of New York, private pathologist Dr. Michael Baden was also allowed “to observe the autopsy examination.” Dr. Sampson called this a “routine practice.”
Dr. Baden, a former chief medical examiner for New York City in the late 1970s, has been a forensic science contributor for Fox News and has notably been involved in private autopsies, including the police shooting of Michael Brown and the death by suicide hanging of Aaron Hernandez.
Sampson said that, beyond the medical determination of how Epstein died, her office “defers to the involved law enforcement agencies regarding other investigations around this death.”
The FBI and the Justice Department’s inspector general both launched investigations on Saturday into the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death. Attorney General William Barr said he was “appalled” to learn of Epstein’s death and that it “raises serious questions that must be answered.”
The 14-page indictment against Epstein, the already-convicted sex offender and jet-setting financier, was unsealed in July and alleged that he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls” at his homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach, among other locations, between 2002 and 2005 and perhaps beyond. Prosecutors claimed Epstein “enticed and recruited” minor girls to “engage in sex acts with him” and built a “vast network of underage victims.”
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman vowed Sunday that SNDY’s investigation of Epstein’s crimes — and the crimes of his possible co-conspirators — would not end with Epstein’s death.
“To those brave young women who have already come forward and to the many others who have yet to do so, let me reiterate that we remain committed to standing for you,” Berman said in a brief statement. “And our investigation of the conduct charged in the indictment — which included a conspiracy count — remains ongoing.”
