The US justice department watchdog said on Tuesday a “combination of negligence and misconduct” enabled the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to take his own life at a federal jail in New York City while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
The justice department inspector general, Michael Horowitz, cited the federal Bureau of Prisons’ failure to assign Epstein a cellmate after his previous one left and problems with surveillance cameras as factors in Epstein’s death.
Horowitz also said Epstein was left in his cell with too many bed linens, which are a security issue and were used in his suicide.
The inspector general issued a report detailing findings of his investigation into Epstein’s August 2019 death, the last of several official inquiries into the matter.
He reiterated the findings of other investigations that there was no indication of foul play, rebutting conspiracy theories surrounding the high-profile death.
Horowitz echoed previous findings that some members of jail staff involved in guarding Epstein were overworked. He identified 13 employees with poor performance and recommended charges against six. Only the two workers tasked with guarding Epstein were charged, avoiding jail time in a plea deal after admitting to falsifying logs.
The report comes more than four years after Epstein killed himself at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.
It also comes weeks after the Associated Press obtained thousands of pages of records detailing Epstein’s detention and death and its chaotic aftermath.
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