Jeffrey Epstein found dead in Manhattan jail cell, FBI investigating
Officials found Jeffrey Epstein dead in his jail cell Saturday morning. The disgraced and well-connected financier was charged with running an underage sex ring.
NEW YORK - UPDATE (11:09 A.M.): The Associated Press reports that the FBI is investigating Epstein's apparent suicide.
Disgraced multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls, was found dead early Saturday morning inside his Manhattan jail cell.
The 66-year-old Epstein died at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City weeks after he was arrested of multiple child sex-trafficking charges, sources confirmed to Fox News.
Law enforcement sources told Fox News that he was transported out of the prison around 6:30 a.m. New York Downtown and was dead on arrival.
The initial call to the jail was cardiac arrest. There was no immediate confirmation on how he died, but multiple reports said Epstein died by suicide.
Epstein's attorney Martin Weinberg told Fox News on Saturday that he could not "confirm the rumor" that his client had killed himself.
JEFFREY EPSTEIN PLEADS NOT GUILTY AFTER SEX TRAFFICKING ARREST.
The medical examiner's office in Manhattan confirmed Epstein's death to the Associated Press.
The death comes two weeks after the 66-year-old was placed on suicide watch after he was found nearly unconscious in his cell with injuries to his neck. At the time, it was not clear whether the injuries were self-inflicted or from an assault.
Epstein was busted July 6 over the alleged sexual abuse of dozens of young girls in his Upper East Side townhouse and his waterfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida between 2002 and 2005
Epstein allegedly created and maintained a “vast network” and operation from 2002 “up to and including” at least 2005 that enabled him to “sexually exploit and abuse dozens of underage girls” in addition to paying victims to recruit other underage girls. Prosecutors said that victims would be escorted to a room with a massage table where they would perform massages on Epstein.
At the time of Epstein's arrest, prosecutors said they found a trove of pictures of nude and seminude young women and girls at his $77 million Manhattan mansion. They also say additional victims have come forward since the arrest.
He has pleaded not guilty and faced up to 45 years in prison if convicted.
His death also comes a day after thousands of documents were unsealed Friday in connection with a defamation cause against his alleged recruiter that revealed dozens of high-profile names including former Maine Sen. George Mitchell, ex-New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Prince Andrew, Duke of York.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who has long claimed Epstein forced her to have sex with powerful men, claimed in the lawsuit that Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, kept her as a "sex slave" in the early 200s when she was underage.
Giuffre claimed in the unsealed May 2016 deposition to have been trafficked to have sex with and provide erotic massages to powerful politicians, foreign leaders, and well-heeled businessmen.
Her attorney, Brad Edwards, reacted to Epstein's apparent suicide on Saturday, telling Fox News it was "unfortunate and predictable."
"The fact that Jeffrey Epstein was able to commit the selfish act of taking his own life as his world of abuse, exploitation, and corruption unraveled in both unfortunate and predictable," he said in a statement. "While we engaged in contentious legal battles for more than a decade, this is not the ending anyone was looking for."
He continued: "The victims deserved to see Epstein held accountable, and he owed it to everyone he hurt to accept responsibility for all of the pain he caused. It is never too late to come forward with information. We will continue to represent his victims and will not stop in their pursuit of finality and justice."
Epstein's arrest drew national attention, particularly focusing on a deal that allowed Epstein to plead guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida and avoid more serious federal charges.
Federal prosecutors in New York reopened the probe after investigative reporting by The Miami Herald stirred outrage over that plea bargain.
But his lawyers maintained that the new charges brought by federal prosecutors in New York were covered by the deal and were improper. They said he hasn't had any illicit contact with underage girls since serving his 13-month sentence in Florida.
Before his legal troubles, Epstein led a life of extraordinary luxury that drew powerful people into his orbit.
He socialized with princes and presidents and lived on a 100-acre private island in the Caribbean and one of the biggest mansions in New York. A college dropout, he became a sought-after benefactor of professors and scientists, donating millions of dollars in donations to Harvard University and other causes.
Still, it was never entirely clear how the middle-class Brooklyn math whiz became a Wall Street master of high finance.
Fox News' Bryan Llenas, Robert Gearty, Brooke Singman, Travis Fedschun, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.