Psychologist approved Jeffrey Epstein’s removal from su*cide watch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A psychologist at the federal detention
center in New York City where financier Jeffrey Epstein was jailed
on sex-trafficking charges had approved his removal from suicide
watch before he killed himself, the U.S. Justice Department said on
Friday.

The disclosure came in a letter dated on Thursday from Assistant
Attorney General Stephen Boyd and addressed to the leaders of the
Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, seeking
details about the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death earlier
this month.

Epstein, who was 66, was found dead Aug. 10 in his cell inside a
segregated housing unit of the Metropolitan Correctional Center
(MCC) in Lower Manhattan. An autopsy concluded that he hanged
himself.

His death triggered investigations by the FBI, the Justice
Department’s Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Bureau of
Prisons, which runs the detention facility.

The Boyd letter, provided to Reuters on Friday, confirmed that
Epstein had been placed on suicide watch in July, a status under
which the designated prisoner is held in a special cell under
constant observation by staff or “inmate companions.”

Epstein was “later removed from suicide watch after being
evaluated by a doctoral-level psychologist who determined that a
suicide watch was no longer warranted,” Boyd wrote in the
three-page letter.

The letter did not state precisely why a suicide watch had been
ordered for Epstein. But Epstein in July had been found unconscious
on the floor of his cell with marks on his neck, and officials had
been investigating that incident as a possible suicide attempt or
assault.

In addition to being housed in a special chamber affording an
unobstructed view of the occupant and easy entry from the outside,
inmates on suicide watch are evaluated daily by a psychologist, the
letter said.

Typically imposed as a short-term restriction, suicide watch in
Bureau of Prisons facilities can only be terminated by a bureau
psychologist following a face-to-face evaluation of the inmate,
Boyd wrote. No reason was given for Epstein’s removal.

At the MCC, two jail guards are required to make separate checks
on all prisoners every 30 minutes, but that procedure was not
followed overnight, a source has told Reuters.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr last week ordered the
reassignment of the warden in charge of the Lower Manhattan
detention facility, along with a temporary replacement and the
placement of two corrections officers assigned to Epstein’s unit on
administrative leave for the duration of the probes.

The staff shakeup came hours after President Donald Trump called
for a full investigation of the matter.

Epstein, who once counted Trump and former President Bill
Clinton as friends, was arrested on July 6 and pleaded not guilty
to federal charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of girls as
young as 14.

Just two days before his death, Epstein had signed a will
placing all of his property, worth more than $577 million, in a
trust called the 1953 Trust, after the year of his birth, according
to a copy of the document seen by Reuters.