Jeffrey Epstein, the investor who faced federal charges of molesting teenage girls, has died, according to multiple news reports.
Epstein committed suicide in his Lower Manhattan jail cell, ABC News reported, citing three law enforcement officials.
A gurney carrying a man who looked like Epstein was wheeled out of the Manhattan Correctional Center at about 7:30am, the New York Post reported. The ambulance went to New York Downtown Hospital.
Photo: AP
Epstein had previously been moved to a suicide-watch unit after being found unconscious in his cell with marks on his neck on July 23, a week after a bail request had been rejected.
Epstein, a self-described “collector” of rich and powerful people, had links to prominent political and business figures. That circle, including former US president Bill Clinton and billionaire Leslie Wexner, all distanced themselves from the financier after his arrest in July.
US prosecutors said that Epstein used his wealth and power to sexually abuse dozens of girls for years at his homes, paying them hundreds of dollars in cash for each encounter and hundreds more if they brought in more girls.
The alleged crimes occurred at Epstein’s residences in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida, from 2002 to 2005, involving minors as young as 14. The US accused Epstein of “creating a vast network of victims.”
The girls were initially recruited to give Epstein massages, which became increasingly sexual in nature, prosecutors said.
At least three of Epstein’s employees were involved in recruiting and scheduling minors for sexual encounters with him, as well as other unspecified “associates,” authorities said.
Epstein pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking in minors and conspiracy and said he fully complied with the law for more than 14 years.
Epstein leveraged his connections with Wall Street to secure a steady flow of commissions and engagements that supported a lifestyle that included properties in New Mexico, Paris and the US Virgin Islands, where he bought two private islands.
Epstein based much of his empire in the Virgin Islands, including Financial Trust Co, which he started in New York in 1981, claiming it only catered to billionaires.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the