MIAMI _ Accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has died by suicide in his Manhattan jail cell, the Miami Herald has confirmed through federal sources.
The 66-year-old's death came one day after the release of a trove of documents describing in detail how he operated the equivalent of a sexual pyramid scheme, luring underage girls to his Palm Beach home, then coercing them into sex.
The suicide _ just weeks after what was apparently a previous attempt _ short-circuits what would have been a spectacular sex-trafficking trial that likely would have drawn in an array of prominent witnesses. Epstein had a constellation of important friends in business, political and society circles, including former President Bill Clinton and President Donald Trump.
Last November, the Miami Herald published a series of stories on Epstein, Perversion of Justice, that looked at how the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida had negotiated a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein in 2007-08 despite having identified nearly three dozen underage girls who said they were sexually abused by him at his waterfront estate.
As part of the deal, Epstein pleaded guilty to two minor prostitution charges at that time and served 13 months in the Palm Beach County stockade. While in the stockade, he was allowed liberal work-release privileges that included being whisked away by chauffeur to an office in downtown Palm Beach, where he was attended by deputies in plain clothes.
The Herald reported that Epstein's team of lawyers, including Alan Dershowitz, Roy Black, Jay Lefkowitz and Kenneth Starr, demanded that the plea deal be kept secret from the girls who had accused him from wrongdoing.
After the Herald's reporting, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra ruled that the deal with Epstein was illegal because it violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act, which requires that victims be privy to plea negotiations and court hearings.
Last month, Epstein was arrested by federal authorities after arriving at New Jersey's Teterboro Airport on his private jet, after a visit to his home in Paris. The charges involved alleged abuse years earlier at Epstein's homes in Palm Beach and Manhattan. He was being held in New York City, where he died.
The previous U.S. attorney who signed off on the deal, Alexander Acosta, resigned as President Trump's secretary of labor after Epstein was arrested.
