In an AM Update exclusive, the brother of Jeffrey Epstein reacted to FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino’s declaration that the disgraced financier’s cause of death was indeed by suicide.
Where the FBI Stands
Last week, the FBI’s top two officials both said they believe Epstein did, in fact, kill himself in his jail cell. It was a surprising revelation given that Patel and Bongino were not shy about demanding answers in the Epstein case prior to accepting their government roles. They vocally called for the release of the so-called “Epstein List” and blamed Republicans in Congress for not doing more to release it.
Now that they are number one and two at the FBI, however, they are not mincing words. They said they looked at all the facts surrounding the determination Epstein took his own life and there is zero evidence to the contrary.
“As someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor, who’s been in that prison system, who’s been in the Metropolitan Detention Center, who’s been in segregated housing, you know a suicide when you see one and that’s what that was,” Patel told Maria Bartiromo on Fox News.
Bongino struck a similar tone. “He killed himself,” he said in the same interview. “I’ve seen the whole file. He killed himself.”
The Autopsy
Epstein died in prison in August 2019, weeks after he was arrested on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges. At the time, the Department of Justice said it was death by suicide. But that claim was doubted by many, including Epstein’s brother, Mark Epstein, who told AM Update he still has more questions than answers.
“I’d like to see what they have seen to make them come to that determination. Because everybody that’s seen the facts that I’ve been able to get my hands on thinks it was a homicide,” Mark Epstein shared. “People that did the actual autopsy, they came out of the autopsy room saying that they couldn’t call it a suicide because it looked too much like a homicide.”
“And then a few days later, Dr. [Barbara] Sampson, who was the chief pathologist in New York, she determines it was a suicide and has yet to determine or to state what made her come to that conclusion after the two pathologists that actually did the autopsy couldn’t call it a suicide,” he continued. “The day of the autopsy and the initial death certificate, the cause of death said ‘pending further study.’ Most pathologists I talk to say that when it says ‘pending further study,’ you usually don’t get an answer for weeks because they’re studying, they’re investigating. What study was done for her to change it?”
Mark Epstein hired famed pathologist Dr. Michael Baden to conduct an autopsy of his brother. Baden said the findings were more consistent with homicide than with suicide. However, the New York City Chief medical officer concluded it was a suicide; that Epstein hanged himself.
Missing Pieces
Mark has not made any requests of the second Trump administration, but he told AM Update his many previous asks over the years have gone unfulfilled.
“Why I can’t get the video footage that I’m requesting? Why I can’t get the medical records from the hospital? I’m the next of kin. I’m the only next of kin,” he noted. “These medical records should be available to me.
“What happened to the PCR report? We know the EMTs were there because there’s a photograph of them taking Jeff out of the prison on a gurney. They take him to the hospital and he’s intubated. He has a neck brace on and he’s intubated,” he continued. “Now we know from the autopsy he was dead for at least two hours. So, the question is, why were they putting on the charade to make it look like he was alive or revivable? None of this makes sense.”
The camera inside the cell block where Epstein was kept was mysteriously not functioning at the time of the death, though officials said it had been broken since before Epstein was housed there. The guards outside of the cell said they were surfing the web and later fell asleep rather than checking on the inmate every 30 minutes as required.
Mark’s Theory
Bongino recently said there is videotape that shows no one entered or even approached Epstein’s cell and that Epstein was clearly alone that night. He promised it would be released to the public soon. But Mark Epstein has another theory.
“The tier is you go into a door and you face like a long corridor, and you can see four cells on either side of the corridor. There’s four on the left, four on the right,” he said. “Jeff was alone in his cell, and I don’t think all the other cells were full. So, I think there were somewhere like 11 or 12 other inmates.”
“What I would like to know is: Who they are, when did they get there, and where are they now? Because if Jeff was killed, he was either killed by somebody on the tier or he was killed by the unnamed guards when they locked up the tier at 10 o’clock at night,” he continued. “And I’ve been told through a source that cell doors were left unlocked that night. Somebody could have went from one cell to another, killed somebody, and gone back into their cell, and it was done. You didn’t have to go in and out of the tier.”
Additional Video
Mark is also seeking video from the infirmary where Epstein’s body was taken after he was found unresponsive. “They were supposed to get the medical examiner there, but they violated all codes and they moved him to the infirmary,” he explained. “I also would like to see the video footage by the infirmary because we know there are cameras all over that place. Who was directing the show there?”
“When I asked for that footage, they initially told me they couldn’t give it to me because it was part of an ongoing investigation. That was a few years ago,” he recalled. “Now that the investigation is over, now they’re saying that the cameras that were working don’t show that area. That’s the last excuse I got.”
“First, they couldn’t show it to me because it was part of the investigation. And now the last comment was, the cameras don’t show that area,” he added. “This doesn’t pass the laugh test.”
AM Update reached out to the FBI for comment but did not hear back. We will update the story as soon as the video Bongino teased is made public.
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