Jeffrey Epstein must have paid for help with his suicide, John Gotti henchman claims as it emerges guards didn’t check on paedo for HOURS before death
JEFFREY Epstein must have paid someone to help kill himself inside the “corrupt” maximum security prison, an ex-mobster claims.
The billionaire paedo, 66, died on Saturday after apparently hanging himself in a New York jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges – just days after being taken off suicide watch.
Now an associate of former gangster John Gotti has told how the Metropolitan Correctional Center – where Epstein was being held – was a nest of corruption in the 1990s.
Speaking with the , Lewis Kasman believes the disgraced financier could not have carried out a suicide by himself in the jail.
He said: “If he killed himself someone had to have helped him.
“There are cameras going 24/7 and they’re watching 24/7.
“Someone had to give (Epstein) the equipment to kill himself and he had to pay for it dearly.”
Kasman visited former New York godfather Gotti at the prison several times in 1992 and still receives updates on conditions inside the lockup.
'INSIDE JOB'
He added: “That facility for years had issues of corruption, with correction officers bringing in food or cellphones for wealthy people.”
The ex-mobster said that Gotti still managed to get his favourite steaks from Brooklyn restaurant Peter Luger delivered to the prison “whenever he wanted.”
This comes after it emerged that jail staff failed to follow protocols leading up to Epstein's death, according to a report from The New York Times.
The shamed banker should have been checked on by guards in his cell every 30 minutes, but that didn't happen the night before his apparent suicide, reports say.
A law enforcement source also told the Times he was alone in his cell early Saturday after his cellmate was transferred.
An official said the Justice Department was told Epstein would have a cellmate and be monitored by a guard every 30 minutes.
Epstein had been placed on suicide watch after he was found a little over two weeks ago with bruising on his neck.
But he was taken off the watch at the end of July and therefore wasn't on it at the time of his death, a source said.
One source told the Daily Beast that Epstein “lived like a pig in a sty” after the first “suicide attempt”, eating his meals off of the floor and constantly requesting more toilet paper.
He is also understood to have been targeted for extortion by other inmates while he was living in the general population section of the jail.
Epstein is understood to have told prison guards and fellow inmates he believed someone had tried to kill him weeks before his death.
The insider, who visited Epstein several times in jail, told Dailymail.com: “There was no indication that he might try to take his own life.”
One of Epstein’s long-time advisers and closest friends said he had predicted that the ex-investment banker would be dead within a couple of weeks.
The man, who did not want to be named, told The Sun on Sunday: “There's no way he killed himself.
“In a maximum-security confinement it’s impossible that Jeffrey took his own life.
“I know for a fact many people are breathing a sigh of relief today because they feared what would come out in court.”
Another former employee, who worked for Epstein on his private isle in the US Virgin Islands, added: “I don’t think he’d commit suicide. He was able to afford the best lawyers.”
Pictures published by the show an unconscious Epstein being wheeled out of the jail on a trolley by paramedics.
He was pronounced dead an hour later at New York Presbyterian-Lower Manhattan Hospital.
On Friday, more than 2,000 pages of documents were released related to a since-settled lawsuit against Epstein's ex-girlfriend by Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's accusers.
The records contain graphic allegations against Epstein, as well as the transcript of a 2016 deposition of Epstein in which he repeatedly refused to answer questions to avoid incriminating himself.
Timeline of the allegations against Jeffrey Epstein
The allegations against him go back to the 2000s
2005 - Parents of a 14-year-old girl told police in Florida that Epstein had molested their daughter at his Palm Beach home. A police search of the property found photos of girls throughout the house.
2006 - Charged with multiple counts of unlawful sexual acts with a minor.
2007 - Epstein’s lawyers put together a plea deal for Epstein, aged 54 at the time.
He agreed to plead guilty to two felony prostitution charges in state court.
In exchange, he and his accomplices received immunity from federal sex-trafficking charges that could have sent him to prison for life.
2008 - Appears in court to plead guilty on two lesser counts and sentenced to a 18 months in jail and was released early in 2009
July 2019 - Arrested charges of child sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.
Prosecutors accused him in a grand jury indictment of paying dozens of girls as young as 14 to engage in sex acts with him at his New York and Florida properties from 2002 to 2005.
Pleaded not guilty and would have faced up to 45 years in prison if convicted.
More than a dozen women have now come forward with more sex abuse allegations.
August 2019 - Hundreds of pages of court documents were unsealed alleging new details of sexual abuse claims against Epstein and several associates.
August 10 2019 - The twisted tycoon died after apparently hanging himself in his prison cell.
Giuffre, in an interview with The New York Times, said she's grateful Epstein will never harm anyone again.
But she is angry that there would be no chance to see him answer for his conduct.
"We've worked so hard to get here, and he stole that from us, too," she told the newspaper.
Sigrid McCawley, Giuffre's attorney, said Epstein's suicide less than 24 hours after the documents were unsealed "is no coincidence."
McCawley urged authorities to continue their investigation, focusing on Epstein associates who she said "participated and facilitated Epstein's horrifying sex trafficking scheme."
Epstein's arrest drew national attention, particularly focusing on a deal that allowed Epstein to plead guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida and avoid more serious federal charges.
Federal prosecutors in New York reopened the probe after investigative reporting by The Miami Herald stirred outrage over that plea bargain.
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His lawyers maintained that the new charges in New York were covered by the 2008 plea deal and that Epstein hadn't had any illicit contact with underage girls since serving his 13-month sentence in Florida.
Before his legal troubles, Epstein led a life of extraordinary luxury that drew powerful people into his orbit.
He socialised with princes and presidents and lived on a 100-acre private Caribbean island and one of the biggest mansions in New York.
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