OpEd by Brian Cates
On Saturday morning, August 10th, supposed billionaire and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was reportedly found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center [MCC] in Lower Manhattan.
Given the fact that Epstein had attempted suicide just over a week earlier, a media firestorm erupted over how a prisoner who was assumed to have been under a 24 hours a day suicide watch managed to kill himself.
It's now being reported that it was Epstein's own lawyers who requested to MCC officials that Epstein be removed from suicide watch. It is hard to believe that Epstein's lawyers would make this request if their own client had not demanded it.
If this report from the Wall Street Journal is accurate, it certainly begins to look like the person chiefly responsible for Jeffrey Epstein being dead is....Jeffrey Epstein.
There has been much speculation in the media as to if Epstein really killed himself or if he was murdered. I've no interest in diving into either side of that divide. Instead I've decided to devote this column to something proveable:
The fact that Epstein being dead changes very little going forward. That fact might suprise a whole lot of people who buy into the popular narratives, but hear me out.
This idea is fostered by some in the media that Epstein had all kinds of deep dark secrets in his head that only he knew, and he was driving a hard bargain with the prosecutors to get the best possible deal for himself before he spilled his guts. Now that he's dead, he'll never talk and so the case is over.
This is a far cry from the reality of situation Epstein actually found himself in.
Understand this: there was an AIRTIGHT case against Epstein back in 2008. He and every one of his co-conspirators should've been tossed ass-first into a jail cell years ago. The entire REASON there is an Epstein scandal is that orders came down from above for the prosecutors in Florida to **ignore that airtight case** and let all these criminals go free.
That the case against Epstein and his cohorts was not pursued in 2008 is the scandal that the SDNY Public Corruption Unit is investigating. That's another thing people need to understand: this investigation isn't being run by the Sex Crimes unit or a the human/sex trafficking unit. It's being run by the PUBLIC CORRUPTION UNIT.
What does the Public Corruption Unit in the Southern District of New York spend it's time doing? What kind of investigations do they do and what kind of targets do they pursue?
Well here's what the official website for the US Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York/Criminal Division says about the Public Corruption Unit:
The Public Corruption Unit works, in close partnership with the FBI and other federal, state and city investigative agencies to maintain and protect the integrity of all levels of government. The unit oversees the investigation and prosecution of corruption crimes committed by elected and appointed officials, government employees, and individuals and companies doing business with the city, state, and federal government. Corruption crimes investigated by the unit include bribery, embezzlement, and frauds committed against local, state, and federal government agencies. [emphasis added]
Jeffrey Epstein NEVER held elected office. He was never any kind of public official, nor is there any record he was a contractor doing business with the government. So why is this Esptein investigation being run out of the SDNY PCU?
Because the real target of the investigation is the PUBLIC OFFICIALS who engaged in MASSIVE CORRUPTION not only back in 2008, but ever since then. They not only covered up the extent of Epstein's crimes in 2008, they kept a lid on it and made sure he was allowed to roam free in the 11 years since.
Prosecutors didn't really didn't need any more evidence on Epstein or his fellow perverts and criminals. They had all THAT back in 2008. Anything else they collected since then was just establishing what they already knew: these people belong in prison.
So it's been pretty clear to me ever since I read Julie Brown's expose of the Epstein scandal in the Miami Herald that this investigation being run out of the SDNY PCU wasn't really about Epstein himself as much as it is about his co-conspirators and the corrupt officials who let them all go despite a mountain of evidence.
They merely rolled their investigation out publicly on July 6 by arresting Epstein. That was only the first move. His co-conspirators and then the public officials who caused this massive scandal will be next.
Both Attorney General William Barr and the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman have stated in the strongest terms possible that the case will go forward and Epstein's fellow criminals should extremely worried.
Epstein's death did not significantly damage the investigation. Narratives that a whole bunch of trails just went cold and now can't be pursued because Epstein died without talking and cooperating are just that: narratives.
The feds have everything. They don’t need any names from him. They don’t need him to lead them to any evidence.
They already had all the names. They already have all the evidence. If they didn’t have it back in 2008, they got it last month in the raid of Epstein’s mansion in New York.
Epstein had taken his last breath as a free man and he knew it. He was right to be scared, and it's likely why he killed himself.
Instead of being relieved, I'm pretty sure all of Epstein's co-conspirators are even more afraid right now. And they should be.
