In a brave new world where conspiracy theories run wild, it should come as no surprise that some people think Jeffrey Epstein was murdered at the hands of influential people who feared he might out them to reduce his sentence and mitigate his circumstances behind bars. And as conspiracy theories go, it's almost plausible that actually happened. But it didn't regardless of what Ghislaine Maxwell said yesterday in a radio interview during which she offered the opinion that her old boyfriend was murdered. Here's how I know:
I spent almost all of 2019 locked up in federal prison for tax fraud. And as a resident of Lower Manhattan - and a "short timer" - I was designated to MCC federal prison, coincidentally the same place where Epstein stayed the last month of his life.
Like all federal prisons, MCC had its share of suicidal inmates who were housed in a special section of the facility - and monitored 24/7 by fellow inmates who signed up for the Inmate Companion Program to help their depressed bothers cope.
Not only was I one of the inmates working in the Inmate Companion Program - I was the Inmate Companion Coordinator - a position that allowed me to do all the scheduling.
And so every day, I'd work in the kitchen from 1 PM - 6PM, and then assign myself to watch Jeffrey from 7 PM - 11 PM. Thus, with the possible exception of his lawyer and maybe a celly in the SHU, I am the person who spent the most time with Jeffrey Epstein during the last month of his life.
And what I saw was a man with some hope - until the judge remanded him without bail. That's when Epstein knew his goose was cooked. And his attitude changed accordingly after the day the judge made his ruling. On the very last night I ever saw Jeffrey, he sat on a filthy cell floor eating his chicken dinner when I arrived.
"Jeffrey! What the f--k! Why are you eating on the floor?"I asked innocently.
"Ah! It's just easier this way," he responded with a defeated attitude I hadn't seen before. I found his answer odd - but thought little about it. I knew the shrinks had decided he wasn't suicidal anymore and were moving him back to protective custody the next day. I was more about saying my goodbyes to an inmate who had actually become my friend over the past month - and would likely never see again.
That might sound odd given his crimes. But finding intellectually stimulating inmates for a college-educated white-collar criminal like me was difficult. Plus, at a certain point, I stopped judging inmates for their offenses. We were all criminals. Who was I to hold myself above anybody else?
The next day, Jeffrey was moved to the SHU. And just a week later, we awoke to the directive "You all are locked in today," at 7 AM when normally we'd be let out of our cells. "Epstein killed himself last night and the building is crawling with FBI," the officer continued. And so it was "bag nasties" for the boys (bologna and cheese sandwiches) for the next two days while we remained locked down.
About a week later, an inmate named Brown, who worked with me in the kitchen, was released from the SHU where he'd been sent for trying to set up a drug deal on the prison email software.
Brown came up to me - gave me the old prison handshake - and said "Epstein killed himself. I had the cell next to his. Nobody came into the tier the whole night. And I heard him tearing up sheets." Brown had no agenda in telling me this beyond clarifying that the rumors that were in the news and circulating through the prison about Jeffrey being murdered were false.
And that's not the only reason I know Jeffrey killed himself. You had to live in MCC for a year to understand how impregnable the place truly was. I mean - El Chapo couldn't even escape MCC. Killing Jeffrey Epstein would have been a plan that involved several officers. And trust me, those officers would have folded under intense FBI interrogation if there had in fact been a successful plot to murder Jeffrey Epstein carried to fruition.
So yes, it sounds conceivable that Epstein might have been killed given what he presumably had on people like Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Prince Andrew that could have helped him in a cooperation deal. But that's simply not what happened. Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. Ghislaine - and an army of conspiracy theory enthusiasts - are wrong. And they need to get over it!
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