Jeffrey Epstein's brother remains convinced the financier was murdered, calling new DOJ report 'blatant bullshit'
Jacob Shamsian Jun 28, 2023
Mark Epstein, his brother, isn't convinced.
"He got either punched or a karate chop into the neck by whoever killed him," he told Insider.
When Mark Epstein saw the four-years-in-the-making Justice Department report into his brother's death on Tuesday, he seethed in disbelief.
"It doesn't make sense. Could you get that through your fucking head? It doesn't make sense," Epstein told Insider. "Pardon my language, but I got a lot of calls today and I've lost my patience for the people that listen to this shit and don't ask the right questions."
On Tuesday morning, the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General published its long-awaiting report into Jeffrey Epstein's death. Epstein — a wealthy financier who ran in the same circles as Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Prince Andrew — was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell the morning of August 10, 2019, while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
His death was a scandal for the Bureau of Prisons, which oversaw the Manhattan jail. It was also a blow to his many victims, who had seen him evade justice over and over again.
Epstein's body was examined by Kristen Roman, a medical examiner for the city of New York. Mark Epstein hired Michael Baden, a famed forensic pathologist, to oversee the four-hour procedure.
They came away with different conclusions. Baden still had questions about how Epstein's body was found. He believed the ligatures on Epstein's neck and the pattern of broken bones were more consistent with homicide — not suicide by hanging with a bedsheet. Roman was inconclusive, though her boss later ruled the death a suicide while offering little additional explanation to the public.
The absence of information, and Epstein's connections with powerful people, bred theories that Epstein was murdered in his jail cell. Tuesday's 122-page report from the inspector general's office, which is statutorily protected from the political winds, was supposed to be the final word.
Mark Epstein isn't persuaded.
"There's a lot of really blatant bullshit things there," he said.
'He got either punched or a karate chop into the neck by whoever killed him'
Michael Thomas, the guard who found Jeffrey Epstein dead, said the financier's body was "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 extended out straight on the floor," according to the report.
But the marks from the noose, fashioned from a torn orange bedsheet, were on the lower part of Epstein's neck.
Mark Epstein called that part of the report "a glaring fuck up." He told Insider that, if Jeffrey Epstein really died in that position, the noose would have ridden up the neck and looped up near his ears.
"The pictures I have from the autopsy showed that the noose mark was lower on his neck and it was more straight back as opposed to riding up in the back towards his ears," Mark Epstein said. "So he couldn't have been hanging that way, as they say, and leaving this mark on his neck."
"Also, if he was hanging from the way they said, that doesn't match up to where the broken bones are in his neck," he added.
Epstein theorized that the marks came from someone who punched or karate-chopped his brother in the neck.
"What most likely happened is that those marks are probably because he got either punched or a karate chop into the neck by whoever killed him," Epstein said. "Because that's a technique they use to incapacitate people that they're going to eliminate. That makes much more sense."
Epstein noted that the inspector general's office, in all its four years of working on the report, never asked Baden for an interview.
The report, however, notes that investigators spoke directly to Roman. She concluded that the hemorrhages, blood flow, and skin marks on Epstein's neck and face were more consistent with suicide than strangulation. She also noted there was "no evidence of defensive wounds" if Epstein had fought off an attacker.
"Epstein did not have any marks on his hands (no broken fingernails, no debris under the fingernails, no contusions to his knuckles) that would have evidenced a fight, and, other than an abrasion on his arm likely due to convulsing from hanging, no bruising on his body," the Justice Department report says.
In an interview Tuesday night with Insider, Baden — who estimated he's conducted over a thousand autopsies on deaths in New York state jails and prisons over the past five decades — maintained that Epstein's injuries were more consistent with homicide than suicide. He also said a "karate blow" could have been the cause of his death.
"The autopsy findings are much more suggestive of homicidal manual strangulation or compression of the neck with being stepped on, or with a shoe or a knee," he said. "Or a karate blow can cause three fractures in the neck."
The report dispels a theory that another inmate killed Epstein
Mark Epstein has sought to conduct his own investigation into how his brother died. In addition to Baden, he hired an attorney to look into the death, Insider previously reported.
One element that's bothered Mark is that investigators never interviewed the emergency medical technicians who responded when Jeffrey Epstein was found dead, he said.
"The EMTs have said that, especially on high profile cases like this, they're always brought in and interviewed to debrief," Mark Epstein said. "They wanna know what exactly took place. Nobody has questioned the EMTs."
Tuesday's report says that EMTs performed CPR on Epstein, intubated him, administered medication to revive him, and transported his body in an ambulance to a hospital where he was found dead — but it does not say they were interviewed.
Mark Epstein said there are questions about the circumstances of his brother's death that he hopes those technicians could answer.
"They say that they found him in the morning and the guards tried to do CPR on him. Then the EMTs came and took him to the hospital," Epstein said. "They don't mention the fact that in between them finding him and the EMTs getting there, he was, his body was taken to the infirmary."
The report does, in fact, say that EMTs moved Epstein's body on a stretcher from his cell to the jail's Health Services Unit. Additional medical personnel arrived just four minutes later to move his body to the ambulance.
Mark Epstein has also previously floated the theory that the doors to Epstein's cell — and the other cells in the unit — were unlocked, opening the opportunity for another inmate to kill him.
According to the report, the doors were locked. Investigators also spoke to three other inmates in the cell block who could see directly into Epstein's cell from their own cells. None of them saw or heard anyone going in or out, according to the report.
Mark Epstein remains unconvinced.
"Did you never think maybe they were sleeping?" Epstein said. "This took place in the middle of the night."
