Watchdog: Epstein's Final Phone Call Went Unmonitored

"Negligence, misconduct, and outright job performance failures" at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center enabled Jeffrey Epstein's 2019 suicide, according to a Justice Department inspector general's report issued Tuesday. The report describes "staffing issues, faulty security camera setups, poor management and improper handling of inmates who could be at risk for dying by suicide," per the Washington Post. These failures, combined with staff negligence, led to a situation where the sex trafficker "was provided with the opportunity to take his own life," according to the 114-page report, which echoes many of the findings described in records obtained by the AP.

It also echoes the inspector general's report on the 2018 beating death of mobster James "Whitey" Bulger at a federal prison in West Virginia. That report, issued in December, described "serious job performance and management failures at multiple levels" within the federal Bureau of Prisons, per the Post. The report issued Tuesday said the recurrance of such failures "does not excuse them." "The BOP's failures are troubling not only because the BOP did not adequately safeguard an individual in its custody, but also because they led to questions about the circumstances surrounding Epstein's death and effectively deprived Epstein's numerous victims of the opportunity to seek justice through the criminal justice system," Inspector General Michael Horowitz says in a statement.

The report notes staffers ignored orders to ensure Epstein had a cellmate; failed to monitor a call he made around 8pm on the night of his death to a person he claimed was his mother, though she was long dead; and left him with too many bed linens. Epstein hanged himself with a noose fashioned from "a sheet or a shirt," the report reads, per ABC News. It makes clear there was no foul play involved. Two employees in charge of guarding Epstein at the time of his suicide were charged—they avoided jail time by pleading guilty to falsifying logs—though Horowitz recommended charges against six, per the Guardian. There have been various changes within the BOP since August 2019, including in the director role. (More Jeffrey Epstein stories.)