FBI launches an investigation after billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide by hanging himself in prison a day after lawsuit by his ‘sex slave’ was unsealed and named a host of his powerful friends including Prince Andrew
- Jeffrey Epstein has hanged himself inside his New York City jail cell
- He was discovered by prison guards in cardiac arrest on Saturday morning, and was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead
- The FBI has now launched an investigation into the 66-year-old’s death
- Epstein was arrested on July 6 on charges of conspiracy and sex trafficking, and was being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center without bail
- He was reportedly placed on suicide watch following after a first suicide attempt on July 24
- Epstein’s death comes just 24 hours after court documents detailing his sexual abuse of underage girls were unsealed by the courts
- The explosive documents included claims from Epstein’s alleged ‘sex slave’ that she was required to have intercourse with a number of powerful men
Jeffrey Epstein has hanged himself inside his New York City jail cell.
The billionaire pedophile was found in cardiac arrest shortly before 7am on Saturday at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan.
The 66-year-old was rushed to nearby New York Downtown Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
In a statement, Metropolitan Correctional Center told DailyMail.com that the FBI is now launching an investigation into Epstein’s death.
Epstein was awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy and sex trafficking and was being held at the high-security complex without bail.
The financier – who once boasted high-profile friends including Prince Andrew and President Bill Clinton – was arrested on July 6, accused of arranging to have sex with dozens of underage girls at his residences in New York City and Florida between 2002 and 2005.
He had plead not guilty to the charges.
The shocking news of Epstein’s death comes just two weeks after he was hospitalized following a first suicide attempt inside his prison cell.
Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide by hanging himself in his prison cell in New York City. He was found in cardiac arrest by guards shortly before 7 am on Saturday. He was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead
Epstein hanged himself at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center where he was being held without bail on charges of conspiracy and sex trafficking
On July 24, Epstein was rushed to hospital under police guard after he was discovered semi-conscious on the floor of his prison cell in the fetal position.
He spent several hours receiving medical attention before he was transported back to the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
Epstein was said to be on suicide watch, although The New York Times reports that it is now unclear whether additional measures had been put in place to ensure he did not try to take his own life for a second time.
On Saturday morning, a spokeswoman for the chief medical examiner confirmed that they had custody of Epstein’s body and had commenced an investigation into the exact ’cause and manner’ of his death.
Meanwhile, the billionaire’s death comes just 24 hours after the court unsealed more than 2,000 pages of documents detailing the lurid allegations of his sexual abuse of underage girls.
On Friday morning, a federal appeals court made public explosive documents pertaining to a 2015 lawsuit that Virginia Roberts Giuffre had filed against Epstein’s associate, socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.
Giuffre claimed Epstein and Maxwell kept her as a ‘sex slave’ in the early 2000s, whilst she was underage.
The unsealed papers – which made international news on Friday – implicated a number of high-profile men in sex scandals.
Epstein is pictured with his associate and one-time girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell in 2005. On Friday, explosive court documents pertaining to a 2015 lawsuit filed against Maxwell were unsealed. Their contents implicated a number of high-profile men in sex scandals
Epstein’s shocking suicide comes just 24 hours after court documents from Virginia Roberts Giuffre (pictured) were unsealed. Giuffre claims she was trafficked out by the pair to have sex with a number of high-powered businessmen and politicians
In a May 3, 2016 deposition, Giuffre alleged that she was trafficked by the pair to have sex with and provide erotic massages for politicians and affluent businessmen.
Giuffre claimed that she was ‘instructed’ by Maxwell to have sex with two high powered Democrats – former Senate Majority George Mitchell and former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.
Both Richardson and Mitchell have denied the allegations.
According to the documents, Giuffre claimed she also had sex with Epstein’s friend Prince Andrew when she was 17 years of age.
The Prince has always denied any wrongdoing and in a 2015 court application, a judge threw out Robert’s allegations that she had sex with Prince Andrew and ordered them to be struck from the record as being ‘immaterial and impertinent.’
Buckingham Palace also issued on the record statements in January 2015, stating: ‘Any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue.’
Giuffre was working at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-lago resort at the time she met Ghislaine Maxwell, who then went on to introduce her to Epstein.
Epstein is known for his previous friendships with President Trump but Giuffre has denied ever having sexual relationships with the Commander-in-chief.
Epstein was also an associate of President Bill Clinton – but the unsealed court documents reveal that Giuffre similarly denied ever being intimate him.
Former US Senator George Mitchell, (left), claimed he never met or spoke to Virginia Roberts Giuffre and never observed Jeffrey Epstein having inappropriate contact with girls. He is pictured in 1993 with Bill Clinton and Nancy Pelosi
Jeffrey Epstein (left) and Donald Trump together at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1997. Giuffre says she never had sex with Trump
Unsealed file: Jeffrey Epstein’s former sex slave Virginia Roberts alleges that she was intimate with Prince Andrew at the London home of Ghislaine Maxwell in unsealed files (Roberts, then 17, with Prince Andrew and Maxwell at Maxwell’s London townhouse in 2001)
Prince Andrew is pictured with pedophile businessman Jeffrey Epstein as the men stroll around Central Park in December 2010
Giuffre was the first woman to go public with accusations against Epstein – and is the most high profile of his alleged victims.
The alleged ‘sex slave’ has previously recounted how she found herself being shuttled around the world and raped by men three times her age in court papers after she was met Ghislaine Maxwell
‘Epstein had promised me a lot, and I knew if I left I would be in big trouble. I also knew that I was a witness to a lot of illegal and very bad behavior by Epstein and his friends,’ stated one filing.
‘If I left Epstein, he knew all kinds of powerful people. He could have had me killed or abducted, and I always knew he was capable of that if I did not obey him. He let me know that he knew many people in high places… I was very scared, particularly since I was a teenager.’
‘When I was with him, Epstein had sex with underage girls on a daily basis. His interest in this kind of sex was obvious to the people around him,’ she also stated.
‘The activities were so obvious and bold that anyone spending any significant time at one of Epstein’s residences would have clearly been aware of what was going on.’
After Epstein’s arrest, federal agents raided his $77 million Manhattan townhouse (pictured) where they uncovered hundreds of photographs of naked minors
Epstein was facing up to 45 years on his current charges of conspiracy and sex trafficking.
Prosecutors claim he sexually exploited dozens of underage teenagers, some as young as 14, at his homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida, between 2002 and 2005.
They claim that Epstein was ‘well aware that many of the victims were minors.’
The girls were paid hundreds of dollars in cash to massage him, perform sexual acts and to recruit other girls, prosecutors allege.
They say Epstein had an army of recruiters, often not much older than their targets, who would approach vulnerable teens.
The billionaire was arrested July 7 at New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport after his private jet landed from Paris.
On the same day, federal agents raided his $77 million Manhattan townhouse where they uncovered hundreds of photographs of naked minors.
After his arrest, he was subsequently denied bail.
Epstein is a convicted pedophile who was previously served 13 months in prison between 2009 and 2010 after pleading guilty to procuring underage prostitutes in the state of Florida.
He was allowed to leave prison a regularly basis to work at a nearby office, with critics outraged by the lenient sentence, dubbed ‘a sweetheart deal’.
Epstein had pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of underage girls from at least 2002 to 2005. He is pictured in 2005
Following his release from prison in 2010, Epstein managed to make his way back into high-powered New York circles.
Epstein was born to a middle-class family in Brooklyn, New York. He attended public schools in working class neighborhoods before dropping out of an undergraduate degree at Cooper Union.
Despite having no formal qualifications, Epstein commenced work as a physics and mathematics teacher at the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan. He was hired by then- headmaster Donald Barr – the father of current Attorney General, William Barr.
It proved to be the beginning of four decades of Epstein’s life encircled by privilege and powerful people.
During his two-year tenure at the elite private school, Epstein met Bear Stearns CEO Alan Greenberg, whose children were enrolled at Dalton.
Greenberg offered Epstein a job as a trader at the financial firm in 1976, where he quickly found success. He went on to work as a financial consultant, before opening his own financial management firm, J. Epstein & Company, in 1988.
JEFFREY EPSTEIN’S ALLEGED VICTIMS
VIRGINIA ROBERTS GIUFFRE
Virginia Roberts Giuffre is pictured above at a museum in New Mexico in 2001 in a photo snapped by Epstein)
Virginia Roberts Giuffre claims she is a former sex slave of Epstein and says the billionaire asked her to be a surrogate when she was just 18, around the same time he said she was too old for his sexual perversions.
Her allegations were made public when her since-settled lawsuit against Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell was included among the more than 2,000 pages of documents made public by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Giuffre filed the complaint in 2015, saying Maxwell subjected her to ‘public ridicule, contempt and disgrace’ by calling her a liar in published statements ‘with the malicious intent of discrediting and further damaging Giuffre worldwide.’ The lawsuit sought unspecified damages.
In a deposition included in the newly released papers, Giuffre said that her father, who worked at Mar-a-Lago as a maintenance manager, got her a job there in summer 2000 as a locker room attendant at the club’s spa when she was 16.
She said she was reading a book on massage therapy one day when she was approached by Maxwell, who noticed the book and told her she knew someone seeking a traveling masseuse. When Giuffre said she had no experience or credentials, she recalled Maxwell said: ‘We can train you. We can get you educated.’
The court records contain graphic allegations against Epstein, portraying him as a sex slave-driver with an insatiable appetite for underage girls.
‘My whole life revolved around just pleasing these men and keeping Ghislaine and Jeffrey happy,’ Giuffre said. ‘Their whole entire lives revolved around sex.’
Giuffre said Maxwell instructed her to take off her clothes and give oral sex to Epstein the first time she met him after bringing her to Epstein’s Florida home near Mar-a-Lago with the expectation she would be trained as a masseuse.
Prosecutors have not accused Maxwell of any wrongdoing. They say they continue to investigate.
In her own deposition, Maxwell called the claims another one of Giuffre’s ‘many fictitious lies and stories to make this a salacious event to get interest and press. It’s absolute rubbish.’
She also claimed that Giuffre was 17 when she met her.
Giuffre managed to escape, after being sent to Thailand for her 19th birthday to take a massage course – and told she would be taking back an underage girl.
JENNIFER ARAOZ
Jeffrey Epstein was hit with a lawsuit from a woman who claims he raped her when she was just 15 years old the day before the accused pedophile was found injured in his cell from an apparent suicide attempt.
The billionaire was given documents filed in Jennifer Araoz’s lawsuit against him on July 23 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center where he is being held on charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy, according to NBC News.
The specifics of Araoz’s suit have not been disclosed, but the now-32-year-old previously accused Epstein of raping her in 2002.
Araoz said she was an aspiring actress when she met the billionaire after a ‘recruiter’ targeted her at her Manhattan high school and lured her to his house.
For the next year, Epstein allegedly manipulated Araoz into giving him massages that ended with him masturbating while he showered her with gifts and cash.
The illicit contact ended after Epstein ‘forcibly raped’ her, according to Araoz. She was 15 at the time.
Araoz claims she dropped out of school to avoid Epstein and her life quickly deteriorated. She is now seeking damages for her emotional injuries.
JOHANNA SJOBERG
Johanna Sjoberg is pictured in 2007
One of the women who alleges she was ‘lured’ to Jeffrey Epstein’s New York City mansion says the multimillionaire sex offender told her he needed to have ‘three orgasms a day.’
‘It was biological, like eating,’ Epstein is alleged to have told Johanna Sjoberg.
Sjoberg’s testimony was revealed after a federal appeals court on Friday unsealed about 2,000 pages of documents related to Epstein, the financier facing charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of underage girls.
The documents were released by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, as part of a defamation lawsuit by Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s accusers, against Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime friend of Epstein.
Sjoberg gave statements in a deposition as part of a lawsuit brought against Maxwell by Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
She said that she was recruited by Maxwell in 2001, when she was a student at Palm Beach Atlantic College.
Sjoberg was under the impression she was being hired as a personal assistant, but she soon realized her job was to provide ‘sexual massages’ to Epstein.
According to The New York Times, Sjoberg was ‘punished’ when Epstein failed to orgasm as a result of one of her massages.
Giuffre alleges that Maxwell recruited her when she was 16 years old to be Epstein’s ‘sex slave.’
The lawsuit was settled in 2017 while the terms were kept confidential.
UNNAMED 15-YEAR-OLD SWEDISH GIRL
Court documents also revealed that a 15-year-old Swedish girl was allegedly confined to Epstein’s private island (pictured) and kept there as a sex slave
Court documents also revealed that a 15-year-old Swedish girl was allegedly confined to Epstein’s private island and kept there as a sex slave.
The horrific allegations were made by a butler who worked for hedge fund billionaire Glenn Dubin and his wife, Eva Andersson-Dubin.
During a 2016 deposition which was revealed publicly for the first time on Friday, the butler, Rinaldo Rizzo, tearfully described seeing a 15-year-old girl in his boss’s kitchen in 2005.
Rizzo testified in the deposition that the girl was brought to the home by Andersson-Dubin, a former Miss Sweden who once dated Epstein.
The butler said that the girl reminded him of other girls he saw at Epstein’s home, according to The Daily Beast.
Rizzo said the girl sat in a stool next to a kitchen counter in the Dubins’ home. She was ‘distraught and shaking…literally quivering’ as she described her treatment at the hands of Epstein’s alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, and his assistant, Sarah Kellen, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
He claims he told her that they had demanded sex from her and taken away her passport and threatened her when she refused.
Rizzo testified in a deposition which was part of Giuffre’s defamation lawsuit brought against Maxwell.
Giuffre also accused Glenn Dubin of participating in the sex-trafficking ring, according to court documents.
Dubin has denied the allegations.
HOW EPSTEIN ‘STOLE MILLIONS’ FROM HIS LONGTIME FRIEND AND VICTORIA’S SECRET FOUNDER LESLIE WEXNER WHILE MANAGING HIS FINANCES
The retail titan behind Victoria’s Secret has accused the financier Jeffrey Epstein of misappropriating ‘vast sums’ of his fortune while managing his personal finances more than a decade ago.
Ohio billionaire Leslie Wexner said in a letter Wednesday that he recovered ‘some of the funds’ but severed ties with Epstein in 2007 as sexual abuse allegations first surfaced against him in Florida.
The letter was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, which put the amount of misappropriated money at more than $46 million.
It’s unclear whether Wexner reported the allegations to law enforcement.
‘This was, frankly, a tremendous shock, even though it clearly pales in comparison to the unthinkable allegations against him now,’ Wexner wrote.
He added that he was ‘sickened’ by Epstein’s alleged abuse of dozens of underage girls in New York and Florida.
Wexner is the founder and chief executive officer of L Brands, a fashion retailer based in Ohio. The company’s board recently hired an outside law firm to review any role Epstein may have played at the business.
Epstein managed Wexner’s fortune beginning in the late 1980s and helped straighten out the finances for a real estate development Wexner was backing in a wealthy Columbus, Ohio, suburb.
It was through Wexner that Epstein acquired his seven-story Manhattan mansion less than a block from Central Park, a 21,000-square-foot residence that has been valued at about $77 million.
Wexner said he believed he could trust Epstein at first based on ‘friends who vouched for and recommended him as a knowledgeable financial professional.’
‘I am embarrassed that, like so many others, I was deceived by Mr. Epstein,’ he wrote in the letter. ‘I know now that my trust in him was grossly misplaced and I deeply regret having ever crossed his path.’
Leslie Wexner, the founder and CEO of Victoria’s Secret parent company L Brands Inc, accused Jeffrey Epstein of stealing more than $46million from his family’s fortune. Wexner (above with model Stella Maxwell in 2016) hired Epstein as his money manager in 1991 and cut ties with him in 2007 after the financier was accused of sexually abusing underage girls
