Wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein allegedly hung himself in a Manhattan jail cell, effectively insulating many powerful men from prosecution
Jeffrey Epstein is dead, and the world is better for it.
Arguably, it is also worse off; not because a billionaire with reprehensible sexual predilections is no more, but because his death effectively seals off and protects the many men of power who can now breathe sighs of relief because potentially real and tangible accusations against them now fall into the mists of conjecture.
As news of Epstein’s reported suicide at a Manhattan jail overnight made waves Saturday morning, many expressed shock and dismay that a man who was previously on suicide watch could somehow still manage to kill himself.
Welcome to power. Real, actual and horrifying power.
One more pervert on the pyre doesn’t matter in the larger scheme of things, but Epstein was a different sort of animal. He liked to flaunt his predilections, and more importantly, he liked to share.
As a wealthy financier with near unlimited access to a bevy of rich and powerful friends who also liked to have sex with underaged girls, Epstein served as a conduit who traded power and privilege everywhere he went, and his preferred currency wasn’t money, it was girls.
[Epstein’s] death effectively seals off and protects the many men of power who can now breathe sighs of relief because potentially real and tangible accusations against them now fall into the mists of conjecture.
Thanks to the tireless work of Julie Brown of the Miami Herald, who spent over a year tracking down 60 plus women to tell their stories of abuse at the hands of Epstein and his friends, detailing a picture of his power as he escaped prosecution thanks to people within the U.S. Justice Department, particularly now-disgraced former South Florida U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, who essentially set Epstein free after a scant 13 months in jail; burying the allegations via a non-prosecution agreement.
The work of Brown, detailing the brazen amount of sex-trafficking done by Epstein reopened the case in the court of public opinion, and from there finally led to Epstein’s arrest in early July. Less than a couple weeks after his arrest, guards found Epstein in a fetal position with “marks around his neck” in what appeared to be a suicide attempt.
This came after a U.S. District judge ordered Epstein to remain in prison, despite pleas from his defense team, who laid out some ridiculous plan for Epstein to be virtually imprisoned in his own penthouse, you know, like all men of wealth and power expect to be afforded.
The final straw seemed to come Friday as previously sealed legal documents from a 2015 defamation lawsuit by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Epstein’s “right-hand woman” Ghislaine Maxwell exposed a trove of new and disturbing information that potentially implicated men of significant power like former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Duke of York Prince Andrew.
In the more than 2,000 pages of material released, the public finally got a larger picture of depravities only mentioned in whispers and innuendo. Epstein used his vast resources to recruit women, particularly young girls, to serve as “masseuses,” an essential code word for virtual sex slaves.
Not only did Epstein use these girls for his own pleasure, claiming the need to have an orgasm at least three times a day, but he would pass these women around to his wealthy friends, with other names like Donald Trump and Bill Clinton coming up, without being directly implicated.
I’ve personally never found much value in conspiracy theories, but it’s not difficult whatsoever to look at Epstein’s death less than 24 hours after the release of potentially obliterating information as more than mere coincidence.
Epstein could’ve spent the rest of his natural life locked up in federal prison, and with his wealth, he could’ve found more comfort than expected. However, the released material proved Epstein potentially endangered some extremely powerful people, and that simply cannot be ignored.
Despite what TV and movies show, it’s not easy to commit suicide in prison, and it’s even harder to do it when on suicide watch. Epstein, in his final hours, was simply a man who knew too much, and even the possibility that he could use any of that information to incriminate anyone of value was something that wouldn’t be tolerated.
As a society, we already actively ignore the voices of victims, particularly those who are female. We also ignore the voices of the people on the fringes, the service workers who saw what was going on inside Epstein’s compound. Maybe their testimony would be enough to sink Epstein, but in the end, Epstein was nothing more than the tip of a much larger and far more insidious iceberg of depravity cloaked in immense power.
…In the end, Epstein was nothing more than the tip of a much larger and far more insidious iceberg of depravity cloaked in immense power.
During the earlier days of this website, I planned on running a longform article on sex-trafficking in Colombia. An acquaintance of mine, who regularly travelled to Colombia to have sex with multiple prostitutes offered to pay my way to join him for a weekend trip.
Outside of his lust for hookers and an ambivalence towards sexually transmitted diseases, he wasn’t that out-of-the-ordinary. He didn’t like underaged girls, even though he never explained to me how he knew the ages of the women for certain. But the thing that ultimately scuttled the entire plan was his tales of what he saw while in Colombia.
Without naming names, something he was clearly shrewd about, he told me of the wealthy and powerful men who he’d run into (most sex travelers exist in similar circles) that specifically flew to Colombia to have sex with children. He’d tell me the stories he heard, and as someone who knew that world far more than I ever could, he could sift the truth from the lies.
The stories he told me quite frankly frightened me. There was no way I could go on a trip with someone, even as an observer, who could sit amongst men who used their wealth to exploit children. The very thought of it made me ill and I cancelled everything; in that moment, I never felt more like a coward.
But that’s power.
As I thought about how I felt in the moment, at the same time in some far-off country, women and children find themselves exploited for fun and profit and no one ever bothers for a moment to consider them–not even as human beings– as anything other than just living and dying cautionary tales, bought and sold by men of privilege.
For those men of power and privilege, life is never more important than their own dark pleasures.
And so it goes for Jeffrey Epstein. Dead from what he knew, dead from his delights. For him, power afforded him many pleasures and shielded him from the resulting pain he inflicted on others.
The tragedy here is that those who thought justice was real and attainable now go denied. Justice is a commodity and justice has its limits when it comes to the powerful. Want to know what real power looks like? Unlimited power? All you have to do is stare at the corpse of Jeffrey Epstein.
Forget it everyone, it’s Chinatown.
Hashim R. Hathaway (Shimbo) is the host of the Never Daunted Radio Network, and proud father to NeverDaunted.Net. You can reach him on Twitter @NeverDauntedNet