Jeffrey Epstein’s sibling has strongly criticized Kash Patel, the FBI Director appointed by Trump, for asserting that Epstein’s death was due to suicide, despite this being the official conclusion.
Mark Epstein, the younger brother of the infamous figure, expressed to the Daily Mail that Patel, ‘was not present, did not witness the body, nor the autopsy. [He has] absolutely no clue about what he’s discussing.’
‘It would be a lot easier for me if I thought it was suicide, but there’s a long list of things that point away from it,’ he added.
The row comes after Patel and FBI deputy director Dan Bongino upset conspiracy theorists on Sunday by giving their verdict on Epstein’s 2019 death.
He appeared on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to refute the allegations that Epstein was somehow murdered in New York City’s notorious Metropolitan Correctional Center.
During the interview, Bartiromo asked Patel about the ongoing skepticism surrounding Epstein’s death.
‘You said Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide,’ she said. ‘People don’t believe it.’
FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy Dan Bongino sat down with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on her show Sunday Morning Futures and insisted that Epstein’s death was suicide
A mugshot of Jeffrey Epstein in 2019
Patel then said that everyone has a ‘right to their opinion.’
But added: ‘As someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor who’s been in that prison system, who has been at the Metropolitan Detention Center, who’s been in segregated housing – you know a suicide when you see one.’
‘He killed himself,’ Bongino confirmed. ‘I’ve seen the whole file. He killed himself.’
Bongino later reiterated his assertion on X for anyone who had not seen the interview.
‘I have reviewed the case. Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. There’s no evidence in the case file suggesting otherwise,’ he wrote.
‘I’m not asking you to believe me or not, I’m telling you what exists and what doesn’t. If new evidence surfaces, I’m happy to re-evaluate.’
But, Epstein’s brother Mark counts himself among many who still believe Patel and Bongino are wrong and that his brother was actually murdered.
His reasonsing is multiple – including having personally bought and tested a bedsheet similar to the one supposedly used by Epstein in the Metropolitan Correctional Center as a ligature.
Epstein was found hanging by a bedsheet with his buttocks an inch off the cell floor and his feet extended in front of him on August 10, 2019 – he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
However Mark claims that through his own testing – using weights similar to his brother’s body weight – he has found that the bed sheet could not have supported Epstein’s corpse.
‘I don’t think that sheet could have held his weight, it would have torn,’ he claimed.
Mark also called the explanation of his brother’s death given by then-Attorney General Bill Barr ‘asinine and ludicrous.’
Pointing to issues with security cameras Metropolitan Correctional Center (two cameras trained on Epstein’s cell were not properly working) he added: ‘So, Bill Barr came out and said he personally viewed the video and nobody went in or out of the tier [where Epstein was housed]. When I heard that I said this is cover up.’
‘There are six levels of security in that prison before you get to that tier,’ he claimed. ‘But there were 11 or 12 inmates on the tier. They would not have to go in or out of the tier to kill somebody in their cell. Supposedly cell doors were left locked. There’s your answer. Somebody could’ve got in to Jeff’s cell and killed him.’
A photo taken inside Jeffrey Epstein’s cell at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York after the disgraced financier died by suicide
A noose fashioned out of his prison uniform lays by the side of his bed after his death
Mark added that on the initial death certificate the case of death was recorded as ‘pending further study’ before quickly being changed to suicide.
‘If you ask any pathologist, it takes weeks before you get an answer. What further study was done in those few days that led to that determination?’ he said.
Mark also claimed that his brother was clean shaven in autopsy photographs.
Shavings happened on Fridays and he was found on Saturday morning.
His brother was ‘hairy,’ he said, and would have had more stubble if he had only been dead for two hours when found, as reported.
So, Mark alleges, Epstein must have died hours earlier.
He also claimed that there was no lividity – skin discoloration that occurs due to the settling of blood after death – on Epstein’s legs and buttocks. Instead, he says, it was only present on his upper back.
‘That’s startling. That blood would not have traveled up into his back,’ he said.
Mark believes his brother was killed for ‘what he knew, what he had on people.’
‘In the 2016 election I asked him casually who he thought would win,’ Mark recalled of his brother. ‘He said he didn’t know but “if I said what I knew about both candidates they’d have to cancel the election.” He didn’t tell me what he knew, but that’s what he said.’
Mark Epstein believes his brother was killed in prison
President Donald Trump shared his own skepticism about Epstein’s cause of death in the aftermath. He and First Lady Melania are pictured with Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell in 2000
President Trump has shared his own skepticism about Epstein’s cause of death over the years.
And, upon taking office, he promised to release all documents relating to the investigation of the billionaire.
He then signed an executive order in January calling on government agencies to create plans to release and distribute all top-secret file.
Attorney General Pam Bondi made good on that promise the following month, dropping what she called ‘phase one’ of a release.
However, there were no bombshells in that first wave of documents – which included previously public flight logs and contact lists.
The contact lists showed heavily redacted information for dozens of Hollywood, political and fashion elites that had purportedly been compiled by Epstein and his longtime madam Ghislaine Maxwell.
Names that weren’t redacted included Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Alec Baldwin, Ethel Kennedy, Andrew Cuomo, Naomi Campbell and Courtney Love.
Both Harvey and Bob Weinstein, the late Senator Ted Kennedy, actor Ralph Fiennes, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, John Kerry, Dustin Hoffman, Donald Trump’s late first wife Ivana and their daughter Ivanka Trump were also listed.
The president himself was not listed. There was no suggestion that any person named in the contact book was linked to the crimes Epstein committed.
