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Bags of documents were shredded at the New York jail where Jeffrey Epstein died in the days after his death, before federal agents could examine them.
According to The Miami Herald, “Less than a week after Jeffrey Epstein was found dead inside his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center [MCC] in Manhattan, something was afoot inside an office where the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ After Action Team had set up a probe into what had happened to their most high-profile inmate.
“The FBI was told that there were people shredding documents. Bags of them.”
An inmate and correctional officers reported that unusual volumes of material were transported within the facility for destruction in the aftermath of Epstein’s death.
An officer at the facility contacted the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center to say he had “never seen this amount of bags of shredded documents coming out to be put in the dumpster at the rear gate of MCC.”
“Bales” of shredded paper are reported to have been removed from the facility.
These were removed before federal agents could get their hands on them.
Other irregularities were also discovered.
The Herald continues: “The discovery was only one of many suspicious events that unfolded in the days and weeks both before—and after—Epstein’s death, the Miami Herald has found from an analysis of thousands of pages of documents released by the Justice Department. In fact, there were so many irregularities discovered at the Manhattan jail that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) opened three separate probes into the case, with different case numbers, records and emails show.”
As well as the investigation into the circumstances of Epstein’s death, there was an obstruction-of-justice case opened with regard to the shredding of documents, and a blackmail-for-sex case involving a correctional officer.
For unknown reasons, these investigations were transferred to the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General, which lacks any prosecutorial powers.
This change of jurisdiction appears to have determined the conduct of the investigations, foreclosing the examination of Epstein’s death as a murder.
“As a result, his cell was never considered a possible crime scene that would, under normal circumstances, be examined by experienced criminal and forensic experts who would take fingerprints, blood samples and other evidence,” the Herald explains.
“One thing that got lost as a result of the cell not being examined was that the piece of fabric that Epstein allegedly used to hang himself was never identified.”
Read the full detailed story here.
