Warden at Epstein Jail Reassigned, Staffers Placed on Leave Pending Probe
A Department of Justice spokeswoman said Attorney General William Barr had directed the Bureau of Prisons to "temporarily assign" the warden to a regional office.
August 13, 2019 at 04:16 PM
2 minute read
The warden of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan has been reassigned and two jail staffers were placed on leave following the death of Jeffrey Epstein last weekend in federal custody, the U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday.
A DOJ spokeswoman said Attorney General William Barr had directed the Bureau of Prisons to “temporarily assign” the warden, identified by the BOP as Lamine N’Diaye, to a regional office, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the DOJ’s internal watchdog investigate Epstein’s apparent suicide while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.
FCI Otisville Warden James Petrucci would take over as acting warden at MCC, the spokeswoman said. Meanwhile, two staffers assigned to monitor Epstein at the time have been placed on administrative leave, pending the outcome of the investigations.
“Additional actions may be taken as the circumstances warrant,” spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement.
The move comes just one day after Barr said there were “serious irregularities” at the jail, which “demand a thorough investigation.”
“We will get to the bottom of what happened at the MCC and we will hold people accountable for this failure,” Barr said Monday during remarks to law enforcement in New Orleans.
Epstein was found unresponsive in his cell Aug. 10 in a special housing unit of MCC. Officials said he was treated on the scene and transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Epstein had been briefly placed on suicide watch nearly three weeks earlier, after a federal judge denied his request for bail, but was taken off sometime before his death. According to media reports, Epstein was supposed to be housed with a cellmate and monitored by guards every half hour; however, neither of those protocols appear to have been followed the day of his death.
Trial in his case had been tentatively set for summer 2020. If convicted, Epstein would have faced up to 45 years in prison.
The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 30,000 federal correctional workers through its Council of Prison Locals C-33, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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