What the inspector general reconstructed.
On 9 August a federal appeals court released about 2,000 pages from Virginia Giuffre’s old lawsuit against Maxwell. Epstein spent the day with his lawyers. That day his cellmate was transferred out, and no one was assigned to replace him, despite the instruction. At about 7 pm, against policy, a unit manager let him make an unmonitored call he said was to his mother; she had died years earlier, and the call was to someone with whom he had a personal relationship. [1]
He was locked in his cell around 8 pm. The officers on duty, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, did not do the 10 pm, midnight, 3 am or 5 am counts or the 30-minute rounds, and signed forms saying they had. The OIG found his cell held an excessive amount of linens, some torn into nooses. At about 6:30 am, delivering breakfast, they found him hanged from the top bunk with a strip of orange cloth, almost seated, his buttocks an inch or so above the floor. [1][2]
The cameras had problems since 29 July; the fault was found on 8 August and not fixed. The camera at the end of his tier showed a live feed but was not recording. One camera that was recording showed the common area and part of the stairway to his tier. It showed no one going up to any tier between about 10:40 pm and 6:30 am. [1]
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