JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE FASCINATING CASE OF JEFFREY EPSTEIN'S DEATH - NEW DETAILS ABOUT PRISON SECURITY - AN IMPORTANT SECRET REVEALED ABOUT HIS ISLAND - HOW HIS PARTNER GHISLAINE MAXWELL DID HER WORK - EASY ASSUMPTIONS MADE BY A MAINLINE PRESS WHICH ASKS FEW QUESTIONS - YET ANOTHER SMALL REASON WHY HE WOULD NOT HAVE KILLED HIMSELF - MORE BIG-NAME EPSTEIN ASSOCIATES

John Chuckman


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN KIRIAKOU IN CONSORTIUM NEWS



“How a Suicide Watch Really Works

“If Jeffrey Epstein’s death turns out to have been self-inflicted, it would represent a complete breakdown in the system that was supposed to protect him”



John Kiriakou misses a few things here, and I would like to add new information which gives perspective to the events.

After Epstein was transferred to a cell with another prisoner, that prisoner was transferred out and not replaced. That seems rather odd behavior for a crowded and under-staffed facility.

Plus, there is the fact that we’re talking about an inmate recently taken off “suicide watch,” one who had a recent actual “attempt,” and not just any inmate but an extremely high-profile inmate, likely the most notorious prisoner in the country.

We know now that in the three hours before Epstein died, no checks on his cell were made, even though they are supposed to be made every thirty minutes at that facility.

The guards that were to have done the checks are now said to have fallen asleep, and it is claimed that afterward the log record was falsified to say they had indeed made the checks.

The wife of an inmate in the same facility has told reporters that security there was unbelievably strict. When she visited her husband, two guards and a senior officer were required just for his transfer to the visitors' center.

There is still no meaningful explanation for why there is no video of the period, just the flabby assertion that the system was out of order.

I tend somewhat to disagree with the author's assertion, "Epstein was likely a marked man from the minute he walked through the door."

The author's basis for saying that is the classic idea that in prisons, sex offenders are regarded as "the lowest of the low."And that line is very much being taken by the mainline press. It just happens also to have the publicity value of tarring the prisoner, rather than scrutinizing his treatment.

While I think it is absolutely true of the kind of person we usually think of when we read the words, "sex offender," as, say, someone who sexually assaults a young child, I'm not at all sure that it’s necessarily true of someone like Epstein. Prisoners are, of course, motivated by a sense that where they are forced to live cannot be regarded as a dumping ground for “scum.” There is a strict social hierarchy even in prisons.

Epstein did not regard himself as a "sex offender," at all. He would openly discuss the matter with others, even members of the press, saying society was hypocritical, just as it was in many places with homosexuality, and that his kind sexual activity, in earlier times, was common in our society.

Of course, we do know that once it was common for a fourteen-year old girl to be married. In Europe, a few centuries ago, girls of twelve were betrothed sometimes, and in royal circles. And that is still common in many poor countries with girls as young as twelve being married off by their families, as, for example, in parts of India. Neither did Epstein’s demi-monde family view him as a “sex offender,” including a list of notable characters, such as Robert Maxwell’s daughter who acted as a Madam for the many young women.

Neither, pretty clearly, did his bevy of famous friends and visitors, including former President Bill Clinton, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, former Sen George Mitchell (I was sorry to learn), Alan Dershowitz, Woody Allen, the Saudi Crown Prince (who, like Bill Clinton, made many trips), many Silicon Valley notables (including Bill Gates who flew on "the Lolita Express" at least once), Britain's Prince Andrew (many visits), Gov Richardson of New Mexico, (reportedly) former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and scores and scores of others.

I’m sure he was regarded as shady and salacious and off-color, but as a “sex offender”? With the sexual mores of our time? Explicit sex in advertising everywhere? Including images of either very young women or young-looking women used to sell and promote almost anything? Models and actresses and pop singers who starve themselves to appear very young and slight?

I am not sure that inmates would regard a man such as Epstein so much as a "sex offender" as a lucky man with the ladies, including very young ones. I don’t mean to minimize his offense of interfering in the lives of easily-manipulated young women, generally poor ones attracted by the offer of big money and high times, but I’m not sure that with the general public, and especially the shadier types in prison, things are quite so cut-and-dried. I just don’t know, but I think there is room for legitimate doubt.

As far as Ghislaine Maxwell is concerned, she is quoted in a story in Vanity Fair magazine, “When I asked what she thought of the underage girls, she looked at me and said, ‘they’re nothing, these girls. They are trash.’” The same story says Ghislaine’s method of recruiting young women for Epstein was to drive around to spas and trailer parks in Florida, offering them a job with good money. Obviously, she was quite successful. Ghislaine, herself, is said to have kept rail-thin, so that she appealed to Epstein.

We’ve also just learned another extremely important fact from Ghislaine Maxwell, one loaded with suggestion. Epstein’s private island was wired for video, literally everywhere, so that couples could not take off somewhere for a private get-together. If that doesn’t sound like an intelligence service’s elaborate “honey trap,” I don’t know what does.

Hard to see why Epstein and Company would record literally everyone, unless they were creating compromising material for potential blackmail or political pressure. Who would be interested in videos of a number homely, older men making love to young women, other than a blackmailer or a spy agency? But we have no evidence or even suggestion of blackmail. Many of Epstein’s big-shot friends remained his friends for many years, returning for visits again and again.

But there are suggestions, in the way his case was handled by prosecutors for his conviction in 2008 and the highly unorthodox sentencing he received, of some kind of powerful outside influence at work. There’s just no question about that. And, of course, his sentence allowed a complete return to the same arrangements he had had in New York to just continue on a private island, perhaps only adding a certain new sense of exotic adventure for visitors.

I think there are many elements in the whole story suggesting Epstein’s connection with an intelligence agency, the most likely one being Mossad. I say that because “honey-traps” seem to have been a favored technique of that agency. Even with what little we generally hear about such secret matters, we’ve had some well-publicized cases involving them. Including, famously, the entrapment of atomic weapons whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu, and the work of Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli Minister who is said to have worked earlier on entrapping men who were to be assassinated. She was for some period wanted in Europe on war-crime charges.



One small additional thought about why I cannot accept that Epstein committed suicide, apart from what I have written about his nature and personality and conditions at the facility.

This was a wealthy and well-connected man. Had he gone trial, things could have been stretched out for years with the best lawyers.

Why should he kill himself before any effort had even been made?



Readers may enjoy these other observations:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/08/13/john-chuckman-comment-some-new-observations-on-the-death-of-jeffrey-epstein-why-i-believe-it-impossible-for-him-to-have-killed-himself-what-this-death-vividly-demonstrates-about-america/