The leading Democrat and Republican on the House Judiciary Committee teamed up Monday to demand answers from the Bureau of Prisons about the apparent suicide of alleged child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Democratic New York Rep. Jerry Nadler and Republican Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, the chairman and ranking member on the key congressional committee, sent a four-page letter to Hugh Hurwitz, who is the acting director of the federal prison system.
The letter told him that if the allegations of suicide are proven to be accurate, then this “demonstrates severe miscarriages of or deficiencies in inmate protocol.” They also noted that the death of this “particularly reprehensible individual” allowed Epstein to “ultimately evade facing justice.”
The Bureau of Prisons said 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 and why such a high-profile prisoner was not more closely monitored. New York City’s chief medical examiner said the official cause of death is still being investigated.
“Any victims of Mr. Epstein’s actions will forever be denied proper recourse and the scintilla of recompense our justice system can provide in the face of such alleged atrocities.” Nadler and Collins further wrote. “The competency and rigor of our criminal justice system has been marred by their apparent oversight.”
Nadler and Collins then listed a series of questions for which they demanded swift answers about the the suicide prevention program used at the Bureau of Prisons and how it related to Epstein especially.
The two congressmen also told the Bureau of Prisons to provide them with the names of those involved in these decisions and those responsible for guarding and monitoring Epstein, and also demanded the underlying documents related to all of this.
Nadler and Collins noted that Attorney General William Barr had announced that the FBI and Justice Department were already investigating Epstein’s death, but said that “it is imperative” that their oversight committee receive responses to these questions on the adequacy of the federal prison system’s suicide prevention programs immediately, giving Hurwitz until Aug. 21 to provide the requested information.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman promised on Sunday that Southern District of New York’s investigation of Epstein’s crimes, and the crimes of his possible co-conspirators, would not end with Epstein’s death. Barr vowed this morning that the investigation will continue and warned that Epstein’s co-conspirators “should not rest easy.”
