This archive report was first published on 19 November 2019.
On August 10, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein, a 66-year-old financier, was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, New York. Epstein had been held at the jail for more than a month while awaiting trial on new sex-trafficking charges.
According to a person briefed on the case, two federal prison workers on duty the night of Epstein's death could be charged as early as this week with falsifying records to hide their failure to check on him as required.
Epstein's death was ruled a suicide by New York City's chief medical examiner, despite having only recently been removed from a suicide watch. Lawyers for Epstein challenged the medical examiner's finding, and a pathologist hired by his family said that 'evidence points to homicide.'
Attorney General William P. Barr said at the time of Epstein's death that a preliminary investigation had turned up 'serious irregularities' at the Manhattan jail, whose warden was reassigned. 'We will get to the bottom of what happened,' he added. 'There will be accountability.'
The two corrections workers who are expected to face charges were placed on leave in the days after Epstein's death. In recent weeks, federal prosecutors in Manhattan have offered them plea deals, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
On November 19, 2019, The New York Times reported that Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, who previously led the Bureau of Prisons, warned staff members in a memo that falsifying logs could result in a criminal investigation.
The investigation being led by federal prosecutors is one of three inquiries into the circumstances surrounding Epstein's death. The Bureau of Prisons is conducting an internal inquiry focused on its personnel and procedures, and the Justice Department's inspector general is investigating the possibility of systemic failures at the Manhattan jail and the Bureaus of Prisons more broadly.
