OIG sworn statement of a corrections officer on Epstein's final morning, Aug. 2021

Thank you, sir. This is a form that we give to our voluntary - or to our employees who are requested to provide information on a voluntary basis. It says, United States Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, Warnings and Assurances to Employee Requested to Provide Information on a Voluntary Basis. “You are being asked to provide information as part of an investigation being conducted by the Office of the Inspector General. This investigation is being conducted pursuant to the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended. This investigation pertains to job performance failure and security failure. This is a voluntary interview. Accordingly, you do not have to answer questions. No disciplinary action will be taken against you if do not choose to answer our questions. Any statements you furnish may be used as evidence in any future criminal proceedings, or agency disciplinary proceedings, or both.” And there’s a waiver section. It says, “I understand the Warnings and Assurances stated above and I am willing to make a statement and answer questions. No promises or threats have¶

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: Yeah. Until 10:00 p.m.¶

: So, that’s what I mean. So, like, at the 10:00 p.m., are you -. Only until 10:00 p.m. So, but at 10:00 p.m., the count happens after the person - control number two - leaves. Right?¶

: Yes. So, control number two is supposed to print up everything, and since he’s off duty at 10:00, I will take the paperwork that he generated, and do the count for him.¶

: Okay. So, control number one is actually responsible for the 10:00 p.m. count. Correct?¶

: Control number one is not responsible for the count. But if - I mean, if you are in there by yourself, now that’s your second job.¶

: Okay. So, who is responsible for it, then?¶

: Whoever is supposed to be posted CNA. So, I’m -. Okay. It’s two different. Like, see here, we have a lot of job titles that kind of, like, they took from us. CNA is supposed to be a post. CNA is supposed to be a post that goes in at whatever¶

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: Okay. I’m going to just review the report that was written in regard to that interview. I just want you to - I’m not going to provide it to you because it’s written on an FBI document - but however, the OIG was present. So, it’s our information to have. So, I’ll read it to you. And just, if you can just stop me if there is anything in there that is not accurate.¶

Okay? So, it says that,¶

“Senior Officer Specialist at the Bureau of Prisons, Metropolitan Correctional Center,” and it says, yada, yada, yada. “Was interviewed at the United States Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, 1 St.¶

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sometimes helps conduct the count of some of the units. Units Nine South and Ten do not require help for the count because there are officers stationed in those units that do the counts. During the morning watch shift of August 10th, prepared the count by getting the paperwork together. Officer , as the control officer, took officer’s phone calls, receiving the verbal count for the 12:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m., and 5:00 a.m. counts. When an officer calls into control with the count for a particular unit, control advises if the number was a good count or a bad count. Control has many different functions. So, when an officer calls in a count, control takes the officer’s word that the count was conducted. didn’t think that control received the verbal count from the Special Housing Unit for that shift. However, he could not say for sure because he wasn’t the one taking the calls for the counts. was assisting in doing the counts in the other units. signed off on the counts because during that shift, he was the senior ranking officer. On the morning of August 10th, 2019 -.” Is that all correct?¶

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an I gotcha moment, this is just - I just want to make sure I understand, because your responsibility on August 10th was actually to take the calls, and take the verbal —¶

Yes. — counts. Correct? Yes. Okay. Great. “On the morning of August 10th, 2019, a body alarm went off at approximately 6:33 a.m. responded to the SHU where the body alarm had sounded, along with another officer. The Nine South officers, medical, and Lieutenant were already at the location. With medical performing CPR. went to get a stretcher and assisted in taking Jeffrey Epstein to the medical unit. When emergency medical surveys arrived, they started performing CPR, took Epstein out to an ambulance, and transported him to the hospital. followed the ambulance to the hospital in another secure vehicle. stayed at the hospital until he was relieved from duty.”¶

Yes. Okay. “doesn’t¶

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recall any specific state that Epstein was in when he responded to the scene. did recall that Epstein was still loose, because Epstein had to be put in restraints before he could be transported. However, there was no movement by Epstein on his own.” So, was Epstein still alive?¶

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the SHU, 77, and R&D is zero. And this one, it’s 8/9/2019. This one looks like it was for the 4:00 p.m. count. RA says zero. All right. So, R&D was zero. It says the SHU was 76. One in attorney conference. And one in-. Or I’m sorry. 75 that were actually physically present in the SHU. Correct?¶

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was only 72 people in the unit?¶

[ ]: Yes. It would be an inaccurate count. You know, if I conducted - yeah, my name is there. So, I dropped the ball on that one.¶

All right. Did you drop the ball or did they? Because, look, I don’t want to say that you dropped the ball here, because it looks like, to me, there were 73 here, there was 73 here. And on 8/10, at midnight, although this is 72 here, and this last page, it shows ZA, they’re still saying 73. And then, to get even a little more confusing, when I look at -. When you look at these daily activity lieutenant logs. So, if you go to the Saturday, August 10th log, it starts the shift at 73.¶

And then, at 12:35, number one, negative one SHU correction, Fernandez, dry cell. And if you go back to this, daily log from August 9th, at 3:15 p.m., it says, Fernandez was placed on dry cell from ZA. So, it looks like that was finally corrected at 12:35 a.m.¶

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Maybe a little bit after.¶

Maybe a little bit after because the count probably didn’t clear until -. The count didn’t clear until 10:36. And so, this probably was during that timeline, from either 9:58, from 9:55 to about 10:15, this had to be brought about or generated.¶

All right. Well, so, this person who is in R&D, it’s this person, like I just mentioned, Fernandez. This is an inmate quarter history. This person wasn’t removed from the SHU until 8/10/2019 at 0035.¶

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bad. That count number is good. That is the real count number. The question is, when did this happen? To me, it looks like the people in the SHU were just reporting the number they thought they were supposed to be giving to you. 73. They didn’t realize that this guy wasn’t in there. He was actually in R&D. He was in R&D since at least 3:00 p.m. So, the 4:00 p.m. count is bad. The 10:00 p.m. count is bad. And finally, at midnight, it’s caught. So, I¶

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don’t - the way I look at it - it’s not a drop the ball on you. Because you didn’t know that that guy wasn’t in there. So, we’re trying to help you put the pieces together of, if this is your actual handwriting, when would have that happened? To me, it seems like you’re relying on whatever is in the system. Somebody didn’t key this guy out. The Ops Lieutenant comes in. Figures it out. And says, that guy is in R&D. And I’m assuming the reason to why she figured it out is because she’s getting count slips. I don’t know when this count slip would have come in, but there’s a count slip for R&D at 10:00 p.m., and there’s another count slip for R&D at midnight. But like we said, this is the one thing that’s bad, this is bad, if that actually came in at 10:00 p.m. because it shows zero in R&D.¶

But the thing that we’re trying to piece together, and what we’re trying to talk to, is two) because of when were these things made? Sorry, first, when were these, you know, notations made on these two count slips; and second, why are they the only two that are¶

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It’s not a, you know, it’s not a science. You know? Mistakes do happen.¶

Because we do drop the ball. That’s why we have to, you know, view each other, and be, you know, and work behind each other, and look over each other’s shoulder. It can be possible.¶

So, any one that we’ve showed this to has just been, like, whoa, I’ve never seen anything like that before. But this has actually happened in the past, where you’ve seen this happen, where you put, like, a nine S plus one?¶

Sometimes. Like I said, you know, like, you know, sometimes, R&D leaves early. Like, right now, if this is 10:00 p.m., R&D should have gone home already.¶

: Yeah. So, they have a guy in dry cell with people in custody on him, watching him.¶

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No. You could still do the count. I mean, you could still do the count, but if somebody, you know, higher up said, yo, this is what you need to put on the count slip, that’s what you put on the count slip. Now, you know, like, somebody dropped the ball.¶

And that’s where, again, my opinion has always been all along that it was the SHU that dropped the ball. So, I want you to keep in mind, again, because there’s still Noel and Thomas. On this 10:00 p.m. one is Noel and . On the 12:00 a.m. one, it’s Noel and Thomas. Both of their count slips say 73. So, if somebody told somebody at 10:00 p.m. that there was actually only 72, which is what I’m gathering you’re trying to say, why at 12:00 a.m. would of they continued to write 73?¶

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: Okay. All right. All right. Let’s move on. If you do remember anything about that, again, in our mind, we’ve been going upon the fact that the SHU is reporting what they think the E1 is supposed to be, you know, the E1 says and what they’re supposed to be reporting. They’re reporting they’re incorrect numbers, from at last 3:15 p.m. They have one less than the number that they’re actually showing on their count slips. That’s for the 4:00 p.m. count, the 10:00 p.m. count, and even the 12:00 a.m. count. So, if you can remember anything with regard to that knowledge, but after the fact that we speak, you know, and when these things happened, we would so greatly appreciate you calling us —¶

: Okay.¶

: — and letting us know.¶

When we go through documents, rather than bombarding you at the end, we ask people to initial and date those documents. So, I’ll just - while we’re at it - I’m going to show.¶

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: Yeah. So, by you putting your initials and dates on it, we can say, we can positively confirm this is the document we talked about.¶

So, we can’t go back later and, like, change something and say, no, we talked about this document, and say, no, no, no, no, it’s got my initial and my date, you know, my date on here. This is specifically what we talked about. Do you follow what I’m saying?¶

Just to show what the documents you were presented, you know, what documents you were presented. So, it sounds, like, by when you’re saying that you think you dropped the ball, it sounds like what you’re saying is, you knew that someone was gone from the SHU, and it was in R&D at 10:00 p.m., but you never contacted the SHU to let them know, or to ask them about it? Or you just don’t remember?¶

No. I just don’t remember.¶

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You know, I apologize if I can’t help you anymore. Since this is the first time I’m hearing about this, y’all bringing it to my attention.¶

But you do agree that the SHU should have been providing count slips that said 72, both at the 10:00 p.m. and the 12:00 a.m. count. Correct? Being that he was moved from the SHU at 3:15 p.m., the day before? Or on August 9th.¶

I do agree because that’s a part of your post orders. And I, you know, that’s a part of our function.¶

: — the count slips were bad. And regardless of what you can remember, the 10:00 p.m., or actually, the 4:00 p.m., the 10:00 p.m., and the 12:00 a.m. count slips provided by the SHU were all bad because this guy was moved to the R&D holding cell at least 3:15 p.m. Correct?¶

: Yes.¶

: Yes. They all should be¶

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big case. Mm-hmm. And so, if he tried the first time, I definitely believe he would try it again. And do you know why he was removed from suicide watch after the first attempt? I’m not too sure. There was speculation, you know, they said rumors about the court system, you know, since this case is so big, he needs access to his lawyers. He needs access to his paperwork. So, maybe, maybe, maybe his lawyer pulled in some paperwork to a judge, and the judge probably said, yo, he needs to have access to his paperwork. I’m not too sure. So, you had heard that, possibly, the judge contacted who? The warden? Possibility. I don’t know. Okay. No. I’m too small on the food chain to know this information. And who did you hear— All that.¶

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he goes through the scanner, now he’s supposed to go an available dry cell. Now, I don’t know if they used R&D, or if they used our HA unit. HA unit is normally where we put everybody for dry cell.¶

: If there’s an available cell. Because normally, sometimes, most of the time, Nine South gets a little crowded. So, we don’t have an available cell to put an inmate that’s supposed to be on dry cell. So, they have to figure it out, where are they going to put him, either in R&D, put an officer, or HA, put an¶

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No. Since Nine South is the only small entity, we try not to - you know like, it can be -. You know, we can drop the ball. Like, if I’m control, you are internal, we can drop the ball because we assume that Nine South already know. Because they are, you know, those men and women that work up there, they already know.¶

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Because they work there. But, like I said earlier, a lot of, you know, a lot of staff have left at that time, either they quit, either they retired, either that they, you know, found another job. So, we was lacking a lot of staff during this time.¶

So, everybody is on overtime.¶

If you look, I was on overtime. So, when a lot of people was on overtime. Now, like I said, maybe - you know what I’m saying? - maybe, if I was more diligent in Nine South business, maybe I could have said something. But I wasn’t, since I wasn’t working that post. I didn’t think nothing of it.¶

But if it says WAB on the call out list, didn’t you just say? So, if the people that got Reyes at 8:00 in the morning, produced him to R&D, or whomever that he goes to when it says WAB, wouldn’t the assumption be that he’s not actually returning?¶

Yes.¶

Was that the case?¶

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like, a transport, if something was cancelled. : Yeah.¶

: But if by, for instance, he leaves at 8:00, he’s WAB, by 2:00 p.m., if he’s not back, that means, certainly, he got off on the transport. Does that mean, basically, by 2:00 p.m., if somebody that’s WAB is not back, they’re certainly not returning? : Yes.¶

: Okay. And in this case, if someone is WAB, would control have any - or internal - have anything to do with, at the 4:00 p.m. count, contacting SHU, to make sure that they’re aware that that WAB person, in fact, isn’t coming back? : No.¶

: No? Okay. Okay. Do you know about any other -. I know we went over these counts that, you know, we said we believe are incorrect because the numbers weren’t right, that the count slips. Are you aware of any other count slips that were incorrect around this time period? : Not to my knowledge. : No? Are you aware of¶

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: I’m really not too sure. Once an inmate or a person has their mind made up, they don’t tell you when they’re going to do it. They just do it. This individual, I don’t know. I know that he was facing a serious crime. I don’t know if he wanted to do that on his own, or he was protecting somebody. I don’t know. But to try to prevent, I think we kind of tried everything that we wanted, but he would have probably have succeeded somehow.¶

: Okay. What actions should have been taken to prevent his death?¶

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: Yeah. And how could I -? Right now, we have a problem with lack of staff. The staff that they are hiring right now is fall on the money. This job is not the first job that they apply for. It’s just the first job that called. So, with that knowledge, everybody needs a job. You need to pay your bills, right? You need to pay food. You know, you need to take care of your family, your wife, your kids, your husband, et cetera. So, when this job calls, they go. When you hear about the feds, you’d be, like, wow, the feds called me for an interview. This is a top-paying job. Everybody believes it. It’s not the top of the food chain. Especially not now. In New York,¶

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the rent is going up. Everything is going up. So, this job is really just another job. It’s not a career anymore. It’s a job. You pay -. It’s a job. So, a lot of the men and women, they come, they see the headaches that we go through. And they look at their paycheck, and then, they look at the headaches that they go through at home. Because when you get your mandated every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, at first, your wife or your husband believes it’s good. The money is coming in. But after a couple of months, your wife or your husband will start believing that you are cheating. Because, like, this, you know, we’re law enforcement. All law enforcement cheat, right? What people believe. So, a lot of individuals that I talk to, they said they’re not losing their wife, so they quit. Or they moved on. Found another job for the headache. So, we always going to lose staff because the headache don’t outweigh the reward.¶

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Well, speaking of, so that we can lock down this Fernandez thing, just to leave, this is - I was just explaining it to you - but this is actually -. So, here, for instance, is the actual report. It’s from . He was the OIC SHU, the SHU OIC at the time. And it says that the incident occurred on 8/9/2019, at 1:40 p.m. “On August 9th, 2019, at approximately 1:40 p.m., I, SOS , while assigned as the Special Housing Unit officer, proceeded to enter the Nine South visiting room, as I walked towards the door, I observed, through the visiting room door, inmate Fernandez attempting to garb an unknown item from his visitor. Once I made Fernandez reach¶

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to grab the item, I called the door and called for a lieutenant. Once I was able to enter the visiting room, I gave inmate Fernandez a direct order to walk -”. Gave him an out of -. “To walk out of the visiting room, to conduct a visual search. Inmate Fernandez compiled,” Oh, “Complied, and a visual search was conducted. The Operations Lieutenant was contacted, and inmate Fernandez was removed from the unit.” So, with this knowledge, when should have he been keyed out of the SHU?¶

He should have been - right now, since he’s in SHU - they probably believed that he was coming back to SHU. Because where is they going to put him at? You know —
Yeah.
— it says, Seven North. So, basically, he’s going to go to SHU soon. So, they probably took him downstairs. It says (Indiscernible *01:31:18). It says, the unit says Seven North, and you said he was —
Yeah.
— Nine South visitation room. Oh, okay, okay. Now, I see it. Where is that? Yeah. So, Nine South probably means that he

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When they do, when you’re in control, right, and they’re calling you, like, different units are calling you with the count numbers, do you look up to see if they’re actually doing the counts?¶

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no.¶

Because we have work that we have to do, too. Now, the person that’s taking the phone calls, that’s what you’re doing. You’re taking the phone calls, verifying the count with the E1. The person that’s sitting next to you, that’s in control with me, he or she may be doing their paperwork, because there’s paperwork to be done. We have to count keys. We have to count radios. We have to do all the equipment inside the control center. So, if I’m doing count, that person may be doing the equipment checks. And/or popping doors.¶

: Okay. Do you recall looking up at the camera that night, to see if they were actually doing the counts that night?¶

: I can’t really recall because I was helping out with the count, too. Different units.¶

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looking up - not just for that night, different nights - looking up and looking at the camera, and looking at the C.O.s and realizing that, hey, listen, they’re giving me the count, but I know they haven’t done the count?¶

relied on trust. I mean, this is a part of your job function. Your major job function.¶

So, we believe that you should have had to have done the count, because Nine South has two officers. So, they count themselves. Any unit that has two officers, they count themselves.¶

Everybody else, they’re going to need backup because there’s only one officer per unit.¶

Have you ever heard of counts and rounds not being done at the MCC?¶

I mean, you know, you heard the rumors from the news.¶

From the what?¶

From the news.¶

Other than this incident,¶

have you heard any rumors of any C.O.s saying, hey, listen, I’m too tired, I’m not doing the counts, or I’m not doing the rounds, or one of them might be, they’re just not doing the¶

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specifically if there were any conversations that were had with either the Ops Lieutenant, or the SHU, about, like, ghost counting, or about when you wrote in - if it was, in fact, you, who wrote on those two count slips - or anything at all, that you might help, for us, to clear up. What was done —¶

mind, the count slips are inaccurate. You were going based upon what was said on the, you know, on the E1. And their count slips were matching that E1. So, for me, I’m still very confused on when that 9S+1 on the R&D, and when the plus one on the ZA count slips were actually done. I know you’re saying that you believe that they were done at the time of the 10:00 p.m. count, but being that it doesn’t look like it was appeared to have been caught until after the - or during - the 12:00 a.m. count, I’m just still not convinced of that.¶

So —¶

Right.¶

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that because I don’t think that there was anything for you to catch. You didn’t know.¶

But I could be mistaken on that, and that’s where I’m just really hoping that, if you can think about it, and you can kind of put together, oh, yeah, that is what happened, or, okay, that’s what - that’s how it transpired, that’s how it went down. If you could just contact us, myself or Lyeson, and just let us know. That would be greatly -. We would so appreciate it because when we do these things, we got to be accurate. The highest levels of the government are going to get - or look at these things. And being that these counts are off, that’s kind of a big thing.¶

: Yeah.¶

: Especially with regard to, you know, with the night before, and the morning of, Epstein —¶

: Yeah.¶

: — being found. And so, we just want to make sure that we’re being as accurate as possible. I’ll give you a card so that, if you can think of anything, you can certainly contact me. And we can modify¶

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CERTIFICATE¶

I hereby certify that the foregoing pages represent an accurate transcript of the electronic sound recording of the proceedings before the Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General in the matter of:¶

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OIG sworn statement of a corrections officer on Epstein's final morning, Aug. 2021

APPEARANCES:¶

CERTIFICATE¶