Jail warden is sacked over Epstein suicide
Print Edition
The warden at the US federal jail where Jeffrey Epstein took his own life over the weekend was removed on Tuesday and two guards who were supposed to be watching the financier were placed on leave while federal authorities investigate the death.
The move by the Justice Department came amid mounting evidence that the chronically understaffed Metropolitan Correctional Center may have bungled its responsibility to keep the 66-year-old Epstein from harming himself while he awaited trial on charges of sexually abusing teenage girls.
Epstein was taken off a suicide watch last month for reasons that have not been explained, and was supposed to have been checked on by a guard every 30 minutes.
But investigators learned those checks weren鈥檛 done for several hours before he was found on Saturday morning, according to a person familiar with the case who was not authorized to discuss it and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Guards on the unit are now suspected of falsifying log entries to show they were making the checks, another person familiar with the probe said.
In the past, guards at both federal and state prisons have faced criminal charges over false entries in duty logs that were discovered after something went wrong with a prisoner.
Surveillance video reviewed after the death showed guards never made some of the checks noted in the log, according to the person.
Attorney General William Barr ordered warden Lamine N鈥橠iaye temporarily assigned to the Bureau of Prisons鈥 regional office while the FBI and the Justice Department鈥檚 inspector general investigate. The two guards were not identified.
While the exact manner of Epstein鈥檚 death has not been officially announced, another person familiar with operations at the jail said the financier was discovered in his cell with a bedsheet around his neck. That person likewise spoke on condition of anonymity.
Under the jail鈥檚 protocol, Epstein would not have been given a bedsheet had he been on suicide watch.
He was placed on suicide watch last month after he was found on the floor of his cell with bruises on his neck but he was later returned to the jail鈥檚 special housing unit for inmates needing close supervision.
The Bureau of Prisons sent a team of prison psychologists, known as a suicide reconstruction team, to the jail on Tuesday, a Justice Department official said.
They are expected to reconstruct the scene, analyze why Epstein took his own life and look at how it happened, the official said.
The official said Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen was being briefed by the FBI every three hours on the progress of their investigation.
On Monday, Barr said that he was 鈥渇rankly angry to learn of the MCC鈥檚 failure to adequately secure this prisoner.鈥
鈥淲e will get to the bottom of what happened and there will be accountability,鈥 he said.
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