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Federal authorities knew Jeffrey Epstein was a big deal when they booked him into custody after the FBI arrested him on sex-trafficking charges in 2019 — with top officials demanding daily updates from the leadership of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, according to emails the government released Tuesday evening.
Corrections officers were told they had orders from “God” to make sure they kept a close eye on him, according to a U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General investigation. They didn’t.
“Shirley – Please provide me with a daily update on this inmate, including his status and any changes/activities I should be aware of,” the Bureau of Prisons Northeast Regional Director J. Ray Ormond wrote to MCC Associate Warden Shirley Skipper-Scott on July 24, 2019, less than a month before Epstein’s death in custody.
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File photo of Jeffrey Epstein in New York City, NY on Feb. 23, 2011. (David McGlynn)
The email came a day after Epstein was found unconscious with an “orange cloth around his neck” in his cell at MCC on July 23, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General’s report on his death. His cellmate claimed Epstein tried to hang himself. Epstein initially blamed the cellmate, then recanted his accusation and said he didn’t remember. A BOP investigation failed to find enough evidence to prove what really happened.
When Skipper-Scott responded to Ormond, she wrote that Epstein had been “stepped down” from suicide watch a day after that encounter and was sent for a follow-up evaluation. She added that he was scheduled to meet with his lawyers that day and promised additional updates.
A supervisor’s note to officers, quoted in the OIG report, said mandatory rounds were required every 30 minutes to check on Epstein, “as per God!!!!”
An image of the note was included in the OIG report but published in an altered form “for privacy reasons,” according to the document.
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Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were both indicted on federal sex trafficking charges stemming from Epstein’s years of abuse of underage girls. (Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
But, as authorities previously revealed, jail guards failed to conduct the 30-minute checks, and he went unmonitored for more than six hours before they found him dead in his cell on Aug. 10, 2019.
Also in the emails was a line from Skipper-Scott, discussing Epstein’s case and Ormond’s request with another high-ranking official, whom she told that it was Epstein who asked to be placed in protective custody.
“His case has been highly publicized, and he is in SHU because he requested Protective Custody,” she wrote.
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The Metropolitan Correctional Center, which is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, stands in Manhattan on Nov. 19, 2019, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The financier was arrested on sex-trafficking charges after getting off his private jet at a New Jersey airport on July 6, 2019.
According to the OIG report, released in 2023, “Epstein was assigned to a cell in the SHU (special housing unit) on July 7 due to media coverage of his case and inmate awareness of his notoriety. SHU inmates are securely separated from general population inmates and kept locked in their cells for approximately 23 hours a day.”
Authorities placed Epstein on suicide watch on July 23, 2019, after the first incident. He received daily psychiatric evaluations. On July 24, authorities removed him from suicide watch but put him in a special housing unit, where he was supposed to be with a cellmate for safety.
Epstein’s brother Mark previously told Fox News Digital he believes his brother was afraid of retaliation from the cellmate, who would later be convicted of a quadruple homicide.
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Jeffrey Epstein’s former home on the island of Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands. (Emily Michot/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
“He said he forgot what happened,” Mark Epstein said. “Jeffrey wasn’t an idiot. You don’t forget why you ended up with marks around your neck and on the floor. You don’t forget how you got there.”
After a stint on suicide watch, Jeffrey Epstein was later placed with a different cellmate, who left for court on Aug. 9. The judge wound up authorizing his release from custody, so Epstein was alone in his cell from then until his death.
Epstein spent a large portion of that day meeting with his lawyers. After they left around 6:45 p.m., guards let him make an unauthorized, unmonitored phone call, according to the IG report. He claimed he was calling his mother. He is believed to have called his girlfriend.
A still image from surveillance video shows a portion of the wing where Jeffrey Epstein was held when he died. The camera with a direct view of his cell was not recording at the time, according to authorities. (MCC/U.S. Bureau of Prisons)
Although most of the security cameras in Epstein’s wing of the jail were not actually recording, he is believed to have been returned to his cell before 8 p.m., when authorities locked the unit down for the night.
His last contact with guards came around midnight on Aug. 10. Although guards were supposed to conduct checks every 30 minutes, and Epstein’s cell was within line of sight of an officer’s desk, no one checked on him until around 6:30 a.m., when staff serving breakfast found him unresponsive in his cell, according to authorities.
He was pronounced dead, and the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an autopsy the following day, called for further investigation and later ruled that he hanged himself.
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His brother has publicly rejected that conclusion, and his former lover and only convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, also said more than once that she doesn’t believe he would have killed himself.
Two MCC guards who were accused of sleeping on the job and searching the internet instead of monitoring Epstein, then lying about details of their shift, accepted a plea deal that gave them each 100 hours of community service. They cooperated with the OIG probe.
In August 2021, the jail was ordered closed temporarily. Authorities have not yet announced plans to reopen it.
Many of Epstein’s accusers rallied on Capitol Hill Wednesday ahead of a congressional vote to release more Epstein records to the public.