US Bureau of Prisons bent facts to support suicide narrative — Analysis

Paperwork obtained below Freedom of Info legal guidelines by RT investigative unit The Element embrace startling data revealing how the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP) moved to close down any and all public debate about the reason for Jeffrey Epstein’s dying. Alongside the way in which, proof was distorted, materials info ignored, and key anomalies unexplored and unpublicized.

After being discovered useless in his cell on the Metropolitan Correctional Middle on August 10, 2019, the data present that the Bureau issued statements to journalists and Epstein’s household categorically stating he’d dedicated suicide.  The outcome was worldwide information retailers universally and unquestioningly reporting that Epstein had taken his personal life from the phrase go, regardless of Chief Medical Examiner Barbara Sampson having reached no conclusion at the moment, and making clear in an announcement the following day that the investigation was open and ongoing. 

It was not till August 16 that Sampson publicly declared Epstein’s dying had been a suicide. The ruling was contested by main forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, who’d been employed by the billionaire’s brother to watch the post-mortem course of. Talking to the Miami Herald two months later, he charged that “the post-mortem didn’t assist suicide,’’ and that the pathologist who carried out it had recorded this.

“Then Dr. Sampson modified it every week later, method of dying to suicide. The brother has been looking for out why that modified,” Baden fulminated. “What was the proof?”

No readability on these questions has been fomassnews.coming within the years since, though one rationale for the obvious volte-face might have been a shock Washington Publish report a day previous to Sampson’s announcement. Sources conversant in the post-mortem advised the paper that the method had revealed a number of bones in Epstein’s neck, together with the hyoid, have been damaged, and such breakages “are extra frequent in victims of murder by strangulation” than hanging.

One other rationalization would be the then-ongoing “psychological reconstruction” of Epstein’s dying compiled by Robert Nagle, BOP nationwide suicide prevention coordinator. Information launched to The Element by the Bureau document how Nagle – whose title is redacted within the recordsdata – arrived on the Metropolitan Correctional Middle on the morning of August 13 to start his investigation. 

In his resultant report, Nagle famous {that a} video of an unspecified nature associated to the “important incident” was confiscated by the FBI previous to the assessment being initiated. He additionally mentioned he’d been unable to conduct formal interviews with jail workers “to keep away from interference with pending investigations” by the Justice Division, and that a lot of the data “sometimes gathered” in psychological reconstructions was not obtainable.

These constraints “severely restricted the power to ascertain correct timelines, verify subjective studies, set up converging and diverging strains of info, or uncover new areas of inquiry,” Nagle wrote. 

For instance, he was fairly amazingly unable to piece collectively a “detailed description” of what the officers discovered once they found Epstein, as they “didn’t write memorandums and couldn’t be interviewed.” Moreover, as no pre-sentence report on Epstein had been accomplished previous to his dying, quite a few sections of the reconstruction – reminiscent of a assessment of the inmate’s “social historical past” – have been avowedly incomplete of their appraisal.

Nonetheless, regardless of this obtrusive lack of exhausting proof, the doc dominated conclusively that Epstein had certainly dedicated suicide. His determination was attributed to being unable to sleep resulting from an “incapability to tolerate the noise of jail,” plus the latest unsealing of hundreds of data associated to his 2008 conviction on youngster intercourse offenses, and the prospect of spending the remainder of his life in jail. 

Sound sufficient reasoning, one would possibly suppose – although in constructing his case, Nagle drew repeated consideration to Epstein declaring himself on a number of events to be a “coward” within the weeks previous to his alleged suicide as indicative of suicidal intent. It’s actually true the prisoner was recorded making such statements – however explicitly within the context of denying any intention, and even means, to kill himself. 

“He mentioned he isn’t the kind who likes ache or would ever try and hurt himself,” one psychological evaluation famous. “[He] even doesn’t like when he has to provide blood.”

This may solely be thought of a staggeringly dishonest inversion of Epstein’s feedback, though Nagle’s manipulations went unremarked upon in an inside assessment of the reconstruction by Metropolitan Correctional Middle Warden Marti Licon-Vitale. Nonetheless, in a piece marked “documentation accuracy” she took intention on the failure of officers to log an incident report in a well timed style, and seemingly submitting conflicting studies on the identical incident. 

“Skilled accountability requires making an allowance for a number of descriptions of an incident as famous in your response. Nevertheless, when discrepancies exist these needs to be compiled and famous in documentation to lower the probability of conflicting conclusions,” she wrote. “Preconceived notions problem the power to stay open about various explanations … Please develop and supply native coaching for all workers that at a minimal critiques the timeframe for writing incident studies and affords steerage when there’s not clear proof of an infraction.”

Whereas the particular episode criticized by Licon-Vitale is totally redacted, one can infer that this part refers back to the weird info documented by The Element within the first instalment of this investigative sequence. Briefly, the preliminary incident report on Epstein’s alleged suicide on July 23, 2019 referred to “hanging/asphyxiation”, however one other filed every week later was inexplicably amended to incorporate “self-mutilation” by laceration, resulting in him being disciplined for a penal code breach.  

These grievances apart, Nagle’s reconstruction was obtained with a lot delight by BOP increased ups. In an inside e mail dated August 23, the company’s director Hugh Hurwitz effusively praised his “excellent” work, remarking it was “unbelievable all you report with out the good thing about interviews or video.” This e mail is ironic within the excessive, for it really is “unbelievable” {that a} conclusive ruling of suicide could possibly be reached with out entry to fundamental and very important proof.

4 days earlier, Hurwitz was dismissed from his submit by Legal professional Normal William Barr with out warning. Might this be attributable to trying to form the narrative on Epstein’s dying, earlier than the Federal Bureau of Investigation or Justice Division Inspector Normal had accomplished their respective probes of the case?

Regardless of the reality of the matter, there’s one other supremely curious function of the “psychological reconstruction” by no means hitherto publicized by any official or media outlet. A assessment of economic transactions related to Epstein’s jail keep revealed that one in every of his attorneys “was depositing funds” into the commissary account of Efrain ‘Stone’ Reyes, Epstein’s remaining cellmate, “for unknown causes.”

This may increasingly account for why Reyes grew to become an individual of curiosity within the FBI’s investigation and was duly questioned. He reportedly feared that cooperating with the Bureau would possibly “have an effect on him negatively,” however in return for his assist, he was moved to a minimal safety correctional middle in Queens, New York, which housed high-value cooperating witnesses like rapper Tekashi69.

Whereas there, he was reportedly interviewed personally by Legal professional Normal William Barr as a part of the Justice Division’s Workplace of the Inspector Normal’s probe, who thanked him for his enter. Surprisingly, although, the division has refused to substantiate or deny the declare, whereas Kerri Kupec, its former spokesperson, prices that it’s “100% false.”

Reyes died in September 2020, 5 months after being launched from the jail, resulting from a facility-wide Covid-19 outbreak, purportedly by way of issues arising from the virus. Subsequently, his niece advised mainstream information retailers her uncle had often voiced intense skepticism that the six-foot Epstein may’ve hanged himself from the bunk frames within the cell, as they merely weren’t tall sufficient.

In January 2021, federal prosecutors dominated that each one data associated to Reyes would stay sealed, regardless of requests for disclosure from journalists because of the potential impression on points allegedly unrelated to Epstein. In dismissing the request, authorities listed data regarding the billionaire included in all recordsdata associated to Reyes, which ran to 2 pages – all of it redacted.

Nearly a 12 months to the day later, it was reported that the Inspector Normal report on Epstein’s dying was nearing completion, with a Justice Division investigator suggesting all of the group had left to do was “dot their I’s and cross their T’s,” and stating they’d be “shocked if it is not launched within the subsequent 30 days or so.”

Whether or not it is going to shed any gentle on the numerous critical issues raised by the declassified Bureau of Prisons paperwork is anybody’s guess, though in gentle of the revelation Reyes was in receipt of funds from Epstein’s legal professionals, The Element has lodged a request with related authorities for the seal to be reconsidered.