(Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
There’s really only two ways Jeffrey Epstein could have died last weekend. Either he killed himself, or someone else killed him. (I will not entertain the conspiracy theory that he’s still alive somewhere and some other corpse was placed in his cell.)
The most likely theory, in my opinion, is that he died by suicide. Why wouldn’t he? If convicted of the charges against him, he’d be potentially facing life in prison. His reputation was ruined; his life in shambles; his property subject to seizure and forfeiture. Without warning he was pulled from jet-setting around the world, staying in penthouses and mansions, hobnobbing with the rich and famous when, on returning from Paris in his private jet, he was thrust into a parallel universe of prison — isolation, debasement, impersonalization, bad food, and bad roommates. Welcome to the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) — quite a change from what he’d been used to.
At first, he’d hoped he have a chance at bail. But despite his lawyers’ pleas, suggesting he could post $77 million as well as underwrite the cost of having guards stationed at every floor of his Upper East Side mansion, the judge said no. He’d be treated like every other defendant facing serious charges, forced to await his fate in prison.
As a lawyer who’s been to the MCC many times, it’s one of the worst jails I’ve ever seen. Featureless, imperious, cold, no natural light even from the few windows stuck high in the walls.
And no matter how bad the general population part of the prison is, the Segregated Housing Unit (SHU) where Epstein was being housed is even worse. Each cell is so small that from the room’s center outstretched hands can touch both sides. Every item (sink, bed, chair) is affixed to the floor. The window is high up and angled to see nothing. The other window, cut into the cell door, permits a slim view of the hallway. The place was meant to keep prisoners from knowing each other. You could be next to your brother and not realize it.
Security there is so tight, it can take up to an hour or more to be admitted, and another hour to leave. Every movement is monitored by security cameras. Every action — the “feedings,” the meetings with attorneys — are recorded in a logbook. Nobody comes or goes without being seen and signing his name.
Every time I went in, I’d be itching to leave within an hour. If you’ve got claustrophobia, it’s not the place for you.
Coming from a world of complete opulence, power, and independence, it’s no wonder the man would want to take his own life. The enormity of his fall from grace, the charges he was facing, and the reality of where he’d be spending the next good chunk of his life could easily have gotten to him.
The question is, how did the guards let it happen? When someone tries to take his own life, he’s usually placed on suicide watch. Anything he has that could be honed into a weapon (like a loose utensil or paper clip), every item of clothing or bedding that could be twisted into a rope, is usually taken from him. Guards peer into the cell every 15 minutes and are supposed to be aware of movements and sounds inside.
Epstein was reportedly on suicide watch after his first alleged suicide attempt, but somehow those protocols were lifted. Usually that happens if the inmate or his lawyers request it and only if the change is approved by a mental health professional. Epstein was no longer on suicide watch when he killed himself, but he was in the SHU, probably to protect him from other inmates. Other prisoners could not come in contact with him, nor could he come in contact with them.
So, option two, someone else killed him. There’s a lot of reasons people may have wanted him dead. First, all the people he allegedly harmed through the charged criminal contact. Next, any of the other inmates. There’s a hierarchy of people despised by prisoners and the alleged child rapists are at the bottom of the barrel.
Then, there are the many people who also took part in Epstein’s alleged procurement of underaged girls. The talk of wild parties, the rich and famous who attended and did things they could not do elsewhere. Were they afraid Epstein would trade information about them for a lesser sentence, or that the glare of an open trial would shine the spotlight on them, too?
While many people are probably breathing a sigh of relief now that Epstein’s case won’t see the light of day, I highly doubt that personnel at the MCC are clever enough, or venal enough, to mastermind a scheme to get Epstein killed without the whole world finding out.
As I said, everything is monitored, reported, and logged. While on TV and movies it seems like guards or inmates can get the most complex plot together to kill people with choreographed precision, never leaving a trace, that’s just not real life.
I’ve been in prisons too often to believe that CIA-type shenanigans are likely to happen in a place where a guard is generally no more than a few feet away, and that’s so poorly managed the elevators don’t often work.
Provided the right materials, like a sheet or a T-shirt, it doesn’t take much time for an inmate to asphyxiate himself in jail. A guard could have been looking the other way, or maybe Epstein knew their schedules and planned it carefully, but for my money, this was no Clintonian (or even Trumpian, who knew him also) conspiracy.
Considering what he was facing and how far he’d fallen, he may have seen suicide as his best option.
Toni Messina has tried over 100 cases and has been practicing criminal law and immigration since 1990. You can follow her on Twitter: @tonitamess.