The night before Jeffrey Epstein flew from Paris back to New York in July 2019, he called his younger brother, Mark. The pair had been in contact only occasionally since their mother died 15 years earlier and it was the last time they ever spoke.
Mark Epstein says his brother had no inkling he was going to be arrested as he stepped off his jet at Teterboro in New Jersey. He believed he had been granted immunity from federal prosecution under a 2007 plea deal reached with the then US attorney Alex Acosta when he pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting a minor.
Barely a month later, Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in a Manhattan jail cell. He had killed himself despite being under psychological observation at the time after a suicide attempt.
It was a sorry end to the quest for justice for Epstein’s victims but far from an end to the mystery, drama and intrigue that surrounds Epstein’s story – and the powerful figures who wined and dined and partied with him across the world. That drama would continue through the trial and conviction of his confidante Ghislaine Maxwell and even through the release this month of thousands of once-sealed court documents about the case.
But still the mystery remains. Not least – for Mark Epstein anyway – the manner of his brother’s death.
Mark Epstein doesn’t accept the justice department report that found jail officials guilty of negligence, misconduct and outright job performance failures, but also found no evidence that his death was anything but suicide.
“I would like a full investigation of his death. If you look at all the evidence, including the autopsy, the photographs of his body, the bullshit DOJ report that is filled with inaccuracies, you would never come up with the conclusion that this was a suicide – but based on what?” he said.
The sexual, political and financial corruption at the heart of the Epstein story has left a trail of ruined lives and reputations. About $150m has been paid out from Epstein’s $580m estate to the victims, often underage, of the sex trafficking conspiracy Epstein orchestrated with Maxwell, now serving 20 years in a Florida prison.
But the release of long-sealed documents from a 2017 defamation suit brought by Virginia Giuffre against Maxwell served to further damage the reputations of Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew and a host of other men whose names appeared in the records.
The documents also stoked yet more fresh interest in Epstein’s life, and theories that the circumstances of his death were covered up.
Epstein was not on suicide watch and was alone in his cell. Two correctional officers responsible for guarding Epstein that day were later charged with falsifying prison records. The charges were dropped soon after Maxwell was convicted in 2021.
Mark Epstein says he thinks another prisoner on the tier could have gotten into his brother’s cell and killed him, and that he’s been told that not all the cell doors were locked that night. But cellmates who might have had a view of Epstein’s cell door said they did not see anyone go in, according to the DOJ report. A camera pointing at Epstein’s cell door was not recording that night.
Days after Epstein’s death, the then US attorney general, Bill Barr, criticized “serious irregularities at this facility that are deeply concerning and demand a thorough investigation” and vowed to “get to the bottom of what happened. There will be accountability.”
Barr told the Associated Press in November 2019: “I can understand people who immediately, whose minds went to sort of the worst-case scenario because it was a perfect storm of screw-ups.”
But Mark Epstein is not satisfied and still believes in the conspiracy theory: “The question is, who had him killed?”
A former artist turned property developer, Mark Epstein says he was investigated by the FBI after his brother’s death. The source of his wealth has been described by the Wall Street Journal as “mysterious”, but he told the Guardian he was not a trustee of his brother’s estate nor a beneficiary of his will.
Yet he had been linked to his brother financially through a 200-unit Manhattan condominium, once donated an 80-foot yacht to the Marine Science and Nautical Training Academy in South Carolina and offered to put up his brother’s bail against a Florida condominium valued at $100,000.
The Jeffrey Epstein story is full of rabbit holes, and a virtual industry has grown up inviting amateur sleuths to go down them. When Judge Loretta Preska cleared out her court files earlier this month, the names held within made headlines for days and claims of secretly recorded sex tapes ensured that the Epstein scandal will rumble on.
But the files didn’t advance central questions around Jeffrey Epstein – namely how he made his fortune, questions that his brother says he can’t discuss.
Mark Epstein says that other than calling for a new investigation into his brother’s death – a request that he says has not received a response – he’s nonchalant about being the brother of a man at the center of scandal.
“Other than having to deal with death threats, the FBI and NYPD and needing security early on, my life is normal,” he says. “They looked into me but they realized I was clean and there was no dirt on me.”
The Jeffrey Epstein story is for now on a break from the headlines. Mark Epstein claims he didn’t look at the recent documents and maintains he’s not planning to continue to raise questions. “I’m only concerned about the circumstances of my brother’s death,” he says.
