August 10, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, the well-connected financier who was facing charges of sex-trafficking, was found dead in his cell Saturday morning. According to reports, Epstein was found hanging. He was rushed to the hospital at around 6:30 AM Eastern time, where he was pronounced dead.
Epstein's death comes less than three weeks after he was reportedly found unresponsive in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York with wounds on his neck. Following this, Epstein was placed on suicide watch.
Epstein was a close friend of many of the rich, powerful and famous, many of whom routinely flew with him on his private jet, or visited his private Carribean island. According to a 2016 Fox News report, court documents show Clinton flew on Epstein’s plane at least 26 times between 2002 and 2003, at times ditching the secret service.
Questions are already being raised about the circumstances of Epstein's death. “[T]his is just too convenient for the powerful, influential people Epstein could have implicated,” wrote renowned conservative scholar Robert P. George on Facebook. “If he committed suicide, he must have, in effect, been permitted to commit suicide. He was, after all ON SUICIDE WATCH … in a prison. No one can say it couldn't have been prevented. That would simply not be credible. This thing needs to be thoroughly investigated. And I mean thoroughly.”
Epstein was officially charged last month with one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors by U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman of the Southern District of New York.
“Epstein created a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit, often on a daily basis,” Berman said at a press conference in announcing the charges. The crimes are alleged to have taken place from 2002 until at least 2005. If convicted, Epstein faced up to 45 years in prison.
Epstein was previously accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls in Florida in 2007. He avoided federal prison by striking a deal with state authorities that resulted in him being sentenced to 13 months in a county jail and registering as a sex offender. The sweetheart bargain, which allowed him to travel to his office six days a week, was obtained with help from then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, President Trump’s current Secretary of Labor. In July, Acosta announced his resignation after coming under fire for this.
Epstein’s indictment was possibly foreshadowed by Trump. During a question and answer session at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference, Sean Hannity asked candidate Trump to share his thoughts on Bill Clinton. “Nice guy,” Trump said, but he’s “got a lot of problems coming up, in my opinion, with the famous island with Jeffrey Epstein.” In February of this year, Trump’s Justice Department opened an internal review of how it previously handled Epstein’s accusers.
Aside from donating more than $140,000 to Democratic candidates since the 1990s and having close connections to A-list celebrities and powerful politicians across the world, Epstein owns several luxurious properties, including a 21,000-square foot Manhattan mansion and a private “Island of Sin” in the Caribbean. On that island prostitutes, underage girls, and “sex slaves” allegedly play out the sexual fantasies of the rich and famous. No one is quite sure how Epstein acquired his vast fortune.
Various high-profile people, including the late physicist Stephen Hawking, actor Dustin Hoffman, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Clinton himself – to name a few – have either visited the island or flown on Epstein’s “Lolita Express” jet, where it is believed debauched sex parties take place. Trump allegedly traveled on the plane at least once.
Clinton issued a statement after Epstein was charged, denying any knowledge of Epstein’s “terrible crimes,” claiming that he only took “a total of four trips on Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane” from 2002 until 2003.
One of Epstein’s alleged victims, Virginia Roberts-Giuffre, says she met Epstein at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate when she was just 16 years old.
Now in her thirties, Roberts-Giuffre has long claimed Epstein’s girlfriend at the time recruited her and groomed her to be part of his underground empire.
“It wasn’t just sexual training,” Roberts-Giuffre said, “they wanted me to be able to cater to all the needs of the men they were going to send me to..I was trained to be ‘everything a man wanted me to be.’”
Fox News commentator Alan Dershowitz, Epstein’s lawyer at the time, and Britain’s Prince Andrew were two of Epstein’s friends Roberts-Giuffre said she was forced to have sex with.
Both men have denied the allegations.
Prosecutors raided Epstein’s New York mansion last month and discovered “an extraordinary volume of photographs of nude and partially-nude young women or girls.” The photographs, stored on CDs, were locked in a safe and were of what appeared to be “underage girls,” according to authorities.
A 2006 police report revealed Epstein wired his home in Palm Beach, Florida with secret video cameras. Roberts-Giuffre says the cameras were installed so Epstein could record and ultimately blackmail his famous visitors while they engaged in orgies and other lurid behaviors.
Developing…