Shortly before he hanged himself in his Manhattan jail cell, Jeffrey Epstein penned a letter from behind bars to another high-profile pedophile, Larry Nassar — but the note was never received by the disgraced US gymnastics team doctor.
The shocking development was included in 4,000 pages of documents obtained Thursday by the Associated Press that also offered an updated glimpse into Epstein’s declining mental health during his 36-day stint at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.
Epstein’s unopened letter to Nassar, who spent decades sexually abusing young girls, was discovered in the mail room of the since-shuttered lockup with a “return to sender” notice weeks after his suicide
“It appeared he mailed it out and it was returned back to him,” the investigator who found the letter told a prison official by email. “I am not sure if I should open it or should we hand it over to anyone?”
The contents of the letter were not among the documents the Associated Press received from the Bureau of Prisons under the Freedom of Information Act.
The documents did include a psychological reconstruction of Epstein’s death that shed light on the convicted pedophile’s behavior leading up to his Aug. 10, 2019 suicide.
He called himself a “coward” and whined he was struggling to adapt to life as a prisoner.
Two weeks before he died, prison officials reported that Epstein, 66, was sitting with a vacant expression on his face in the corner of his cell, tortured by the unending sound of a broken toilet that wouldn’t stop running.
Epstein was booked at the federally run prison on July 6, 2019. Within just 22 hours of his arrival, he was removed from the general population “due to the significant increase in media coverage and awareness of his notoriety among the inmate population,” according to the psychological reconstruction of his death.
He revealed during his health screening that he had 10-plus female sexual partners within the last five years.
According to medical records, he was suffering from sleep apnea, constipation, hypertension, lower back pain and prediabetes. He had also previously been treated for chlamydia.
Epstein appears to have tried to adapt to prison life initially, signing up for a Kosher meal plan and requesting through his lawyer permission to exercise outside, documents revealed. Just two days before his suicide, he even purchased $73.85 worth of items from the prison commissary — including an AM/FM radio and headphones, according to jail records.
Epstein complained about having to wear an orange jumpsuit like a “bad guy” and asked if he could wear a brown uniform during his near-daily visits with his lawyers.
But the financier’s mental state took a turn for the worse when a judge denied him bail on July 18, 2019, sending him back to prison ahead of his trial, where he was facing up to 45 years in prison if convicted on sex trafficking charges.
Four days later he was found on the floor of his cell with a bed sheet tied around his neck.
Epstein survived and his injuries did not warrant a visit to the hospital.
He was subsequently placed on suicide watch and later psychiatric observation, according to the documents.
In the days after his first suicide attempt, jail officers observed Epstein sitting with a blank stare at the edge of his bed and sitting “with his head against the wall.”
He complained about his lack of sleep and then the toilet in his cell stopped working.
“He was still left in the same cell with a broken toilet,” the jail’s chief psychologist wrote in a email the next day. “Please move him to the cell next door when he returns from legal as the toilet still does not work.”
The day before Epstein ended his life, a federal judge unsealed about 2,000 pages of documents in a sexual abuse lawsuit against him.
The night before his death, he excused himself from a meeting with his lawyers and said he had to make a phone call to his mother — who had been dead for 15 years, a jail employee wrote in a memo.
The prospect of losing his social status from the trial, lack of interpersonal connections and the “idea of potentially spending his life in prison were likely factors contributing to Mr. Epstein’s suicide,” officials wrote.
The guards who were responsible for watching over Epstein the night he died, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, both fell asleep during a two hour window while sitting at a desk just 15 feet away from Epstein’s cell.
They were charged with lying on prison log records, but copped prosecution deals that required them to admit their guilt, with the understanding that the charges against them would be dismissed if they followed the rules of their agreement for six months.
With Post wires
