August 19, 2019 --

Officials reported that Jeffrey Epstein, 66, hanged himself in his cell in a federal jail in Manhattan, the morning of August 10. News reports, as of August 12, do not provide details how Epstein had the means to commit suicide. He was held without bail on federal charges involving sex trafficking of underage girls. The New York Post, August 10 published a story reporting the names of well-known men who were disclosed, in a defamation action, t have had sex with one teen-aged girl, now an adult and the plaintiff in the defamation case. Epstein apparently was dead by the time the Post story was at newsstands. The New York Times July 7,in a story reporting Epstein's re-arrest, said that one girl told the FBI in 2007 of her encounters with Epstein when she was `15 and who "got the girl to bring other girls who worked with here at a local strip club" in Florida. Has any media outlet wondered about a 15-year old girl working at a strip club?

Epstein was apparently re-arrested as a result of a series in the Miami Herald on his relatively lenient sentence when he was first charged in Florida, in 2006, with sex offenses involving underage girls. At the time, he was sentenced to 13 months in jail, and allowed to go to his office six days a week. One of Epstein's victims, Courtney Wild, now 31, told the Miami paper, "'Jeffrey preyed on girls who were in a bad way, girls who were basically homeless.'" Epstein pleaded guilty to a charge of solicitation of prostitution involving a minor. The U.S. attorney who approved the original sentence was R. Alexander Acosta, labor secretary for President Trump. He resigned the labor post July 12, in the wake of Epstein's re-arrest.

Epstein had been denied bail and was to go on trial June 2020. That is to say, while only under indictment, he faced about a year in jail in Manhattan. The New York Post reported August 10 that one of Epstein's lawyers, Marc Fernich "ripped 'overzealous prosecutors,' 'pandering politicians' 'compliant judges' and a 'hysterical press corps,' as he laid blames Saturday for the convicted pedophile's apparent suicide in a federal lock-up."

Attorney General William Barr was quoted in The New York Times, August 11, as being "'appalled to learn that Jeffrey Epstein was found dead early this morning from an apparent suicide while in federal custody,'" adding, "'Mr. Epstein's death raises serious questions that must be answered." But will they be?