DOJ’S FAILURE
Jeffrey Epstein’s Death Once Again Denies His Victims Justice
It is tempting to frame his death as just deserts, but it is an affront to justice in many ways.
Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast/Getty/AP
For law enforcement officials, the first rule of dealing with victims of crime is to avoid re-victimizing them. In the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the Department of Justice failed.
Epstein, the wealthy financier who was charged with sex trafficking of underage girls, was found dead in his New York jail cell early Saturday morning in what Attorney General William Barr called “an apparent suicide.”
His death occurred even though he had been on suicide watch for six days in July after he had been found in his cell unconscious with bruises around his neck, after a possible attempt to take his own life. A judge had found that Epstein was a risk of flight and a danger to the community, and ordered him detained while he awaited trial on federal charges in the Southern District of New York.