Epstein apparently successfully committed suicide.
This is not justice. Right now, a lot of sick, rich fucks around the world are heaving a sigh of relief.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Epstein apparently successfully committed suicide.
This is not justice. Right now, a lot of sick, rich fucks around the world are heaving a sigh of relief.
“He had been on suicide watch since the July 23 incident.”
Nice job.
The guards had ONE JOB, but then they got a better offer.
Seems awfully convenient.
It remains to be seen whether his testimony would have mattered. If he was indeed a blackmailer, he kept the evidence, and the feds have it now. We shall know in due course.
When so many rich and powerful people have an obvious reason to want someone dead, we should not be too quick to accept the claim that he killed himself.
Am I just misremembering, or did the news media state that the authorities were in Epstein’s home and accessing his blackmail vault by the time Epstein’s private jet had landed, and he learned he was under arrest? If that’s true, then as unfortunate as it is that a renowned child molester won’t enjoy his new life in a federal pen, the blackmail “victims” will still be exposed and suffer. And now that that material is no longer being withheld for the sake of an ongoing investigation, the hammer will fall sooner on those deserving of it sooner rather than later.
cervantes, you are a faster typist and a clearer thinker than my still waking brain.
It’s in the hands of cops and federal cops. None of that is going to see the light of day if a certain orange idiot is in there.
”Commited suicide.”
Riiiiiiiiight.
Convenient.
I’m less concerned with whether it’s justice than how useful Epstein might have been on the witness stand and who he just left off the hook this way.
Oh God, it’s worse. There’s no criminal to prosecute anymore. Does this mean the whole thing gets quashed?
I’m sure Derpowitz is relieved.
well I can imagine many stories to fit the meager facts I know about the sordid mess that was Epstein’s live and it’s ending, not one of them wholesome. Given the whole Acosta episode I doubt that I will ever completely believe what ever the story is that we are told.. The only thing I can say is “that is what they said”.
The implications of his “fell in his cell” story a few weeks ago was a possible suicide attempt.
Remember when they put Chelsea Manning in a cell without a blanket and a stainless steel bed, so she could not suicide? Let me guess: Epstein was not treated that way.
Marcus Ranum@14
I agree that if they had wanted to prevent a suicide they could have. At least one as obvious as this. There are a lot of people very happy not to have this can of worms reopened. I feel sick now. Was anyone else named when Epstein was arrested? I have a feeling this story will soon be as forgotten as Trump University after Trump bought his way out of that. Not to compare them in severity, but just the way people seem to get away with crap; the only real crime in this country is being poor.
in this modern era, why don’t prisons use medical sensors to electronically monitor people on suicide watch? should be able to virtually eliminate this situation.
He probably did kill himself. In the same way that guy at the end of Hunger Games that was lead to the chalice of poison berries killed himself. Who supplied the rope?
I have zero confidence that any of the reputed treasure trove of evidence taken from his apartment (videos, photos, etc.) will ever see the light of day or be used in any prosecution. Trump controls the FBI.
Apparently the FBI is investigating his death now.
I have some confidence the FBI will nail various people. They won’t indict Trump of course, though they might detail the evidence only to have Pelosi declare “he’s not worth it”.
But, but, but Prince Andrew and Fergie are together again visiting with QEII at Balmoral Castle. All is right with the world. And there’s just no truth to the claim that the Prince ever had sex with Epstein’s young “friends.”
I’m sure this won’t be the last we hear of it. The Florida AG has opened an investigation into the deal Acosta swung for him. We’ll see where that goes…I wasn’t too optimistic even if Epstein stood trial. There are a number of lawsuits filed by women who were his victims directed at various people over their case, such as Virginia Giuffre’s suite against Ghislaine Maxwell. Those will go on and if they have easier access to the evidence, then they might get some justice. And, if Maxwell was indeed abetting Epstein, she could find herself charged with crimes…or perhaps conveniently dead from self-inflicted wounds.
“Convenient” hardly covers my own reaction. I might even wonder if he’s actually dead but that’s just crazy talk.
I’m sure Bill Barr and the DOJ will thoroughly investigate the circumstances of Epstein’s death.
Ragutis@21
See https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/bill-barr-interview-dirty-harry-death-wish-vigilante-justice
Bill Barr will pronounce this more expedient than a long, wasteful trial, but wil express some regret that the parents of the victims did not capture and torture Epstein in a Hollywood-inspired revenge fantasy. That is our Attorney General’s concept of “justice.”
But then, who am I kidding. In this case, Barr’s notion of justice would be best explained by a Simpsons quote.
I should probably write “victims” above (@22) not “parents of the victims” but actually when I try to channel someone like Bill Barr, it seems appropriate to look at this in patriarchal terms.
robro@20 I was buying frozen pizza last night and saw that Meghan had left with little Archie. I didn’t have chance to read more than the headline, but it sounds like there’s still trouble in paradise.
Or to put it all a lot more concisely:
Cui bono?
Know who’s most upset about this? Cable news. No more hollow excuse rerun segments of beautiful young women recounting tales of utter sexual depravity.
Lawrence Krauss must be so sad!
edit: “…hollow excuse TO rerun…”
laurian@28
Fox News now has the perfect excuse to run Vince Foster conspiracy theories for at least a week. When life gives you lemons…
“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.” -Adam Smith
Epstein was on the cusp of losing everything, but still be a threat to people with wealth and means. It is very difficult not to find this coincidental boon for perverts in Hollywood and D.C. to be anything other than unbelievable. And given that we have so many concrete examples of our legal system protecting people with power and privilege, I doubt many people would be surprised if there was in fact foul play here.
kome@30 That Smith quote is a keeper. It really does give some insight into how people think about use of deadly force by police. If you think police are there to enforce justice in the abstract, you reach one conclusion. If you think they are there to protect your “nice things” from “those people” you reach entirely different conclusions.
cervantes–
I hope you’re right, but I’m much more jaundiced.
We all know about the astonishingly light sentence Epstein got in 2008, which would normally be for co-operating with other investigations, and yet eleven years later there has not been a single charge levelled with Epstein’s assistance.
When Epstein was supposed to be under house arrest in Florida, he was allowed to walk wherever he wanted, fly to the US VIrgin Islands and Manhattan, and was never compelled to check in with the NY Police every 90 days despite it being a requirement of being a level 3 registered sex offender there.
Also, less than a month ago Epstein was found unconscious in his cell with bruises on his neck… after being allocated to share his cell with an ex-police officer convicted of four murders who apparently couldn’t remember anything happening at the time Epstein was injured. Not that I want to pin any blame on the cellmate, who may well be as innocent of all this as he claims, but why on earth was Epstein put into that situation in the first place?
And now, Epstein is dead. In a solitary cell.
In short, the cynic in me is seeing a lot of activity in the criminal justice system that cannot be explained by the superficial story.
Actually, I’m wrong about the cellmate not remembering anything — apparently his attorney has described his actions as saving Epstein from suicide.
My thought is that Epstein did in fact commit suicide, knowing a bunch of people will get harmed as a result, and that his enemies won’t have the satisfaction of seeing him grovel in court.
I’m disappointed for two reasons.
1) Right wing media is going to go nuts and will rile up a new generation of shooters who will rail about the Clintons and how they murdered Epstein to protect Bill Clinton. So there’s that.
2) How much evidence do the Feds actually have? Epstein has homes all over the world, I imagine that he spread out his blackmail evidence over multiple jurisdictions so without him a lot of that evidence will be out of the reach of U.S. authorities. Especially now that he won’t stand try and be convicted, it’s harder to convince a foreign government to go in and seize Epstein’s belongings.
Timing’s rather oddly convenient, isn’t it?
US Immigration: “ah, yes, Mr E and a dozen minors from Ukraine and Mr Dershowitz and Mr Clinton! Welcome to the US!”
[Elsewhere] US Immigration: “UNACCOMPANIED MINOR?!?” (Freaks the fuck out)
@Matthew Rigdon:
Serial killers and pedophiles love to record evidence of their actions. It’s there. You just have to find it. That’s what his friends are waiting for.
Besides Trump, I’m waiting for Rush Limbaugh’s name to pop up. I believe it was reported a few years ago that he frequented Caribbean “resorts” that employed an awful lot of young eastern European women for quite vaguely defined jobs. I’d be rather surprised if he never got a “massage” at his neighbor’s house or visited Epstein’s island.
” “
What’s that suspicious lump under the carpet?
I’m mirroring other’s sentiments here by hoping that the other rich, criminals will get their comeuppance. I suspect that the big fish will swim away.
The Feds have not yet decided if he committed suicide or was shot trying to escape!
And so it goes. A lifetime of luxury and depravity, until the very end.
robro @20,
Well, if young “friends.” are all that’s available, what is one to do?
Not partake?
I was a corrections officer at a maximum security facility decades ago, so the protocol may have changed, but inmates on suicide watch are stripped of pretty much everything that can be used to harm themselves. No shoelaces (or ligatures of any kind), no sheets on the bed, fixtures are metal instead of breakable ceramic, etc. And you’re visually checked by an officer every 15 minutes, or every 5 minutes if you were considered particularly high risk. I had heard (so please consume grain of salt) that these days in most of the segregation/solitary units that cameras are common and monitored by seg control.
So if Epstein committed suicide, some hapless CO and their supervisor are going to be fired and possibly charged. My training is almost certainly out of date, but IIRC killing yourself with what you would find in a seg cell was nigh impossible.
@PZ, noticed the change between the e-mail notification and current title.
Good job, your original title was directly against our Constitution.
Denied justice, well, all of his victims. Given injustice, him.
On the list to boycott, New York state.
One generation, by default, due to my own age.
Ken White on this @popehat
Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t on suicide watch when he died. Officials want to know why.
Looks like he was taken off suicide watch a few days before his death, but he was still in a special housing unit (does that mean solitary?)
wzrd1, what was the original title?
@anat It looks like that there was some kind of fuckuppery at the prison’s administrative level–whether intentional or not I guess remains to be uncovered. The SHU is generally a unit that operationally resembles a high acuity hospital ward in the sense that there is a higher officer-to-inmate ratio and each inmate is scrutinized a lot more closely and/or more frequently. Some SHUs only hold exceptionally dangerous inmates, while others hold a mix of dangerous inmates and inmates who require protective custody. And yes, in my experience SHUs usually mean segregation: one inmate to a cell and the inmates rarely if ever get to interact with one another. That typically means the inmate is locked up for 23 hours, and is given 1 hour out in a small common area, with at least one officer in the space with them. SHUs are awful places, even moreso than the rest of the prison.
I note in the article you linked that some people (‘experts’??) disagree that it’s impossible to kill yourself while under suicide watch. They would only be correct in instances where protocol wasn’t followed by the staff. Apart from skullduggery or some really esoteric way of shuffling off your mortal coil, I can’t for the life of me think how anyone could commit suicide in a segregation cell, whilst stripped of all possible ligatures and monitored constantly.