Jeffrey Epstein sent letter in jail to America’s next most notorious paedophile

Jeffrey Epstein wrote to another notorious American paedophile before his suicide in jail, newly released prison records have revealed.

The financier wrote to Larry Nassar, the US national women’s gymnastics team doctor who was convicted of sexually abusing scores of young athletes over several decades and was jailed in 2016.

The US Bureau of Prisons records were obtained by the Associated Press and offer a fresh window into Epstein’s behaviour during his 36 days in jail before his suicide in August 2019.

Two weeks before ending his life, prison officials in Manhattan’s crumbling and chaotic Metropolitan Correctional Center described the disgraced financier as agitated and unable to sleep.

Epstein, 66, called himself a “coward” and complained he was struggling to adapt to life behind bars following his arrest on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges in July of that year. If convicted, he faced up to 45 years in prison.

He was recorded sitting in the corner of his cell with his hands over his ears, in a desperate attempt to muffle the sound of a broken toilet that would not stop running.

Chlamydia

He revealed during a health screening that he had more than 10 female sexual partners within the last five years and had been treated for chlamydia.

According to medical records, he was suffering from sleep apnoea, constipation, hypertension, lower back pain and prediabetes.

Epstein later complained about having to wear an orange jumpsuit and was upset about being treated like he was a “bad guy” despite being well behaved behind bars.

He requested a brown uniform for his near-daily visits with his lawyers.

The documents also reveal the disgraced financier’s attempt to contact Nassar, whose notoriety as a prolific sex abuser was eclipsed only by Epstein’s.

The letter was found with a “return to sender” mark in the prison post room weeks after his death.

“It appeared he mailed it out and it was returned back to him,” the investigator who found the letter told a prison official by email.

“I am not sure if I should open it or should we hand it over to anyone.”

Trove of documents

The letter itself was not included among the 4,000 documents turned over to the AP under a freedom of information request, so its contents remain unknown.

The trove of documents reveal the extent of staffing shortages and mismanagement that contributed to Epstein’s death.

The increased scrutiny on the Bureau of Prisons in the aftermath of his death led it to shutter the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in 2021.

An internal memo sent after Epstein’s death attributed problems at the jail to “seriously reduced staffing levels, improper or lack of training, and follow up and oversight”.

Martin Weinberg, Epstein’s lawyer, said people detained at the facility endured “medieval conditions of confinement that no American defendant should have been subjected to”.

“It’s sad, it’s tragic, that it took this kind of event to finally cause the Bureau of Prisons to close this regrettable institution,” Mr Weinberg said.

The workers tasked with guarding Epstein the night he killed himself, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, admitted to falsifying prison records to make it seem as though they carried out required checks.

In fact, prosecutors claimed, the guards were sitting at their desks just 15 feet from Epstein’s cell doing online shopping or sleeping. The pair later struck a plea deal with prosecutors for their cooperation.

The day before Epstein ended his life, a federal judge unsealed about 2,000 pages of documents in a sexual abuse lawsuit against him.

That development, prison officials observed, combined with a lack of significant interpersonal connections and “the idea of potentially spending his life in prison were likely factors contributing to Mr Epstein’s suicide”.