I Read That Epstein Was Stapped Shot and Hung
This report contains graphic images that some viewers may observe agonizing.
In July 2019, Jeffrey Epstein, already a convicted sex activity offender, was arrested and charged with sex trafficking by federal prosecutors. On August x, Epstein was institute dead in his federal jail prison cell at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC).
The New York City Medical Examiner'southward Role ruled Epstein's death a suicide by hanging, merely a forensic pathologist who observed the four-hour autopsy on behalf of Epstein's brother, Mark, tells lx Minutes the evidence released and so far points more than to murder than suicide in his view. Dr. Michael Baden'due south key reason: the unusual fractures he saw in Epstein'south cervix.
- Jeffrey Epstein's autopsy: A closer look
- The handwritten notation plant in Jeffrey Epstein'south jail prison cell
"In that location were fractures of the left, the correct thyroid cartilage and the left hyoid os," Baden said. "I take never seen three fractures like this in a suicidal hanging."
"Going over a thousand jail hangings, suicides in the New York City country prisons over the by 40-l years, no ane had iii fractures," Baden said.
The medical examiner's function said it stands "firmly" backside its finding of suicide by hanging, arguing that fractures of the hyoid bone and cartilage can be seen in both suicides and homicides.
Notwithstanding, questions linger.
Epstein was directing money to be deposited in other inmates' commissary accounts in commutation for protection, sources say, considering he feared for his life. But the government says Epstein was suicidal and fabricated his first, failed suicide effort weeks afterward he arrived at MCC.
According to a federal indictment, on July 23 Epstein was establish "on the floor of his prison cell with a strip of bedsheet effectually his cervix." The government says it was a failed suicide attempt, but Epstein claimed his cellmate, 52-yr-onetime former constabulary officer Nick Tartaglione, attacked him. Tartaglione, who is defendant of murdering four men, denied that and his lawyer says: "Absolutely nothing like that happened." His lawyer also says Tartaglione was cleared by jail officials.
Epstein was put on suicide watch after the incident, merely one week later, "at the direction of the MCC's psychological staff," he was taken off suicide sentinel and "required to have an assigned cellmate."
Cameron Lindsay, a former federal warden and prison consultant, told lx Minutes this was "a monumental failure on all levels."
Epstein was moved back to his quondam unit of measurement and assigned a new cellmate, simply the nighttime before his death, Epstein's cellmate was released. According to courtroom documents, "no new cellmate was assigned" before he died, even though he was required to have one.
That nighttime, federal prosecutors say, "Epstein was escorted into his cell by Tova Noel at approximately seven:49 p.m." Noel and Michael Thomas, the two guards who were working the overnight shift in Epstein'southward unit, allegedly didn't cheque on him again until "presently after 6:30 a.m." the next forenoon.
The two guards have been charged with falsifying documents and conspiracy to defraud the federal government. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Lindsay told lx Minutes the guards should have been checking on Epstein every half hour.
"Information technology'southward my understanding, based on the documents that I examined, the two officers that were working in the Special Housing Unit of measurement allegedly falsified the records and did not do whatever rounds for approximately eight hours." Lindsay said. "That's a huge, huge deal. This is one of the virtually basic operational aspects of managing a jail or prison."
Federal prosecutors say surveillance video "makes clear" that the guards "search[ed] the internet" and "appear to have been asleep" on their overnight overtime shift. Ane matter the video may not show, according to sources, is Epstein'southward prison cell door and the doors of the other inmates on his unit tier. Sources say the camera that should take captured those angles was corrupted the night of Epstein's decease. Epstein's cell was about 15 feet away and up a fix of stairs from the guards' station, with a single locked gate between them.
As sixty Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi told Lindsay in their interview, the circumstances surrounding Epstein's death seem almost unbelievable.
"So Epstein's taken off suicide lookout, the twenty-four hours before he kills himself, his roommate is removed from the cell. The cameras on his tier are not working. The guards vicious asleep. Information technology seems almost impossible to think all of those things could happen in that manner," Alfonsi said.
Lindsay agreed.
"And that's what makes this and so shocking," Lindsay said. "And I hateful, this is a failure on multiple levels."
Only Lindsay said he thinks there's "absolutely, unequivocally" no style Epstein could have been murdered.
hour reviewed hundreds of graphic photographs from Epstein's dissection and inside his cell. There are multiple nooses, a bit of orange sheet tied to the grate of a window. On the top bunk, bottles and medicines stand upright. Below it, another piece of fabric is tied through a hole on the bed about iv anxiety from the ground.
Did Epstein, who was nearly 6 anxiety tall and 185 pounds, somehow lean in and hang himself from the lower bunk? Nosotros don't know.
Dr. Baden, the forensic pathologist hired by Epstein'south family, says the noose that was sketched and included in the dissection report doesn't appear to match the wounds on Epstein's cervix. And Baden says, the ligature marking was in the middle of Epstein's neck, non below the jawbone, every bit one would wait in a hanging. Also puzzling to Baden is that Epstein would make a noose out of a bedsheet when wires and cords were present in his cell, as photographs prove.
There are not whatever photos of Epstein'southward body in his jail cell, Baden says – he was rushed to an emergency room after guard Michael Thomas found him. But Baden believes, based on the autopsy, Epstein had been dead for two hours past then and he says the scene should accept been treated every bit a criminal offence scene, leaving the torso lone. Federal Bureau of Prisons protocol mandates a suicide scene should be treated with the "aforementioned level of protection every bit whatsoever crime scene in which a death has occurred."
Baden has taken several controversial positions over his decades-long career. And he told 60 Minutes he understands that people might think his opinion is biased considering he'due south being paid by Epstein's blood brother.
"Merely our job is to observe what the truth is, "Baden said. "Just to notice out whether it's a homicide or a suicide." He also said "I hesitate, as usual, to make a last opinion until all the evidence is in."
And Baden said, at this point, he doesn't have all the information needed to make a terminal conclusion. The Justice Department told the family, they say, that information technology won't release the video pertaining to the case and additional forensic testing because of the ongoing criminal case confronting the two guards on duty the night of Epstein's death.
The charges have also silenced the guards themselves. Michael Thomas'southward attorney Montell Figgins says Thomas still hasn't spoken to investigators or revealed how he, alone, found Epstein'southward trunk, a cardinal piece of data in whatsoever death investigation.
1 fellow member of the Justice Department who has gone on record nigh the instance is Attorney General William Barr. He told reporters in November he personally reviewed surveillance video that showed nobody entered the area where Epstein was held. Sources say he may be talking almost surveillance video to a higher place the guard surface area or at the entrance to the Special Housing Unit of measurement. Just this remains to be seen as the Department of Justice would not comment to threescore Minutes almost which cameras were working that nighttime.
And then there are Epstein'south victims, who never got their day in court to face Epstein. Many are at present aroused that the investigation into his death has left so many questions nevertheless unanswered.
Below is the full transcript of the 60 Minutes report, "Within Jeffrey Epstein'south Jail cell."
Bedevilled sexual activity offender Jeffrey Epstein has been accused of sexually assaulting countless teenage girls. Terminal July, the wealthy financier was arrested and many of his victims were looking forwards to finally facing him in courtroom. But weeks after his abort, Epstein was found dead in his cell. The medical examiner concluded that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself.
Since then, conspiracy theories have flourished. Epstein was connected to a long list of rich and powerful people. Some suspect he was killed because of what he knew or what he threatened to tell.
How did 1 of the nearly loftier contour inmates in the land cease up expressionless in a federal jail? Later a 5-month investigation, sixty Minutes has obtained photos, some of them graphic autopsy photos, and evidence from inside Jeffrey Epstein's cell.
This is the cell where Jeffrey Epstein was found on Saturday morning, August 10, 2019. There are dozens of photos taken past the medical examiner's function that solar day. On the flooring, a mattress and piles of sheets. Several nooses that appear to be fashioned from the orange bed linens are laid out. His medicines photographed just no trunk.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Is at that place a photograph of when he was found expressionless in the cell?
Dr. Michael Baden: No. There— there's no photograph taken of Mr. Epstein in the cell.
Dr. Michael Baden observed the four-hour dissection for Jeffrey Epstein's brother, Marker. Baden, a renowned forensic pathologist who'southward taken controversial positions over his decades-long career, is investigating Epstein's death for his customer.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Practice you think there was foul play here?
Dr. Michael Baden: The forensic prove released and then far, including autopsy, point much more to murder and strangulation than the suicide and suicidal hanging. I hesitate to make a final opinion, until all the evidence is in.
Sharyn Alfonsi: People will say, "Well, you're being paid past Mark Epstein. So of class y'all're gonna say that something suspicious is going on."
Dr. Michael Baden: That's a reasonable thing for some people to remember. But our chore is to find what the truth is. Merely to find out whether it's a homicide or a suicide. Uh, we're, still haven't gotten all the information.
Guards constitute Epstein "at approximately 6:33am" and sources say i of them could be overheard saying, "Breathe, Epstein, exhale." Dr. Baden believes, based on the dissection, that Epstein died around iv:xxx that morning time. 2 hours earlier.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The guards say they came in at 6:xxx. They establish him. They call emergency services. They tried to practice CPR with him, but he's expressionless. But rather than exit the torso there they take the body to an emergency room.
Dr. Michael Baden: Yeah.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Is that normal protocol?
Dr. Michael Baden: No, that'due south —that's not normal protocol. The Ems people normally, and especially in a jail, should non move a expressionless body.
He's right. Bureau of Prisons protocol mandates a suicide scene should exist treated with the "same level of protection as whatsoever criminal offense scene in which a death has occurred."
hour reviewed hundreds of graphic photographs from the dissection of Jeffrey Epstein and inside his cell. At that place are two nooses, a bit of orangish canvass tied to the grate of a window. On the top bunk, bottles and medicines stand upright. Below it, another piece of fabric is tied through a hole on the bed nearly four feet from the ground.
Did Epstein, who was nearly 6 feet tall and 185 pounds, somehow lean in and hang himself from the lower bunk? We don't know.
These are the known facts. On July vi, Jeffrey Epstein was booked into the Metropolitan Correctional Center, or MCC, in downtown Manhattan. A federal, high-security holding facility for inmates awaiting trial. Suicides at the MCC are rare. The last one was 14 years ago. The jail has temporarily housed everyone from Mexican drug lord El Chapo to mafia boss John Gotti and fraudster Bernie Madoff.
Bruce Barket: MCC is the worst jail or prison I've ever been to by far.
Sharyn Alfonsi: It'southward not a "Club Fed."
Bruce Barket: Information technology'southward not a club anything. It is dingy. Information technology'due south insect infested, rodent infested. Information technology was built for about 350 and houses over 700. And then the inmates are packed in.
Bruce Barket is the lawyer for Epstein'due south beginning cellmate, 52-year-old Nick Tartaglione. A lusty, former police officeholder accused of murdering four men. They shared a cell in the "SHU," the Special Housing Unit, which is considered safer than general population.
Bruce Barket: Jail'southward a tough place. The rules don't exist the way they practice in society. Somebody like Jeffrey Epstein, you know, an elderly, rich white male is gonna have a tough time in general population.
Epstein was directing coin to exist deposited in other inmates' commissary accounts in exchange for his protection, sources say, because he feared for his life. Simply the authorities says Epstein was suicidal and made his beginning, failed suicide try weeks after he arrived.
Co-ordinate to court documents, on July 23, a guard constitute Epstein, "on the flooring of his cell with a strip of bedsheet around his neck." Epstein claimed his cellmate, Nick Tartaglione, attacked him.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Epstein says that Nick tried to kill him. Nick says, "Absolutely nothing like that happened"?
Bruce Barket: Information technology's not only Nick says, "Admittedly cipher happened." Absolutely nix happened. No 1 says that Nick tried to kill Epstein.
Epstein was moved to the psych unit and placed on suicide sentinel. Merely one week later, Epstein, "at the management of the MCC's psychological staff" was taken off suicide watch and "required to accept an assigned cellmate."
Cameron Lindsay: This was a monumental failure on all levels. And that's why information technology has fueled the conspiracies and I understand that.
Cameron Lindsay is a one-time federal prison warden.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Who should've fabricated sure that he wasn't taken off suicide lookout, in your opinion?
Cameron Lindsay: The leadership of the facility should've stepped in and said, "While I appreciate the perspective of you, main psychologist, I'm gonna override that decision and we're going to leave Epstein on suicide sentry." Particularly subsequent to the suicide endeavor that he had.
Epstein was moved back to the SHU and assigned a new cellmate.
We reviewed photos, and interviewed jail employees, to create this blended of the area. Each tier of the SHU has eight cells, usually with ii inmates per cell. Epstein'south jail cell, 220, was about 15 feet away and up a set of stairs from the guards' station, with a unmarried locked gate between them. The gate is the only manner in or out of the tier.
Lawyers say the day before Epstein was plant dead he was upbeat and looking forward to an appeal hearing on his bail. That same solar day, his cellmate was released and "no new cellmate was assigned." Even though he was required to have one.
Michael Thomas and Tova Noel are the two guards who were working the overnight shift on the SHU. Courtroom documents say, "Epstein was escorted into his cell by Tova Noel at approximately 7:49 p.thousand." Then, the guards didn't check in on him again until "before long after 6:30 a.1000." the adjacent morn.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Then in the SHU they should be checked in on every thirty minutes?
Cameron Lindsay: They should be checked on every xxx minutes. Information technology's my understanding based on the documents that I examined, the 2 officers that were working in the Special Housing Unit allegedly falsified the records and did not practise whatsoever rounds for approximately eight hours.
Sharyn Alfonsi: How big of a deal is that?
Cameron Lindsay: That's a huge, huge bargain. This is one of the most bones operational aspects of managing a jail or prison.
Instead, federal prosecutors say surveillance video "makes clear" the guards "search the internet" and "appeared to take been asleep." Both guards were working overtime.
Tyrone Covington: When your existence forced to stay over shifts, not go home and come across your family you lot start to see people take short cuts.
Tyrone Covington is the president of the marriage that represents the guards who both now face criminal charges and accept pleaded non guilty.
Tyrone Covington: I absolutely believe that these staff members are beingness made a scapegoat.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Considering it was Jeffrey Epstein?
Tyrone Covington: Because it was Jeffrey Epstein.
Covington doesn't call back there was any foul play and he says at that place should be surveillance video to prove it.
In November, Attorney Full general William Barr told reporters he personally reviewed surveillance video that showed nobody entered the expanse where Epstein was held.
But sources say a second photographic camera inside the tier, the i that could accept seen Epstein'south prison cell door and the doors of other inmates, was non working that dark.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The theories that are out at that place, one of them is that it was some other inmate who may have killed Jeffrey Epstein.
Bruce Barket: Come on!
Sharyn Alfonsi: Y'all don't believe that?
Bruce Barket: He was found hanging in his cell. He had tried to commit suicide before that. He was a very wealthy man who was looking at a lifetime in prison. Y'all know, sometimes a cigar is only a cigar.
Sharyn Alfonsi: So Epstein's taken off suicide watch, the day earlier he kills himself, his roommate is— removed from the cell. The cameras on his tier are not working. The guards fell asleep. It seems almost impossible to call up all of those things could happen in that mode.
Cameron Lindsay: Information technology does. And that's what makes this so shocking. And I mean, this is a failure on multiple levels.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Practise you recall there'south any way that Jeffrey Epstein could accept been murdered?
Cameron Lindsay: Absolutely, unequivocally not.
There was a note in Jeffrey Epstein'due south cell. He wrote that one guard kept me in a locked shower stall for one hr. Noel (the baby-sit) sent me burnt nutrient. Giant bugs crawling over my hands. No fun.
Dr. Michael Baden says if anyone thought Jeffrey Epstein was suicidal, they wouldn't accept let him have a ballpoint pen that could be used to impairment himself or someone else.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The other thing we merely noticed looking at the photos. Information technology appears he had some kind of sleep apnea auto. Yous can meet a long electric cord.
Dr. Michael Baden: Yes. There were other wires and cords present that it would've been like shooting fish in a barrel to use to hang oneself within a few minutes.
Merely the cardinal reason Dr. Baden thinks Jeffrey Epstein's expiry might exist a homicide is because of the unusual fractures he saw in Epstein'southward neck.
Dr. Michael Baden: In that location were fractures of the left, the correct, thyroid cartilage and the left hyoid os.
This is an autopsy photo of Epstein's cleaved hyoid bone, a U-shaped os that sits under the jaw that role of the tongue attaches to. The thyroid cartilage sits at the front end of the neck.
Dr. Michael Baden: I have never seen 3 fractures similar this in a suicidal hanging. Sometimes there'south a fracture of the hyoid bone or a fracture of the thyroid cartilage.
Sharyn Alfonsi: But not three?
Dr. Michael Baden: Very unusual to have ii and non three. And going over— over a thousand jail hangings, suicides in the New York Urban center country prisons over the past 40-50 years, no ane had three fractures.
The New York Metropolis Medical Examiner's office disputes Baden's theory, saying that fractures of the hyoid bone and cartilage can exist seen in suicides and homicides and they stand "firmly" backside their finding of suicide by hanging.
So, there'due south the two nooses. This was the i that was sketched and included in the autopsy by the medical examiner, presumably, because they thought it was used in Epstein'due south death.
Only Dr. Baden says that noose, and the wounds on Jeffrey Epstein'southward neck, don't announced to match.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What do you encounter when you see these two things together?
Dr. Michael Baden: What I come across hither is that this noose doesn't match the ligature furrow mark. It'south wider than this.
Sharyn Alfonsi: To the naked centre, information technology looks similar there'southward some blood here. And it doesn't look like at that place'southward any claret on this noose.
Dr. Michael Baden: That'south correct. This looks like a clean noose that was never used to compress everyone's cervix.
Sharyn Alfonsi: There's also something that's striking about the photos. It— the wound is downwards here. Yous'd call up if somebody hung themselves the wound would exist possibly up hither.
Dr. Michael Baden: Yes. Well-nigh hangings— peculiarly gratis hangings the ligature slides upwards to beneath the— the jawbone, the mandible. Here it's in the middle of the cervix.
Dr. Baden says a wound straight across the neck is more common when a victim is strangled by a wire or string.
He and Epstein'southward brother, Mark, met with the government and asked to come across any forensic testing and any video. But they say they were told the ongoing criminal case confronting the two guards prevents the justice section from releasing any information.
Sharyn Alfonsi: So the criminal charges are at present basically a firewall for the family to get any information about—
Dr. Michael Baden: From the Justice Section.
The charges take likewise silenced the guards. The chaser for baby-sit Michael Thomas says v months afterwards Epstein'southward death, Thomas has still non spoken to investigators or revealed how he, alone, establish Epstein's body.
Disappointed that they never got to face Epstein in court, many victims are now angry that the investigation into his expiry has left so many questions yet unanswered.
Produced by Oriana Zill de Granados. Associate producer, Emily Gordon. Broadcast associates, Cristina Gallotto and Mabel Kabani. Edited by Michael Mongulla and Sean Kelly.
Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/did-jeffrey-epstein-kill-himself-60-minutes-investigates-2020-01-05/
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