NEW YORK: Anautopsy on disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein - who was found dead in hisjail cell - has concluded that he committed suicide by hanging, a coroner said,answering one of the questions surrounding his death. The ruling comes six daysafter the 66-year-old, who was accused of trafficking girls as young as 14 forsex, was discovered dead in New York's high-security Metropolitan CorrectionalCenter. New York's chief medical examiner Barbara Sampson said in a statementemailed to AFP that "after careful review of all investigativeinformation, including complete autopsy findings" it was determined thatEpstein killed himself.
The New YorkTimes cited officials as saying that Epstein had used a bedsheet to hanghimself. The report came a day after US media reported that preliminaryfindings from the post-mortem examination had found broken bones in Epstein'sneck. Epstein, a multi-millionaire who once counted Britain's Prince Andrew andUS President Donald Trump as friends, was charged with one count of sextrafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking ofminors.
According toprosecutors, Epstein sexually exploited dozens of teenagers at his homes inManhattan and Florida between 2002 and 2005. He denied the charges but faced upto 45 years in jail if found guilty. Epstein's lawyers said Friday they were "not satisfied with theconclusions of the medical examiner" and would conduct their own investigationinto his death, including demanding to see video footage from the jail.
"It isindisputable that the authorities violated their own protocols," thelawyers said, decrying the "harsh, even medieval conditions" at thefacility. The FBI and Justice Department are investigating how such ahigh-profile inmate managed to take his own life just weeks after an earlierreported suicide attempt. The warden of the Metropolitan Correctional Centerwhere Epstein was housed has been temporarily reassigned and two guards put onadministrative leave pending an investigation. The guards were reportedlyasleep when they should have been checking on Epstein.
Epstein's deathcame a day after a court released documents in which an alleged victim said heused her as a "sex slave" and that she was forced to have sex withwell-known politicians and businessmen. Virginia Giuffre has alleged she wasforced to have sex with Prince Andrew, former US Senator and architect of theNorthern Irish peace deal George Mitchell, ex-New Mexico governor BillRichardson and American celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
Lawsuits
They have allstrenuously denied the allegations. Prosecutors have pledged to pursue casesagainst anyone else involved in Epstein's alleged crimes and earlier this weekFBI agents raided his private island in the Caribbean. Several women have alsocome forward seeking damages. On Wednesday, Jennifer Araoz filed a lawsuitagainst Epstein's estate, his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell and threeother female accomplices.
Araoz said shewas raped by Epstein as a 15-year-old. She said Maxwell, a British socialiteand daughter of the late fraudster and media mogul Robert Maxwell, enabled hiscrimes. Maxwell's whereabouts are unknown but she was recently photographed ata restaurant in Los Angeles, according to US reports. On Friday two other womenfiled a $100 million lawsuit against Epstein's estate. They were working ashostesses in a Manhattan restaurant in 2004 when a woman described as a"recruiter" for Epstein approached them, they said.
The recruiterallegedly offered the pair hundreds of dollars each to go to Epstein's home andgive him a massage, assuring them there would be no sexual contact, accordingto the lawsuit. Two days later they went to Epstein's luxurious mansion nearCentral Park. Once they were in the massage room, the eight-page lawsuit said,Epstein was sexually aggressive towards them before giving them several hundreddollars. Epstein was convicted in Florida in 2008 of paying young girls formassages but served just 13 months in jail under a secret plea deal struck withthe then state prosecutor. - AFP