AG William Barr secretly visited Manhattan jail weeks before Jeffrey Epstein's death, claims former mobster
Multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, 66, was visited by Attorney General William Barr after he was found unconscious in his jail cell with injuries to his neck just a few weeks before he died, claimed a New York mafia informant.
Epstein, a convicted sex offender, was being held in a cell at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) and was set to go to trial on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors in Florida and New York before he was found dead in his jail cell in the early hours of Saturday, August 10.
Following his death, Barr, whose jurisdiction the MCC falls under, released a statement where he said he was "appalled" by Epstein's death. Barr said his death "raises serious questions that must be answered."
Barr said that, in addition to the FBI's investigation, he had consulted with the Justice Department's inspector general, who also would be opening an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Epstein's death.
Meanwhile, Lewis Kasman, a former mobster and top associate of John Gotti Sr., who used to regularly visit Gotti Sr. at the MCC in the '90s, told the New York Post that Barr had personally visited the jail two weeks ago.
"When does that happen?" he said. "The attorney general never visits jails. Something’s not right there."
He said the MCC was "totally disgusting — worse than Guantanamo Bay" and that "there are roaches crawling all over you — in every orifice — when you sleep."
If Kasman's claims are to be believed, then Barr's visit would have come at around the same time that Epstein was found unconscious in his jail cell with injuries to his neck.
The incident was ruled as a suicide attempt and Epstein was placed on suicide watch after the incident but was cleared after just six days by psychologists with the Bureau of Prisons and allowed to return to his cell.
The Washington Post cited a source who said that "people close to Epstein" believe that his death was the result of “foul play.”
We also previously reported that guards in charge of the 66-year-old's unit failed to follow protocols leading up to his death—it was mandated that he be checked every 30 minutes following his suicide attempt, but that didn't happen the night before.
Kasman similarly said he wouldn't be surprised if there were other forces at play because the MCC "for years had issues of corruption."
"If he killed himself someone had to have helped him," he said. "There are cameras going 24/7 and they’re watching 24/7. Someone had to give [Epstein] the equipment to kill himself and he had to pay for it dearly."