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Jeffrey Epstein boasted of spurious celebrity connections, documents show

Court document released Wednesday confirmed some celebrity connections but also showed late sex offender’s flimsy braggadocio

While Jeffrey Epstein counted many rich and powerful men among his associates –including Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew – a court document released on Wednesday suggests the late financier so craved proximity to celebrity that he made spurious boasts about relationships with Hollywood A-listers.

Johanna Sjoberg, an accuser of the late sex offender and financier, claimed in a deposition that he liked to talk about knowing movie stars, such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett, and that these statements appeared to come across as flimsy braggadocio.

A lawyer asked Sjoberg: “I saw one press report that said you had met Cate Blanchett or Leonardo DiCaprio?”

“I did not meet them, no,” she replied. “When I spoke about them, it was when I was massaging him [Epstein], and he would get off – he would be on the phone a lot at that time, and one time he said: ‘Oh, that was Leonardo,’ or, ‘That was Cate Blanchett, or Bruce Willis.’ That kind of thing.”

“So name-dropping?” the lawyer pressed.

Sjoberg replied: “Yes.”

“So you had not met Cate Blanchett or Leonardo DiCaprio?”

“I have not,” Sjoberg said under further questioning.

“Would you remember if you had?”

“I would hope I would remember,” she said.

“What about Cameron Diaz?” the lawyer pressed.

“No.”

A representative for Leonardo DiCaprio denied any calls between him and Epstein. A representative for Diaz said: “Cameron never met Jeffrey Epstein, nor was she ever in the same place as him or had any association with him whatsoever, regardless of the fact he may or may not have mentioned her name or implied that he knew her.” A representative for Blanchett said that she had never met nor had any calls with Epstein. Representatives for Willis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The deposition was part of Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre’s defamation lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking related to abuse of young girls by Epstein. Maxwell met Epstein in summer 1991, after she moved to New York around the time her father purchased the New York Daily News.

Sjoberg said that the British publishing heiress lured her into Epstein’s dark web.

While Giuffre settled her lawsuit against Maxwell in 2017, tranches of long-sealed documents in the case have been unsealed over the past several years. Their release stemmed from the Miami Herald and other media organizations’ efforts to make public the filings.

The documents’ discussion of Epstein’s ties to high-profile figures largely reiterate what has already been reported about his cronies, and shed some light on how he wanted to leverage connections. In one document, Epstein told Maxwell to invoke some prominent figures as a defense against Giuffre’s allegations of wrongdoing.

Epstein suggested that an interaction with the late, famous British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking could help clear her, for example. Hawking went to dinner on Epstein’s private isle in the US Virgin Islands in 2006, after participating in a conference on a neighboring island, per prior reports.

“You can issue a reward to any of virginias friends acquaionts family that come forward and help prove her allegations are false the strongest is the clinton dinner, and the new version in the virgin isalnds that stven hawking partica-ted in an underage orgy [sic],” Epstein said in an email to Maxwell.

While Epstein’s proclamations about some celebrities appear questionable, he did associate with numerous entertainers. Sjoberg’s deposition claimed that the late pop star Michael Jackson was at Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion, and that she met the famed illusionist David Copperfield at one of Epstein’s homes.

“Did you ever meet anybody famous when you were with Jeffrey? Sjoberg was asked. “I met Michael Jackson … at [Epstein’s] house in Palm Beach,” she responded, according to the court documents, referring to Epstein’s estate in the exclusive south Florida city.

Sjoberg said “I did not” when asked whether she gave Jackson a massage. Sjoberg said that Copperfield attended dinner and “did some magic tricks”.

“Did you observe David Copperfield to be a friend of Jeffrey Epstein’s?” she was asked. Sjoberg replied in the affirmative.

“Did Copperfield ever discuss Jeffrey’s involvement with young girls with you?” she was also asked.

“He questioned me if I was aware that girls were getting paid to find other girls,” Sjoberg said.

Copperfield, she said in the deposition, didn’t tell her anything more specific related to that matter. “Did he say whether they were teenagers or anything along those lines?” she was also asked.

“He did not,” she said.

Reports predating the documents’ release indicate that the actors Kevin Spacey and comedian Chris Tucker traveled with Epstein on his private plane during a tour of Africa.

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Jeffrey Epstein’s brother lists the evidence he claims feds are covering up about pedophile’s death

https://nypost.com/2024/01/09/news/jeffrey-epsteins-brother-claims-feds-covering-up-death-evidence/

 

Epstein #EpsteinList #Epsteinadasi #EpsteinClientList EpsteinIsland EpsteinFiles EpsteinDocs

Despite being the most high-profile prisoner in the US, Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in federal custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York on August 10, 2019.

The financier, awaiting trial on charges of sex-trafficking underage girls, was found in his cell just after 6:30 a.m., having apparently used a length of orange bedsheet tied to the cell’s bunk bed to hang himself.

Throughout the previous night, cameras in the Secure Housing Unit where Epstein was being held weren’t recording, prison guards slept and Epstein was left without a cellmate despite prison psychologists’ direct orders.

Then-Attorney General Bill Barr would later call the situation a “perfect storm of screw-ups.”

Within a week, a medical examiner had ruled the death a suicide, meaning no further investigation was required. Eventually, a 128-page report was produced by the Department of Justice which concluded prison staff made errors and blamed “long-standing operational challenges” for Epstein’s death.

However, some have consistently challenged the official version of events, including Epstein’s brother, Mark, 69, who is campaigning for more information to be made public — including video from the cell block.

I only want to look at facts, but when we consider the facts available, we get more questions,” the property developer told The Post.

“There appears to have been no investigation once it was ruled a suicide, they saw no reason to dig deeper.

“It seems like a cover-up. Why can’t I find his pre-hospital care report and why can’t I get the 911 call?”

Follow along with everything we’ve found out about Jeffrey Epstein and his associates.

The following is a compilation of publicly available information about Epstein’s death as well as findings from Mark’s four-year investigation:

The autopsy

Two medical examiners were present for Epstein’s autopsy, Dr. Kristin Roman and Dr. Michael Baden. The latter was sent by Mark to independently oversee the procedure.

They agreed to list the manner of death as “pending,” saying further investigation was required.

That was overruled a week later by New York Chief Medical Examiner Barbara Samson, who changed it to suicide.

Samson said she had seen “additional evidence,” but has never said what that evidence was.

Baden said Epstein had two breaks on each side of his thyroid cartilage near his Adam’s apple, and one above it on the left side of his hyoid bone, which were “extremely unusual in suicidal hangings” and “could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation.”

Baden added: “I’ve not seen in 50 years where that occurred in a suicidal hanging case.”

In addition, no photo was taken of the position of Epstein’s body when he was found — which multiple medical examiners have agreed is a key piece of evidence in determining exactly how he died. 

Autopsy photos show the marks on Epstein’s throat from the ligature were in the middle to lower portion of the neck, and straight, not raised and pointing toward the side and back of the throat in a way more consistent with hanging.

Epstein’s cell

The Department of Justice’s investigation into Epstein’s death says he was found “suspended from the top bunk in a near-seated position, with his buttocks approximately 1 inch to 1 inch and a half off the floor” and his legs in front of him.

This means most of his bodyweight was hanging on the ligature around his neck.

The guard who found him, Michael Thomas, claimed both that he ripped the sheet and that he cut it, then began chest compressions until prison medics arrived.

Two nooses were found in the cell, according to the CBS show “60 Minutes.”

The noose taken as evidence was not the one the prison guard ripped or cut from Epstein’s body.

The submitted and photographed noose was a whole piece of cloth with a hemmed edge and no staining or fluids, despite allegedly being around Epstein’s neck when he died.  

In photos of Epstein’s cell, his sleep apnea machine can be seen — which Mark points out has an electrical cord that would have been easier to use to hang himself than a sheet. 

Emergency medical technicians (EMTs) who attended the scene were not interviewed, which is standard protocol in such cases.

Especially in high-profile cases, EMTs and hospital staff are interviewed by police, but in this case, none were. In addition, a pre-hospital care report for Epstein “can’t be found,” according to hospital staff.       

The autopsy showed Epstein was dead for at least two hours before he was found, and possibly up to six hours.

However, despite clearly being deceased, he was transferred to a hospital and placed in a hospital gown on a gurney.

Meanwhile, the 911 call made from the prison and its contents have also never been released.

Inmates and evidence

On July 23, while Epstein was in jail, guards were called to the cell he shared with former cop and now-convicted killer of four Nicholas Tartaglione due to an incident in which he had sustained neck injuries.

Following the incident, Epstein told prison staff he had been attacked by his cellmate. He later said he “did not remember” how he got the injuries and refused to speak further about it.

After the incident, on July 30, the prison psychology department said Epstein must have a cellmate at all times and was to be monitored.

The new cellmate, Efrain “Stone” Reyes, was assigned but transferred out of MCC to another facility less than 24 hours before Epstein’s death.

Reyes told his family Epstein seemed “depressed” and “didn’t want to live anymore,” according to the New York Daily News, which also quoted another inmate who said Epstein “was saying he’s going to kill himself because the government is trying to kill him anyway.”

Video evidence from the night of Epstein’s death was “limited.”

According to the Department for Justice’s investigation, “Recorded video evidence for Aug. 9 and 10 for the SHU area where Epstein was housed was only available from one prison security camera due to a malfunction of MCC New York’s Digital Video Recorder system.”

However, it also notes that “between approximately 10:40 p.m. on August 9 and about 6:30 a.m. on August 10, no one was seen entering Epstein’s cell tier from the SHU common area.”   

Despite Freedom of Information Act requests being filed, the footage from the working camera, particularly showing when Epstein’s body was removed from the tier in the morning, has never been released to the public.

Sleeping guards

Prison guards Tova Noel and Michael Thomas were stationed 15 feet from Epstein’s cell.

However, they fell asleep and did not check on prisoners in the Secure Housing Unit at all on August 9, the night Epstein died.

They later admitted to falsifying records that said they had completed the checks. 

Both were federally indicted, but struck a deal whereby, in exchange for admitting their guilt and cooperating with the federal probe into Epstein’s death, the charges were dropped.

Neither has ever spoken publicly about Epstein or what happened that night. 

The indictment against the officers also lists the presence of two other prison guards, “Officer-1” and “Officer-2,” who were also on duty during at least part of their shift and were supposed to accompany Noel on her rounds. Their identities have never been released.

Mark says he has nothing to gain from his brother’s death, was not a part of his will and has incurred legal fees and had to spend money to protect his family since 2019.  

“They had a hearing which was coming up a few days after his death to appeal the bail restrictions … why would Jeffrey kill himself a few days before that hearing? Because if he got bail, he’d be out of jail, awaiting trial in his house with an ankle monitor,” he told investigative journalist Declan Hill on his “Crimewaves” podcast.

“Why kill yourself then? If bail was denied again, then I could understand it.

“Believe me, it would have been easier if [the pathologists] had come out and said, ‘It looks like a suicide,’ then I could put this whole issue behind me,” he added.