FBI seized computers in raid at Jeffrey Epstein’s Virgin Island home
PUBLISHED TUE, AUG 13 2019
Dan Mangan
Kevin Breuninger
- FBI agents seized computers from wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein’s home in the Virgin Islands during a raid of the private island owned by the late accused sex trafficker.
- The footage shows that at least two computer desktops and an Apple computer were packaged and marked to be taken away from Little St. James island as part of the FBI probe.
- The raid came two days after Epstein, 66, died as a result of a suspected suicide. The former friend of Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton was facing charges of child sex trafficking at the time of his death.
FBI agents seized computers from wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein’s home in the Virgin Islands during a raid of the private island owned by the late accused sex trafficker, according to drone footage.
The footage reviewed by NBC News shows that at least two computer desktops and an Apple computer were packaged and marked to be taken away from Little St. James island as part of the FBI probe.
On Monday, around the time the raid of that 70-acre island began, Attorney General William Barr vowed in a speech that the investigation into Epstein’s alleged conduct would continue.
“Any co-conspirators should not rest easy,” Barr said. “The victims deserve justice and they will get it.”
The raid came two days after Epstein, 66, died as a result of a suspected suicide. He was found unresponsive Saturday morning in his cell in a federal jail in Manhattan, where he was being held without bond on child sex trafficking charges.
Authorities are now investigating that death, which came two weeks after Epstein, a former friend of Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, was found semiconscious in his cell in a possible suicide bid.
Epstein was taken off of suicide watch at the Metropolitan Correctional Center less than a week after that incident.
The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI also are continuing to investigate people who are suspected of having conspired to provide him with dozens of young women to be sexually abused from 2002 through 2005 at his residences on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and in Palm Beach, Florida.
No one other than Epstein had been criminally charged in his case at the time of his death.
However, the indictment against him says he conspired with other people in trafficking underage girls to be sexually victimized during visits to his home, which he claimed were for “massages.”
The indictment said that “in order to maintain and increase his supply of victims, Epstein also paid certain of his victims to recruit additional girls to be similarly abused.”
That charging document also said that “in creating and maintaining this network of minor victims in multiple states to sexually abuse and exploit,” Epstein “worked and conspired with others, including employees and associates who facilitated his conduct.”
Monday’s raid on Epstein’s island included officials from the New York Police Department, who are members of the FBI New York Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force.
“The NYPD is a partner in the task force with the FBI that led to the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein last month,” an NYPD spokeswoman told CNBC in an email.
“The case remains an active and ongoing investigation, and the NYPD continues to work alongside the FBI in investigating leads — including at Epstein’s estate in the Virgin Islands. The NYPD declines further comment on an ongoing investigation,” the spokeswoman said.
Barr said Monday that there were “serious irregularities” at the MCC jail where Epstein died.
“We will get to the bottom of what happened,” Barr vowed at a police event in New Orleans, “and there will be accountability.”
Both the FBI and the inspector general’s office of the Justice Department are probing the circumstances of Epstein’s death.
The Bureau of Prisons is an agency of the Justice Department, which Barr heads.
The New York Times, citing prison and law enforcement officials, reported Monday that one of the two people who were supposed to be guarding Epstein in the MCC was “not a full-fledged correctional officer, and neither guard had checked on Mr. Epstein for several hours before he was discovered.”
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