Jeffrey Epstein, US Financier Accused of Sex Trafficking, Commits Suicide in Jail

By Vanessa Obioha with Agency Reports

The United States financier Jeffrey Epstein who was accused of sex trafficking was found dead in a Manhattan jail on Saturday morning.

The Metropolitan Correctional Center officials who found his body estimated that Epstein hanged himself at roughly 7.30am.

Last month, Epstein who had decades long accusations on trafficking young girls for sex was found unconscious in his cell, with marks on his neck. There were speculations that it was a suicide attempt.

A prominent personality with luxury homes and private jets, Epstein previously avoided federal criminal charges in 2008 after prosecutors brokered a deal that allowed him to plea to solicitation of prostitution from a minor and serve 13 months in jail.

The New York Times reports that a cache of previously sealed legal documents, released on Friday by a federal appeals court, provided new, disturbing details about what was going on inside Mr. Epstein’s homes and how his associates recruited young women and girls, including from a Florida high school.

The documents — among the most expansive sets of materials publicly disclosed in the 13 years since Mr. Epstein was first charged with sex crimes — include depositions, police incident reports, photographs, receipts, flight logs and even a memoir written by a woman who said she was a sex-trafficking victim of Mr. Epstein and his acquaintances.

The documents were filed as part of a defamation lawsuit in federal court that Virginia Giuffre brought in 2015 against Ghislaine Maxwell, Mr. Epstein’s longtime companion and confidant. Ms. Giuffre and Ms. Maxwell settled the lawsuit shortly before the trial was to begin in 2017.

The financier was aged 66 years