Jeffrey Epstein Found Unconscious in Jail Cell, Say Reports

By Edward Helmore, Guardian UK

25 July 19

Billionaire accused of sex trafficking hospitalized in unclear condition, with injuries to his neck that may have been self-inflicted

effrey Epstein, the disgraced financier facing charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of underage girls, was found unconscious in a Manhattan jail cell with injuries to his neck, US media reported late on Wednesday, citing unidentified sources.

Epstein was found by guards sprawled on the floor of his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Wednesday, it was reported.

The billionaire financier was taken to hospital, according to the New York Post, but it was unclear where he was taken or what his condition was.

It was not clear how he suffered his injuries. Two anonymous sources told New York’s local NBC News 4 that Epstein’s injuries may have been self-inflicted, while another said an assault by another inmate had not been ruled out.

Epstein is now on suicide watch, according to multiple reports.

NBC News 4 reported that investigators had spoken to prisoner Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer, regarding Epstein’s injuries.

Bruce Barket, a lawyer for Tartaglione, denied his client attacked the disgraced financier, telling News 4 his client and Epstein get along well.

“They are in the same unit and doing well,” Barket said, adding that the pair had been complaining about flooding, rodents and bad food inside the detention facility.

Neither a representative for the correctional centre nor Epstein’s attorney returned calls or email inquiries from the Guardian.

Epstein was recently denied bail, a move his lawyers plan to appeal against, according to a court notice made public on Tuesday.

Epstein was expected to ask the second US circuit court of appeals to overturn the judge’s 18 July rejection of his request to remain under house arrest in his mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Epstein has pleaded not guilty to the charges and the appeal for bail was expected. His lawyer, Reid Weingarten, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the US attorney for the southern district of New York, Geoffrey Berman, declined to comment.

The charges, concerning alleged misconduct from at least 2002 to 2005, were announced more than a decade after Epstein pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges in Florida.

In denying him bail, the US district judge Richard Berman said the government had shown by clear and convincing evidence that Epstein would pose a danger to the community if released pending trial.

The Metropolitan Correctional Center is a detention center in lower Manhattan notorious for holding pre-trial inmates ranging from the Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán to terror suspects.

Since his arrest on 6 July, Epstein was initially held into the general population wing but was reportedly moved to solitary protective custody after other inmates threatened him.

Lawyers for Guzmán repeatedly complained that the conditions in the special housing wing were “excessively punitive” and he was subjected to constant noise, heat and 24-hour light in his cramped cell.

The wing has been called a “hellhole”, a “Guantánamo in New York” and the worst in America. One prisoner in solitary confinement said he found Guantánamo to be “more pleasant” and “more relaxed” by comparison.

In a 2011 report, Amnesty International said conditions in the 10 South wing amounted to “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” that was “incompatible with the presumption of innocence in the case of untried prisoners whose detention should not be a form of punishment”.