At 10:39 p.m. on 9 August 2019 the one camera still recording in the Special Housing Unit of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York saw an officer go up the stairway to L Tier and come back down two minutes later. According to the Justice Department's Inspector General, no one went up those stairs again until about 6:30 the next morning, when Jeffrey Epstein was found hanged in his cell.
Okay. Fair. Okay. So, you know, I want to -- what I do want to be careful about is -- you know, asking you to speculate, because anybody can do that.
And I don't think that's fair to you or anybody else to ask you to give us your kind of opinion. But, do you think that -- the third point you say, which is kind of a failure by the BOP, there's been a lot of -- there's an OIG report, there's SDNY investigation about that. Do you -- so you think he was -- he did not die by suicide, given all the things we just talked about. I do not believe he died by suicide, no.
At twenty-one minutes to eleven on the night of the ninth of August, twenty nineteen, a camera in a federal jail in Manhattan recorded an officer walking up a staircase, and two minutes later walking back down. The Justice Department's Inspector General says that is believed to be the last time anyone went up those stairs until about half past six the next morning. At the top of them was the cell of Jeffrey Epstein. This film is built from what the United States government itself has published about him: its reports, its court records, the video from that camera, and six years later, its own recording of the Deputy Attorney General questioning the one person convicted with him.
It began in two thousand and five, in Palm Beach, Florida, when the parents of a fourteen-year-old girl told the police that a wealthy man had paid her for a massage. According to the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, the police found that Epstein used personal assistants to recruit girls to give him massages, and that in many instances they led to sexual activity. In twenty oh six a state grand jury indicted him for felony solicitation of prostitution. The police chief and the lead detective believed that did not address the whole of what he had done, and took the case to the FBI.
A federal prosecutor and two FBI agents found more victims. In May twenty oh seven she gave her supervisors a draft indictment of sixty counts. It was never filed. Instead, on the twenty- fourth of September, the United States Attorney's Office signed a non-prosecution agreement.
If Epstein pleaded guilty to two state charges and served eighteen months in a county jail, the federal investigation would end, and there would be no federal prosecution of him, of four named co-conspirators, or of, in the agreement's words, any potential co-conspirators. In exchange, the USAO agreed to end its investigation of Epstein and to forgo federal prosecution in the Southern District of Florida of him, four named co-conspirators, and "any potential co-conspirators." The victims were not told. When Epstein's lawyer asked whether the agreement would be made public, the prosecutor wrote back that it would not be made public or filed with the court. Victims were not informed of, or consulted about, a potential state resolution or the NPA prior to its signing.
Okay. Go ahead. So I had -- I was not in -- well -- Well, were you part of that investigation? Absolutely not.
Did -- did law enforcement ever talk to you as part of that? No. Did you, like, the feds never talked to you -- No. -- the FBI never talked to you?
No. Do you know -- I never even received a phone call. -- did you -- so you didn't receive a subpoena? No.
Did the state law enforcement ever reach out to you? No. find out about it, what happens with your relationship with him? I asked him.
I asked him what was going on -- Okay. -- and he said, I -- I -- not to worry. Nothing, nothing, taking care. Don't worry about it (indiscernible) and then it all went quiet.
I didn't -- he didn't say, he didn't share. I wasn't part of it at all. I was off with Ted and I really just -- Did he tell you -- well, why don't we come back to more specifics around that time period in a few minutes -- Okay. -- I want to just finish this opening part.
So that case goes on, ultimately it ends. What -- what -- what was your relationship like with him during that case, when he goes, you know, when he -- when he was sentenced. He asked -- he -- he -- he told me, he said, "Listen. I'm going to jail." I was like, "Okay." And he goes, "I would like you to stay on board to manage the properties, the He pleaded guilty in June twenty oh eight.
Within months he was allowed out of the jail twelve hours a day, to work at a foundation he had recently incorporated, in his lawyer's office. He served less than thirteen months, and registered as a sex offender. Two of the victims sued the government for keeping the agreement from them. It took until February twenty nineteen for a federal judge to rule that the government had broken the law by not telling them, and that its letters had misled them into believing a prosecution was still possible.
Two years later the full appeals court ruled that the law gave them no remedy. One of the dissenting judges called it a two-tiered system of justice. Ted. My -- I was like gone.
I mean, plus I just didn't want to know either, I suppose. So you don't know, firsthand, why the U.S. Attorney in Florida made the deal that he did? Meaning you weren't part of that discussion along the way.
Like Mr. Epstein didn't say, I'm getting a good deal or, you know, I -- something is happening with the case that's very good. You were -- to the extent you know anything about it, it's just from what you've heard or read from others, not from Mr. Epstein; is that right?
He never talked about the non-prosecution directly with me, no. But he did -- But it's still enforceable as to her. I mean, he never said, hey, do you -- are you happy with this deal like that. But I understood.
He never -- he never enjoined me to the NPA, but I understand that he included me, specifically, and I'll tell you why. Well, it's okay. You don't need to get into that. No, no.
Yeah. I'm not -- I don't want to talk about the legal -- the -- what's on appeal. I'm just -- No. I -- well, I wasn't.
The reason for my question, just to be -- I'm not trying to hide something, but there's a very strong belief that he got a very good deal. And that he should -- she -- he should have been sentenced to more time or got a different sentence from the feds than a non-prosecution agreement. And I'm not asking you to opine on that, but I'm wondering whether he ever talked to you about that. But it sounds like he didn't.
That he got a good deal. No. I think actually -- well, his comments that I've read was that he didn't get a good deal. And I think that the, you know, when he fought it so hard is because he didn't think he did.
When he was serving his sentence, were you ever -- were you around during that time, like when he was allowed to leave during the day or travel during the day? I never called him. I never saw him and I never went to the jail.
On the sixth of July, twenty nineteen, Epstein flew into Teterboro airport from Paris and was arrested on the plane. Federal prosecutors in New York charged him with sex trafficking of girls, some as young as fourteen, in New York and in Florida. He was taken to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, and twelve days later a judge refused him bail, finding he posed a danger to the community. On the twelfth of July the man who had signed off on the Florida agreement as United States Attorney, and was now Secretary of Labor, resigned.
Because of the attention his case was getting, the jail put him in its Special Housing Unit, nine South. Six tiers of eight cells, around a common area, each tier behind a single locked door. Prisoners there are locked in their cells about twenty-three hours a day, which is why the rules require staff to look in on every one of them at least twice an hour. At one twenty-seven in the morning on the twenty-third of July, officers found him on the floor of his cell with a strip of orange cloth around his neck.
He told them first that his cellmate had tried to kill him, and later that he did not remember. He was put on suicide watch, and a week later sent back to the unit. The jail's psychologists sent an email to more than seventy staff: he needed to be housed with an appropriate cellmate. OIG Figure 4.8: The door to the cell occupied by Epstein and Inmate 3 from July 30 to August 9.
On the twenty-ninth of July, the recorder that half of the jail's cameras fed into failed. The cameras kept showing live pictures. They recorded nothing. That included every camera in the unit but one.
The failure was discovered on the eighth of August. It was not repaired. On the eighth, the Marshals Service emailed the jail that Epstein's cellmate would be moved the next morning. No one arranged another.
That same day, with his lawyers, Epstein signed a new will. The jail did not know. On the ninth, his cellmate left at half past eight. The appeals court in New York unsealed some two thousand pages from a civil case against Ghislaine Maxwell.
And that evening, against the rules, a unit manager let him make a telephone call that no one recorded or listened to. However, no action was taken to ensure Epstein was assigned another cellmate.
At approximately 7:49 p.m. on August 9, Epstein was escorted toward the L Tier stairway. He was locked in, alone. Two staff were on the unit overnight, at the officers' station a few yards from the stairs.
After about ten forty, according to the Inspector General, neither of them walked the tier again. The four o'clock and ten o'clock counts were not taken, nor the counts at midnight, three and five. The count slips and round sheets were filled in to show that they had been. OIG Figure 5.1: 10 p.m.
count slips from the SHU and Receiving and Delivery on August 9. Count slips and round sheets were falsified to show that they had been performed.
At approximately 10:39 p.m., an unidentified CO appeared to walk up the L Tier stairway, and then reappeared within view of the camera at 10:41 p.m. This is believed to be the last time anyone entered L Tier before approximately 6:30 a.m. on August 10. Between approximately 10:40 p.m.
on August 9 and just before 6:30 a.m. on August 10, the OIG did not observe on the recorded video any CO or other individual enter any of the SHU tiers.
At approximately 6:28 a.m., an unidentified officer was observed on the L Tier stairway, presumably to deliver breakfast food trays. At approximately 6:33 a.m., additional officers entered the SHU and ascended the L Tier stairway. At about half past six, delivering breakfast, they got no answer from his cell. One of them opened the door.
He was hanging from the top bunk by a strip of orange cloth, in what the report calls a near-seated position. They called the emergency. He was taken to hospital and pronounced dead. The city's medical examiner ruled it a suicide by hanging, and found no defensive wounds.
The FBI found no criminality in how he died. The Inspector General found, in its own words, numerous and serious failures, and did not uncover evidence contradicting the FBI. The two staff were charged with falsifying the records, and the charges were dismissed after they completed deferred prosecution agreements. Prosecutors declined to charge anyone else who had filled in false paperwork.
Two MCC New York employees, Noel and Thomas, were charged criminally with falsifying BOP records. The charges were later dismissed after they successfully fulfilled deferred prosecution agreements. Nineteen days after his death, the charges against him were dismissed. He was never tried.
The Attorney General at the time was William Barr. Six years later, under oath before a House committee, he said he had sent the Inspector General's people to the jail within the hour. Asked whether it had been a perfect storm of screw-ups, he agreed, and said he could see why people would be suspicious. Asked whether he still believed Epstein died by suicide, he said: absolutely.
In May twenty twenty-six the officer on the unit that night, Tova Noel, answered the same committee's questions. She said she did not do the counts and rounds properly, that the forms were filled in at the start of each shift, and that at the time she thought of it as the way things were done at the MCC. She said she believed the cameras were working. And she said that at the ten o'clock count, when she looked through the window of his cell, he raised his hand.
"When I did the count by myself, when I looked through the window, he raised his hand." At half past six, she told them, the other officer knocked, got no answer, opened the door, and shouted for a cutter. Eleven months later Ghislaine Maxwell was indicted. In December twenty twenty-one a jury convicted her of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors over the course of a decade, and she was sentenced to twenty years. The appeals court affirmed it.
In October twenty twenty-five the Supreme Court declined to hear her case. In February twenty twenty-five, asked in an interview about a list of Epstein's clients, the new Attorney General, Pam Bondi, said it was sitting on her desk. Fifteen months later she told the House committee she had meant the files, sitting on her desk to review.
On the sixth of July twenty twenty-five the Justice Department and the FBI published two pages. They said an exhaustive review had found more than three hundred gigabytes of material, and that Epstein had harmed more than a thousand victims. It had revealed, they wrote, no incriminating client list, and no credible evidence that he blackmailed anyone. And it was their determination that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.
It is the determination of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted. With the memo they released the video from the one camera that had been recording in the unit that night, more than ten hours at a time, raw and enhanced. The FBI said its own review confirmed that from about ten forty until about six thirty, nobody entered any of the tiers. Eighteen days later, at the federal prison in Tallahassee, the Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, with an FBI agent beside him, sat down with Ghislaine Maxwell.
It was a proffer: she was given limited immunity for what she said, and warned that lying to them was a crime. Over two days they recorded six hours. A month later the department published the recording and the transcript.
proffer agreement. And I just want to spend two minutes making sure that you understand what -- what governs our conversation today. The most important part of this agreement is that this isn't a cooperation agreement, meaning that by you meeting with us today, we're really just meeting, I'm not promising to do anything. I'm not promising to ask Judge Nathan or any of the judges that's been assigned to your case to do anything.
It -- we're just talking. And so that's the most important -- important part of -- of this agreement. However, almost as important is the fact that what this agreement does for you is it gives you protection. So what it means is that the government cannot use what you say today against you, with some exceptions, which we'll talk about in a minute.
But whatever you talk about today, you have what's called immunity. So that means that the words that you say today, we cannot use against you in a case in chief, if we were ever to bring one. Okay? Thank you.
All right. There's exceptions to that. The most meaningful one of which is that, if you say something today that's not true, that's a lie, we can bring a prosecution against you for what's called false statements. So I'm a federal officer, I have several officers here.
The FBI is here. And if -- if you lie to someone that's -- like me or like Special Agent Horn, it's a crime. So you have to be truthful. The other exception to this, that doesn't necessarily apply directly to you, but if there ever was a retrial in your case, or if there ever was a -- a criminal case -- a future criminal case against you, and your lawyer or you said something different or took a position that's different than what you say today, we can then cross examine you or a witness, based upon what you say today.
So it's a little bit nuanced, meaning I can't use what you say against you in our case in chief. However, if you were to testify or if your lawyer called a witness to testify, and they said something that is totally different than what you say today, we could then cross examine you or the witness and say, hey, do you remember when we met with Ms. Wax -- when we met with Ms. Maxwell back in July of 2025?
She told us and then say what she said. Okay? I understand. Okay.
Other than that, reached out to me and said that -- that you wanted to speak with somebody from the government about, not only your case, but about everything that's been in the media and that's been publicized about Mr. Epstein in your case. That's -- Did he -- That's true and I did speak to him and I did ask him if -- oh, and did tell him that I would be very keen to talk to anyone, because no one from the government, at any time, ever in the -- since the inception of the case, so dating back to the early 2000s, has ever spoken to me, and indeed, I believe ever reached out to me at any time to even speak to me. And that includes up to when I was indicted and prosecuted.
I believe that -- or I understand, I should say, rather, that my attorneys, at the time, He asked her first about the man, and what she had known. Yep. -- some -- so this is the benefit of -- some benefit of what I saw and some benefit of what I now think, so just for clarity's sake. I think -- I just want to say for the record, that I do believe that Epstein did a lot of, not all, but some of what he's accused of.
And I'm not here to defend him in any respect whatsoever. I don't want to, and I don't think he requires, nor deserves any type of protection or -- from me in any way, to sugarcoat what he did or didn't do. So there's that. However, the man I met and the man he became, I believe that there is a progression, and I don't think that the man I met is the man that he became.
I believe he became that man over a period of time. Now we can discuss anything you want and hundred percent sure of that. I never met him. I never saw him.
I never heard his name. No. Nothing. So there's been a lot of conversations about whether Mr.
Epstein maintained, like, a list of people, like a book of famous people that he knew. Like a, it's called a black book or a client list or a list. Did you know of the existence of any such list? There is no list.
We'll start with that. The genesis of that story, I can actually trace for you from its absolute inception, if that is what you're interested in. It is. Then about the list the Justice Department had said, three weeks earlier, did not exist.
And, by name, about the President. in his house, for instance. I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting. I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way.
The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects. When's the last time you think you saw, in person, President Trump? Um, it was -- it's -- it's been a long time.
Probably not -- sometime in the -- beginning -- mid -- mid 2000s maybe. And it would only have been a social setting, as far as I recall. And did you ever hear Mr. Epstein or anybody say that President Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or with anybody in your world?
Absolutely never, in any context. On the second morning he turned to her. At her trial, prosecutors showed that Epstein had sent her more than thirty million dollars. He put the figures to her.
wouldn't have come from him later. But it had nothing to do -- The biggest one was in 1999. There's over $18 million. but what you're saying, it sounds like, and if you don't know, we're going to -- we can move on.
But when we're talking about $18.3 million in '99, $5 million in -- three years later in 2002, $7.4 million in 2007. That -- those -- that money adds up to around $30 million. You were not paid that by Mr. Epstein.
Meaning, that's not money you received for your benefit, even if it was put into your accounts. I don't believe any of that was my money. Now, I do -- I just -- like I said, we did do these things -- Yes. I understand that.
- - with the cars. I understand that. And as -- But -- I don't know if any of that money, some of it -- if it moves, some of that may have come from the car or a house that was sold that I had an interest in with him. That's possible.
But I don't think this money is mine. But also, the record should reflect, too, that there were times Ghislaine's name was used, for example, Air Ghislaine. Her name was in the name of the entity. It had nothing to do with her.
And if you what I'm trying to just make sure I -- that I understand, is that the idea that you were paid $30 million between '99 and 2007, in order to -- by Mr. Epstein to reward you for recruiting young women. That is in your -- you're saying that is categorically, completely false? That is categorically false, correct.
Do you accept -- -- that slid back. -- do you accept that at some point, and we talked about this yesterday about how Mr. Epstein changed, but at some point, Mr. Epstein definitely preferred younger women?
I accept. And I think you said yesterday, but say it again since we're talking about many women have -- have said that Mr. Epstein sexually assaulted them, whether juveniles or adults, that I don't find it -- you know, at some -- that's persuasive, right, that that happened. Okay.
So -- And so if that's persuasive then -- and I think it's without -- beyond contestation that he preferred younger women -- I -- -- and it's also beyond, I think at this point, there were certainly circumstances that underage women -- well, I don't want to say that you agree with me on that. I certainly believe that there were younger age women that were abused by him, okay? And so -- and then so the layer that I want you to -- that I really want to have a frank discussion about, is some of these women have said, oh, yes, you know, Ms. Maxwell was there, you know, to varying degrees.
She saw me there, she -- the door was open when I was there. And then much more egregious, right? That you participated and that you were part of it. And so what I really want you to have an opportunity to say to us, is where on the spectrum the truth is.
Whether it's somewhere in the middle, whether it's one extreme or another extreme, understanding. In my mind, I'm talking about 1994 or '5, to whenever, late '90s or early 2000s. And let me just interrupt. All I would say is, we're not here to say anything one way or the other about Epstein.
I agree with you that the evidence is overwhelming against him, and he -- he is his own person and has to deal with that. But Ghislaine can And then to what she had done. A jury had found that she conspired with Epstein to sexually abuse minors. In this room, she had immunity for her answers, except for lying.
would have money or the houseman, and I think some of them would have probably received checks. And so just picking up on what Mr. Markus was just asking you, did you participate in sexual activity with him with a masseuse, like at the same time? No.
And so the testi- -- I don't know if there's testimony, but the women who have said that that happened, categorically, that's not true? That is categorically not true. Did you -- moving past trafficking was even a law. So you're taking -- you're taking behavior.
And I did introduce him to women, I did, but not underage women. I understand that there are allegations. I have read them about myself going to because I wasn't really in his business. But this is -- this is one man.
He's not some -- they've made him into this -- he's not that interesting. He's a disgusting guy who did terrible things to young kids. You're not going to hear me say what he did to people who Near the end of the first day, he had asked her how Epstein died. Her lawyer asked for a break.
When they came back, she answered. I never heard that. I think you said this in an interview, but if I'm wrong forgive me. Do you have a view of Mr.
Epstein of whether he committed suicide or whether something else happened? Can we take a break? Want to take a break? Yeah, sure.
Yeah. We can take a break. Yeah. Sure.
Actually, it's a good time to take a break anyway, because it's to be the last one of the day. All right. So we're going
Okay. All right. So we took a break when we were talking about Mr. Epstein and his death.
Oh, bless you. That's okay. Take your time. So Mr.
Epstein and his death. So you were not, obviously, at the MCC during that time, correct. Thank you. just take some water.
It's okay, no problem. You were not at the MCC during that time, correct? I was not. So you're going to tell us what you believe, but just to -- I just want to make sure I understand, your basis for belief is kind of what you've read and seen and your knowledge of Mr.
Epstein for the many years you knew them -- knew him, right? And actually there's a third component. Okay. The answer to that is, yes.
Okay. And there's a third component to that, which is having experienced now, the mismanagement and inefficiencies and total dereliction of duty at the Bureau of Prisons. From BOP. From the Bureau of Prisons.
Yes. Okay. Fair. Okay.
So, you know, I want to -- what I do want to be careful about is -- you know, asking you to speculate, because anybody can do that. And I don't think that's fair to you or anybody else to ask you to give us your kind of opinion. But, do you think that -- the third point you say, which is kind of a failure by the BOP, there's been a lot of -- there's an OIG report, there's SDNY investigation about that. Do you -- so you think he was -- he did not die by suicide, given all the things we just talked about.
I do not believe he died by suicide, no. And do you believe that -- do you have any speculation or view of who killed him? I -- no, I don't. And I ask that because, if you don't believe that there's any truth to the allegations of blackmail or that he had kind of a list, or that he had reasons to have people hate him, why would somebody kill him in prison?
In prison, where I am, they will kill you or they will pay -- somebody can pay a prisoner to kill you for $25 worth of commissary. That's about the going rate for a hit with a lock today. So that goes to the third reason, which is kind of the mismanagement. Yes.
Or the shortfallings or shortcomings of the Bureau of Prisons. Yes. Which is a little bit different than my -- from my question is, which is, do you think there was somebody on the outside of prison, so putting aside, what could happen on the inside on the outside of prison, who would -- who wanted him dead so badly that he would've, or she would've, you know, caused him to be killed on the inside? I think that's -- I don't see that.
I think, is it possible? Of course it's possible. But I don't know of any reason why, and I don't believe in the blackmail or in any of this, I don't think Epstein had a hit on like that. If it is indeed murder, I believe it was an internal situation.
Yeah. So you're not -- you don't have any reason firsthand knowledge or even speculation, it sounds like, to think that he was if that he was killed to kind of silence him or to keep him from going public about people he knew about? I don't, no, because I think that is just part of the story that's been created that started back in 2008, '09. Okay.
Yeah, I mean, that's the point. Like, I don't want -- I don't think there's value in talking -- you know, there's been a lot of -- there's a lot of information about what happened, you know, at the MCC and -- but what is important to me is whether, you know, if -- is the idea that he didn't die by suicide, that's one thing. But if to the extent that folks believe that he was murdered to keep him quiet or because he had information on rich and powerful people, that's what I -- do you have any reason to believe that that's true? I do not have any reason to believe that.
And I also think it's ludicrous, because if that -- I also happen to think if that is what they wanted, they would've had plenty of opportunity when he wasn't in jail. And if they were worried about blackmail or anything from him, he would've been a very easy target. Is that, in fact -- look like your handwriting or something you wrote? So, I don't remember the letter.
Okay. But it does look like my handwriting. And it does look like my name. And it looks like it could be real, but I have no memory That morning a newspaper had published a letter from the birthday book she had compiled for Epstein in two thousand and three.
He asked her about it. Then he told her what would happen next. Okay. So I've -- just so I put -- I'll say it to you as I've talked a little bit to your lawyer about it.
I said to you yesterday that the purpose of what we did yesterday and today was -- was exactly what we did, which is to have a conversation about Mr. Epstein and about you. And I think it's very challenging to talk about everything we talked about. And, you know, in one and a half days or in just a period of hours.
So I'll talk to Mr. Markus about kind of what we're going to do next, if anything. There's no -- and I don't -- I'm not being coy or -- I just -- I don't know yet. I don't know.
So we -- I have a lot of -- we have some work to do. We'll do it with your lawyers to the extent we have questions or follow-up. And this has been very helpful. I think it's -- it was you, you know, who kind of said you wanted to talk, but we gladly accepted it.
So I do appreciate you being willing to meet with us. And I expect that we'll be in touch soon. All right. Yeah.
This concludes the recorded That summer the department asked a federal judge to unseal the grand jury testimony in Epstein's case. The judge refused. The government, he wrote, held a hundred thousand pages of its own; the grand jury had heard a single FBI agent, and not one victim.
In November Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act almost unanimously, and on the nineteenth the President signed it. The department's first release came a month later. By the end of January it said it had published nearly three and a half million pages, more than two thousand videos and a hundred and eighty thousand images, and had redacted or withheld about two hundred thousand pages as privileged. More than twelve hundred names had been identified as victims or their relatives, and blacked out.
This process resulted in over 1,200 names being identified as victims or their relatives. The Department has redacted reference to such names. The law required a list of every official and politically exposed person named in the files. The department's list runs to about three hundred names.
Its own report warns that names appear in a wide variety of contexts, some only in press cuttings unrelated to the case. It is not a list of anyone accused of anything. Two members of Congress who wrote the law asked the judge in Maxwell's case to appoint someone to watch over the department's compliance. He said their concerns were legitimate, and that his court had no power to do it.
The government's own count is more than a thousand victims. On the night he died, its Inspector General found almost everything that could go wrong had gone wrong, and the one camera that was recording shows the stairs, and, it says, no one on them.
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