Thread by @SethAbramson

MAJOR BREAKING NEWS: Per His Attorneys, Jeffrey Epstein Was "Confident" and in "Great Spirits" Hours Before His "Suicide," and Told His Attorney "I'll See You Sunday"; New Report Undercuts Suicide Narrative Significantly nypost.com/2019/08/14/jef…

1/ "[Epstein] told his lawyers that the neck injuries he suffered in an earlier incident at the Metropolitan Correctional Center were inflicted by his hulking, ex-cop cellmate, which led the lawyers to request that he be taken off a suicide watch."

Wot.

2/ "Epstein’s optimism behind bars—expressed during daily visits with his lawyers that lasted up to 12 hours each—was so great that it struck some of those around him as 'delusional.'"

Wot.

3/ "'[Epstein] thought he was going to win the double-jeopardy motion' that his defense lawyers were planning to file in connection with his 2008 Florida prostitution conviction."

Wot.

4/ "[Epstein] also 'had hope of getting bail on appeal' through an application that was pending before the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals at the time of his death."

Wot.

5/ "'What he really wanted to do was get bail so he could cooperate [with the government].'"

Wot.

6/ "'[Epstein] thought he was going to get [in his current case] the same deal he got in Florida [from the government].'"

Wot.

7/ "While locked up at the MCC, Epstein’s mood rarely wavered during the seven-days-a-week meetings with his lawyers, which routinely began at 8AM. 'Every day he was very positive and the night before [his "suicide"] he was real positive. He was in great spirits.'"

Wot.

8/ "Around 6:30AM Saturday, he was found kneeling, his 6-foot frame with a bedsheet wrapped around his neck and secured to the top of a bunk bed in his cell."

Wot.

The prison put him in a room with *sheets* and a *top bunk* to tie them from...days after he was on suicide watch?

9/ It appears—from the story—that the only "suicide theory" left is one floated by the lawyer of the ex-cop Epstein says assaulted him: that Epstein concocted a massive conspiracy to convince his attorneys he was a) happy and b) in danger from a cellmate so he could kill himself.

10/ According to media reports, the ex-cop who allegedly assaulted Epstein days before his "suicide" was... caught with a cell phone less than three weeks earlier, which cell phone—if his—he could've used to receive communications from outside the prison. heavy.com/news/2019/07/n…

11/ The ex-cop, Tartaglione, was caught with the cell phone 72 hours before Epstein was arrested again, to be clear, which certainly puts a damper on (if by no means an end to) concern about may have transpired between Epstein and Tartaglione in the days before Epstein's death.

12/ A person planning suicide may see an irrational reversal of spirits before the act; what Tartaglione's lawyer implies—and what Epstein's attorneys' account lends itself to—is very different: a calculating series of lies and fake-outs by Epstein so that he could kill himself.

13/ Those who want to go the reversal-of-spirits-is-normal route can do so, but it's contradicted by everything else Epstein's attorneys say: that he was specifically optimistic about certain legal motions and he looked forward to winning them. That'd require calculation to fake.

14/ I still consider homicide *wildly* unlikely. But I am putting "suicide" in quotes in this thread to indicate that that issue is *unresolved*; it is not appropriate to have some reasonable doubt about whether a suicide occurred and then blithely use that word without notation.

15/ Also, for anyone who has not seen the *other* late-breaking news (from The Washington Post) that is significantly influencing my thinking and reasoning in how I approached this thread about Epstein's sudden death, please read this thread ASAP:

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1161855073405853696

16/ But I want to say something else, and say it with great feeling: I've represented 2,000 criminal defendants, and a good number of those facing the most serious charges were at some point despondent to the point of possibly being suicidal. So I have some experience with this.

17/ Every criminal defense attorney I've *ever* met would be *passionately* cautious about allowing a possibly suicidal client into a situation in which they might harm themselves. Unless they're monsters, Epstein's attorneys must have really *believed* Tartaglione attacked him.

18/ No matter how much they were being paid, or how good a con man Epstein was, I can't emphasize how good a reason Epstein's attorneys would have to had to have to argue forcefully for their client to be taken off suicide watch—as they did—*under a week* after a suicide attempt.

19/ So I am *very* inclined to believe his attorneys' accounts of Epstein being *sincerely* optimistic and *sincerely* engaged in his legal defense and *sincerely* planning to cooperate with the government—and believing that him doing so would soon lead to a good result for him.

20/ I urge people *not* to pick out one fact in the now *massive* matrix of troubling facts—e.g., "people do sometimes get happy before a suicide!"—and get transfixed on that as a way of arguing that those arguing that these facts are troubling are somehow wrong or irresponsible.

UPSHOT/ While the facts of Epstein's case are only getting more suspicious—and at no point getting *less* suspicious—it remains true that I or anyone else who's worked as an advocate/investigator in the justice system could *still* make a good argument this was a routine suicide.