Jeffrey Epstein was strangled, not hanged in his New York prison cell, according to a doctor present at his post-mortem.
Dr Michael Baden has called for the cause of the paedophile’s death to be reinvestigated, almost seven years after he was found unresponsive at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on August 10, 2019.
He is unconvinced by the conclusion of the New York Medical Examiner’s Office that the American millionaire took his own life while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
‘My opinion is that his death was most likely caused by strangulation pressure rather than hanging,’ the pathologist, who was hired by the financier’s estate, told The Telegraph.
He added: ‘Given all the information now available, further investigation into the cause and manner of death is warranted.’
While the doctor did not carry out the post-mortem himself, he was present during the examination and acted as an observer on behalf of Epstein’s family.
‘At the time that the autopsy was done by the medical examiner, we both agreed that, on the basis of the autopsy report and the information available, more information was needed to determine the cause and manner of death,’ Dr Baden said.
Following the release of more than three million documents related to the late sex offender by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), more questions have been raised about the nature of Epstein’s death.
Buried deep in the latest tranche of files is never-before-seen footage revealing the moment prison guards found the paedophile’s corpse.
A video shows the outline of a prison guard approaching a desk near Epstein’s cell at 6.30am on the day of his death. Just 10 seconds later, the person then makes his way to the cell.
A little over a minute after this, a guard can be seen moving back and forth between the security desk, where he is shortly joined by two others, and the area housing Epstein’s cell.
The guards are then seen running between the two areas. Epstein was officially declared dead at 6.39am, abruptly halting one of the most closely watched federal criminal cases in recent memory.
But according to newly-released files, investigators noticed an orange shape moving up a staircase towards the financier’s cell on the night of his death.
Officials from the FBI and the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) flagged the suspicious CCTV footage, which may have been ‘an inmate’ walking up to the floor the notorious paedophile was being held on.
A report, from the OIG, noted that at 10.39pm on August 9, 2019, FBI agents observed that ‘a flash of orange looks to be going up the L Tier stairs – could possibly be an inmate escorted up to that Tier’.
Further documents reveal that authorities were in dispute about the cause of the unexplained ‘orange flash’.
While the FBI suspected it was another inmate, the Inspector General wrote: ‘Inmates are currently on lockdown, it is possible someone is carrying inmate linen or bedding up.’
The final report by the Inspector General stated: ‘At approximately 10.39pm, an unidentified CO [correctional officer] appeared to walk up the L Tier stairway, and then reappeared within view of the camera at 10.41pm.’
The analysis from the two investigative bodies contradicts public statements made by at least two top US officials.
Bill Barr, who was the US attorney general during Trump’s first term, claimed in a 2019 interview that he had personally reviewed security footage that confirmed that no one entered the area where Epstein was housed on the night he died.
And last May, former deputy director of the FBI Dan Bongino told Fox News: ‘There’s video clear as day. He’s the only person in there and the only person coming out. You can see it.’
He added shortly before the release of the video last August: ‘We are working on cleaning it up to make sure you have an enhanced [version] and we’re going to give the original so you don’t think there were any shenanigans.’
In light of new information, Dr Baden is pushing for further examination into the financier’s cause of death.
