The following account is from a former inmate of the Metropolitan Correction Center in lower Manhattan, where Jeffrey Epstein was found unresponsive Saturday, and declared dead at a hospital of an apparent suicide. The ex-convict, who spoke to The Post’s Brad Hamilton and Bruce Golding on the condition of anonymity, spent several months in the 9 South special housing unit for high-profile prisoners awaiting trial — like Epstein.
There’s no way that man could have killed himself. I’ve done too much time in those units. It’s an impossibility.
Between the floor and the ceiling is like eight or nine feet. There’s no way for you to connect to anything.
You have sheets, but they’re paper level, not strong enough. He was 200 pounds — it would never happen.
When you’re on suicide watch, they put you in this white smock, a straight jacket. They know a person cannot be injurious to themselves.
The clothing they give you is a jump-in uniform. Everything is a dark brown color.
Could he have done it from the bed? No sir. There’s a steel frame, but you can’t move it. There’s no light fixture. There’s no bars.
They don’t give you enough in there that could successfully create an instrument of death. You want to write a letter, they give you rubber pens and maybe once a week a piece of paper.
Nothing hard or made of metal.
And there’s a cop at the door about every nine minutes, whether you’re on suicide watch or not.
There’s up to 80 people there. They could put two in cell. It’s one or two, but I’ll never believe this guy had a cellmate. He was too blown up.
The damage that unit can do to someone.
It’s like you’re an animal and you’ve been brought into a kennel. A guy like Jeffrey, it’s like, “Holy sh-t.”
I told my parents not to come there. God wasn’t in the building.
I’ve had some heavy incidents in the building. What happened is permanent.
Some of the guards are on a major power trip. They know guys there are suffering. They know something the rest of the world hasn’t seen, that a place like this exists in this country, and they get off on it.
If the guards see that the guy is breaking, they’re going to help you break.
But it’s my firm belief that Jeffrey Epstein did not commit suicide. It just didn’t happen.