Four years after the death of Jeffrey Epstein in a New York federal jail, Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz reported that the financier died of suicide, not foul play. Blame falls at the feet of the staff at the Metropolitan Correctional Center for their “negligence and misconduct,” according the the report, released Tuesday.

In addition, the AP received over 4000 pages of documentation in response to a Freedom of Information request earlier this month. The findings were damning.

For example, staff allowed Epstein to hoard extra blankets, linens, bedding and clothing, even though he had tried to hang himself earlier. They also violated a standing order to not allow him to remain alone for an entire day after his cellmate left. One official, in fact, had sent an email to 70 Bureau of Prisons employees warning them that it would be dangerous.

The DOJ report also recommended that charges should be filed against six employees of the MCC, with 13 overall cited for poor performance. That’s in addition to prison guards Nova Noel and Michael Thomas, who avoided prison sentences through a plea deal. Both falsified records connected with the Epstein death.

Moreover, both had been sleeping for at least two hours. They were also surfing the internet instead of conducting searches of the Special Housing Unit. From the report:

Noel used the computer periodically throughout the night, including to search the Internet for furniture sales and benefit websites and to read a news article about Epstein. Thomas used the computer briefly around 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. to search for motorcycle sales and sports news.

In fact, security camera footage showed that no one visited the SHU between the hours of 10:40 pm and 6:30 am.

Earlier on Tuesday, inspector general Horowitz appeared on a video to announce the DOJ’s report.

“Yeah, But Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself!”

It’s almost an article of faith among the conspiracy-minded that Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself. Instead, someone murdered him — most likely on the orders of a Clinton or two.

Giphy.com.

And, in fact, the comments section at the National Review coverage of the report reflects that the mindset continues:

DOJ watchdog? Lol And who knew the Clinton’s toook [sic] jobs as prison guards? Glad to see she’s landed on her feet

The guards were searching furniture sales and motorcycle sales. Looking at how to spend the bribes, I guess.

He knew too many powerful people who rode the Lolita Express. Color me skeptical that it was suicide unless it was “if you don’t off yourself your extended family will suffer

So, you traffick [sic] in sex slaves, you collect incriminating evidence of everyone who comes to you that rent human flesh and you still end up Clintoned? Maybe his algorithm was faulty.

RFK Jr, call your office.

Homicide Detective Rejects Conspiracies

Conspiracy theories began percolating immediately after Jeffrey Epstein’s death. It wasn’t just internet randos, either — Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) began tweeting that “Epstein didn’t kill himself.” Even Syrian president Bashar Assad told TASS Russian News that Epstein was killed “because he knew a lot of vital secrets connected with very important people in the British and American regimes, and possibly in other countries as well.”

Nonsense, said former LAPD homicide detective Mark Furhman, in a 2019 interview with Fox News. Epstein did indeed kill himself:

This pains me. But if anyone thinks that they can prevent someone else from killing themselves then they are a moron. And Epstein wanted to die …

Did Epstein try to commit suicide before? Yes. Did anyone say at the time that it wasn’t a suicide attempt? No. Then why are we so shocked that he tried to do it again and succeeded?

But…but… what about famous TV forensic pathologist, Dr. Cyril Wecht? He claimed that Epstein was murdered:

We are led to believe that on July 23 he had a ‘suicide attempt,’ when he is found unconscious, and so they move him to suicide watch. Then they let him off the watch, then they move his cellmate, then the camera doesn’t work, then the guards fall asleep, then they cut him down and they move him before the medical examiner came, and they know full well not to do that … To accept all these as facts is unbelievable.

It is worth noting that Mark Epstein, brother of Jeffrey, hired Wecht. It’s also worth noting that Dr. Wecht loves publicity, too.

Fuhrman concluded:

Two days before he actually takes his own life, he gets his attorney and he rewrites his will, leaving most of his assets to his brother… I hate to tell anybody what clues look like. But let’s see. Two weeks prior, you try to commit suicide. You convinced the psychiatrist that’s working for the correctional facility that you’re OK. You call your attorney and you say, ‘I need to redo my will.’ Ladies and gentlemen, you’re preparing to end your life.

In a later 2020 interview, Fuhrman stood by his verdict, and added this:

There’s cameras on the cell door and those cameras showed nobody going in and nobody coming out. So now what you have is — you have a dead inmate, in a cell that nobody entered, he had no cellmate. And the guards were both asleep. That’s the stage that set on August 10th.

Unless anyone can definitively connect any persons with the death of Jeffrey Epstein, I’m going with Team Fuhrman. Meanwhile, the conspiracies are circumstances without proof. The most logical explanation is most likely the correct one.

Featured image: Wikimedia Commons/State of Florida/public domain.