Jeffrey Epstein's revenge

Jeffrey Epstein's mugshot. (Public domain)

So New York woke up this morning to the news that Jeffrey Epstein, accused procurer of adolescent girls to the rich and politically connected, was dead, evidently of suicide.

Somehow — despite a previous suicide attempt, despite reports that he was severely depressed, despite his irreplaceable value as a potential witness in the statutory rape and child abuse trials of others — Epstein managed to hang himself.

Or so we’re told.

By some bizarre coincidence, despite his suicide attempt only days before, he was not under suicide watch, according to a report by the New York Times. And even if he was under suicide watch, the watch wasn’t particularly attentive.

Either way this smacks, at the very least, of gross negligence by the people who administer the Metropolitan Correctional Center. But it is almost a guarantee that for weeks, years, decades after Epstein’s death, conspiracy theorists will be having a field day. There’s a rich lode of questions they can ask, and conspiracies they can imply.

Was taking him off suicide watch a deliberate attempt to make certain his suicide happened?

Is there a coverup for a forced murder-by-hanging, in attempt to silence Epstein before he could reveal whom, among his storied “friends” and clients, he had provided with nubile 14 and 15-year-olds?

Are the prison system and the government now so corrupt that they are can be instructed by somebody at the very top to permit a suicide, or to commit a murder?

Whether Epstein’s suicide was real, or simply encouraged, or faked by murderers, it is the worst thing that could happen to people who were in his various social circles in Florida, New York, the Caribbean, and Paris.

Charges might never have been brought against some of these men. Or charges might have been brought but refuted, in some cases. But rumors fueled by conspiracy theories never die. 

Fifty-six years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, theories and beliefs in a hidden hand behind Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, still circulate. Fifty years after Epstein’s death, there will still be whispers about whom Epstein supplied with teen-agers, and in particular about Donald Trump.

So if somebody very powerful did arrange for Epstein’s death, that person made a grave misstep.

No doubt, some low- or mid-level functionary at the New York Metropolitan Correction Center will be found, scapegoated, and punished for the sins of the rich and powerful. Or simply for the incompetence of the prison system. No doubt, somebody will declare that’s the end of it, even as civil suits get launched against some — but not all — of the powerful predators.

And no doubt that fifty years from today, there will still be theories, books, accusations, and panel discussions about who really did what in the case of Jeffrey Epstein.

Which means that, although he is dead, he will not go away. He will never go away. His ghost is hungry for revenge, and that hunger never can be satisfied.

Some very uncomfortable men may have simply wished for the death of Jeffrey Epstein.

As the old maxim goes, be careful what you wish for.

Cross-posted at The New York Crank