Inside The OIG Interview: The Warden's Statement Detailing The Death Of Jeffrey Epstein (Part 7) (4/11/26)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Epstein Chronicles

Episode: Inside The OIG Interview: The Warden's Statement Detailing The Death Of Jeffrey Epstein (Part 7)
Host: Bobby Capucci
Date: April 11, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Bobby Capucci continues his deep dive into the Office of Inspector General (OIG) interview with the former warden of the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), focusing on the events surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's death. The discussion centers on the transfer and absence of Epstein’s last cellmate, Efren Reyes, the procedures for inmate supervision, and critical documentation tracking these movements. Capucci explores questions of protocol, responsibility, and communication lapses that factored into Epstein being left alone in his cell on August 10, 2019.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Clarification on Attorney Logs and Corrections Rosters

Timestamp: 01:00–02:30

• The episode opens mid-interview as the OIG investigators clarify questions about attorney log entries for Jeffrey Epstein and the purpose of highlighted entries on July 30.
• Bobby sets the scene: multiple documents, confusing subject lines, and an effort to match events to specific staff actions and timestamps.
• "All of these are attorney assignments... previously there was nothing in the subject line." (Host paraphrasing at 01:20)
• The correctional officer roster is determined to be the definitive list for who was present on August 9 and 10, 2019.

2. Who Knew Epstein Needed a Cellmate?

Timestamp: 02:45–06:45

• OIG asks pointedly who was informed and responsible for ensuring Epstein—recently off suicide watch—was housed with a cellmate.
• The warden explains the normal notification process: emails sent from administration (names redacted), with the captain relaying requirements down to lieutenants and officers.
• "In the special housing unit, anybody working in there would know that he was supposed to have a cellmate." (Warden, 05:12)
• Investigators push: Is it plausible for any staff member to claim ignorance?
  • "No, because they did know. From what I understand, someone wrote a memorandum and had it that day. They knew." (Warden, 06:20)
• The various places this requirement would have been recorded are discussed: the 'shoe file' (Special Housing Unit file), daily meal/medical logs, and possibly the “hot list.”

3. The Departure of Epstein’s Cellmate, Efren Reyes

Timestamp: 06:45–10:00

• OIG examines the procedures for when Reyes was removed. Was there a plan for housing Epstein if his cellmate left?
  • "The plan would have been, you know, we would have reassessed it... usually you get ahead of time. When Reyes leaves... before he was placed back in the cell, an assessment would have been made." (Warden, approx. 07:10)
• The actual timeline: Reyes was removed from the institution by the marshals after a court order on August 9.
• There was some confusion among staff whether he went to court and just didn't return, or was officially transferred out.
• “WAB” means “with all belongings”—a term used when an inmate leaves with everything, not expecting to return.

4. Documentation Trail and Process

Timestamp: 10:15–End

• Bobby reads and paraphrases a string of documents and internal emails:
  • BOP database entries showing end-of-day reports
  • Court/order paperwork listing transfer details for Reyes (registration number 85993054)
  • Reference to documentation that seems lost (“court production list”)
• The process: R&D (Receiving and Discharge) typically calls housing units directly for court or transfer pick-up, not always sending written documents.
• The lists (production lists, transfer orders) are typically destroyed at the end of the day, leading to gaps in the permanent record.
• "They just use the template and create a new one every day." (OIG summary, 12:52)
• Various emails from the US Marshal Service confirm Reyes’s scheduled transfer, with explicit orders for meds and documentation.

5. Questions Around Procedural Gaps & Responsibility

Timestamp: 14:30–Final

• The OIG probes whether Epstein’s situation with no cellmate should have triggered an immediate response, given his recent status.
• The warden expresses that, with the documentation now reviewed, the staff should have known and acted—and that responsibility was distributed through standard channels but may not have been sufficiently enforced in this instance.
• "Now it explains that they had gotten a court order to give them the go out... I guess all these documents here are what she was referring to." (Warden, ~18:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "In the special housing unit, anybody working in there would know that he was supposed to have a cellmate." (Warden, 05:12)
• "No, because they did know. From what I understand, someone wrote a memorandum and had it that day. They knew." (Warden, 06:20)
• "WAB? It means with all belongings." (Warden, 08:15)
• "They just use the template and create a new one every day." (Investigator, paraphrasing procedural issue, 12:52)
• "I don't know who—the judge, prosecutors, marshals, and the judge all in coordination make those determinations." (Discussion of who controls transfer decisions, ~16:10)
• "Now it explains that they had gotten a court order to give them the go out... I guess all these documents here are what she was referring to." (Warden, ~18:00)

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Segment Breakdown with Timestamps

• 01:00–02:30: Clarifying the role of attorney logs, correctional rosters, and foundational documentation.
• 02:45–06:45: Discussion on whose responsibility it was to notify staff about Epstein’s need for a cellmate, and whether any excuse for ignorance is viable.
• 06:45–10:00: Timeline and documentation surrounding Reyes’s removal, definition of “WAB,” and process handoffs between departments.
• 10:15–14:30: Deep dive into the nature of lost or destroyed transfer/court paperwork, and complications in evidence chains due to temporary documentation practices.
• 14:30–End (~18:00): Reflection on the gaps these practices created, and whether institutional knowledge and procedures should have prevented the oversight that led to Epstein’s being alone.

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Tone & Style

• The episode maintains Capucci’s signature tone—direct, detail-oriented, and skeptical of official narratives.
• The original voices, especially the warden, come through: authoritative but occasionally defensive, demonstrating the complexity and potential for miscommunication in corrections bureaucracy.
• Investigators are persistent but methodical, careful to clarify each step in documentation and chain-of-command.

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Final Thoughts

This installment exposes significant procedural ambiguities and communication lapses in the days leading up to Epstein’s death. Central to the discussion is the lack of permanent documentation about Reyes’s transfer, staff awareness of Epstein’s housing requirements, and who bears ultimate responsibility for upholding safety protocols. Capucci suggests that, despite established procedures, institutional culture and lax record-keeping may have enabled the breakdowns that left Epstein alone and vulnerable on August 10, 2019.

Stay tuned for Part 8, where Capucci promises to continue unpacking staff interviews and critical documents from the MCC investigation.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

Too fast, Trevor. Too fast.

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[Podcast Host]

What's up, everyone? And welcome to another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to pick up where we left off with the interview from the warden at MCC with the OIG investigators. Question O. Now, this answers our question from before. So this actually says it's from you to Mr. Adapted. And it says attorney logs. This is that same thing that we were looking at. Answer. Okay, question. So it looks like July 30th is highlighted and Mr. Epstein. And again, all of these are attorney assignments. So that does now clarify what it is, because previously there was nothing that was in the subject line. Answer. Okay, question. Or the body. Okay. Haze you. Yeah, I'm looking at the stack and I'm sitting here just. Jesus Christ. Question we're coming to. Hey, we're almost halfway through. Hayes. Well, that's the way you're looking at it a little bit different, fellas. I'm thinking about I'm going to miss today's workout and tomorrow's. This guy Hayes is really a comedian, isn't he? Has a lot of jokes. Question. Now, you've already answered this, but did you work at the MCC on August 9th? That was a Friday. Friday I was off. What about on August 10, 2019? 10th was a Saturday. I worked on Saturday. All right, but did you work in response to this? No, I had to respond if the day of the suicide was August 10th. Yeah, I had to respond if I came in. Question okay, so. But you weren't scheduled to work. No, I wasn't scheduled to work. Question alright, this is just for. And this is going to be put in here in case you need some reference to it. These are emails that were from you to Mr. Redacted with the staff roster. Right. Question and the reason I'm using this is because these were literally sent on Sunday, August 11th. So I know that we can rely on these based upon being so close. So this is one for Friday, August 9th. It showed who was working on that day. And this is one for Saturday, August 10, again showing who he gets cut off by the warden. This is a correctional roster. Answer or question Correct. This is a correctional roster. Right. So who was basically, I think, involved with Epstein during that date? So yeah. How many rosters? What would there be aside from correctional? Answer well, the correctional officers are the only ones that keep a daily roster. Question. Like R D wouldn't have anything like that? Answer no, because their staff are already assigned to where they're working at. Question okay. Answer yeah, and they have rosters that show where everyone is working at, but not like the correctional officer roster. Question okay, so I'm going to have you just initial and date. I'm going to place this again here just in case we need to reference it. And, and again, it's just if we need to look at it, who is working and what position and what. Yeah, please. So this would be for the August 9th and that one would be for August 10th. Question yeah, so we had to pull that from just for the full disclosures, but just so that we have both. The August 9th one was something that you had sent. All right. Since Epstein was required to have a cellmate, who was ultimately responsible to make sure that. That all shoe staff were aware of this requirement? Answer that they were notified. Question so how so, Dr. Redacted or Ms. Redacted, send out the email saying Epstein's required to have a cellmate, the one that we reviewed. Answer Right. Question who was required to make sure that the staff knew of the requirements in the shoe? Answer well, the captain passes it on to the lieutenants and the officers are then made aware that he, you know, any inmate is if they're required to have a cellmate, that you know, that they're required to have a cellmate if somebody leaves or goes out. Question now, someone such as an Epstein, who was just coming off of suicide watch, you know, a week, a week and a half prior, should all the staff have known that that person is supposed to be housed with a cellmate? Answer in the special housing unit. Anybody working in there would know that he was supposed to have a cellmate. Question do you believe that there was anybody especially that's got a quarterly bit of a post there, but anybody that's working in the shoe on August 9th or 10th, do you believe that they could have had a reason why they would say we didn't know he was supposed to have a cellmate? Do you think that would be an acceptable excuse? Answer because you had the staff that usually work up there were up there. It should be. It should have been annotated on his is. What do you call it? It's called the 292. Question the hot list you're referring to? Answer no, not the hot list. Question oh, you mean the 292. You're talking about the shoe file. Answer the shoe file. It should be annotated on the shoe file because when you come in, you have to annotate on there his meals. Did he eat the medical rounds? So it would have been on there. It would have been on there too. Question Would it have also been on the hot list? So the point being is, do you think that if any staff that is working in that, you know, as we know, Mr. Reyes left in the morning of August 9th, Mr. Epstein was found the morning of August 10th. Shoe staff that's working in there at that time, he's 24 hours basically gone, you know, with no. Without a cellmate. Do you think that this is a reasonable excuse for them to say that we didn't know he was required to have a cellmate? Answer no, because they did know. Because I, from what I understand, someone wrote a memorandum and had it that day. They knew. Question okay, well, yeah, we can get into that now then. So these are. Hayes interrupts them One other question. I want to open a box. Question Absolutely. Hayes. That means I'm going to have to bring a sharp object in here. Is that going to bother anybody? Everybody says no. Question I'm sorry, I thought you were talking about like this hypothetical situation of if we were in the MCC or something hazed. Oh, no, no. This is just a box question. You're wanting to know if you can use scissors. Yeah, that's fine. Question all right, we're going to continue then. The answer was yes. Answer I don't know if that was somebody. I'll ask a few more questions before we get into these documents. Were any plans made on how to address the situation for if Reyes was removed as Epstein's cellmate like, if he. Because I know at mcc, inmates certainly leave. Answer. No, I mean, the plan would have been, you know, we would have reassessed it, because usually you get ahead of time. We would have just said, okay, when is when Reyes leaves or, you know, when he was leaving, then before he was placed back in the cell, an assessment would have been made. Okay, now, what is your understanding of what happened with inmate Reyes on August 9th, 2019? When I got back after the fact, I guess the marshals came and removed him from the institution. Okay, so there's a lot of people we've talked to that thought he went to court, and at court, it was determined that he wasn't coming back. Had you heard that? That's what I heard, too. I had heard that he was going to court, and then I guess word got back that he wasn't coming back. That's what I heard. So I never got indiscernible. I never got the actual story because I was. I was removed. Question. Okay, and again, what does WAB mean? Answer. It means with all belongings. Question. Okay, Answer. But I don't know. I don't know if people will say that he left, and then they went and got them from the office, so I'm not sure. Question. Okay, so this is one of the documents that says from redacted to redacted to you with inmate Epstein as a subject. Answer. Right. Question. And it says, so far, this is the documentation I have in my possession. Too fast, Trevor. Too fast.

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[Podcast Host]

And if you see, you know, here, it talks about all the documentation pertaining to Him. These look like all the BOP database things. And down here it says documentation. Reyes registration number 85-993-054 cellmate. It says court documentation regarding WAB8919. And then also shoe file. So showing court documentation regarding WAB8919. What documentation is she referring to there? Answer I guess whatever came through R D Question Huh? Answer Our receiving and discharge, they might have gotten. They must have gotten information to release him and that he was being transferred. Question so would it all be, I know R D creates something called like court production list. Would that be that what she's talking about, the court production list? Or would she be, you think, or like PP38 or something? Or whatever? Answer I think and I'm speculating now, it was probably the court list and it probably said we're sending them off to court and it was a possibility that he might be getting released. Question because of the document that has been eluding me is the court production list. Do you know if that was ever obtained? Do you know the thing that the R D creates, the list, they provided it to the different housing units. Answer List I don't. I don't know what they did with it. Question they just all say that they destroy it after the time. Answer yeah, they do. Question but that's what would have been used by the shoe staff in order to produce Reyes to the R D. Answer no, not necessarily. What typically happens is the R D staff will call up to the shoe and say, hey, I need Reyes down. He has court or he's being released. So they wouldn't have had the document sent up. Question so everyone that we talked to said R D said yes, we created the document and the shoe staff, including the OIC said yes, we had documentation showing that he was wab. So then. And they all said it was because it was a court production list that you sent out emails to. He gets cut off by the warden unless it's sent out early in the morning. Back to the question and it's not something that's sent electronically. It's something they said that they generate print out and hand to different. The ops lieutenant has one. Every housing unit has one. Internal goes around and collects people based upon it or something. I think that they then basically destroy it at the end of the day and nothing's maintained in the system. They just use the template and create a new one every day. Answer so that must have been the early court movement. So I was under the impression that he was. He left in the afternoon. So when Typically in the afternoon they will just call up and say, hey, we got one that's leaving. So I assumed he had left in the afternoon. Question. Okay, so is it then, are you not then to answer that question, are you not sure exactly what she's referring to when she says court documentation regarding wab? Answer like the way you explained it, then that means they were talking about morning courts. Question well, that's what they were. I'm just talking about specifically what she's talking about in the emails to you. Answer. But when you say WAB with all belongings, it depends on the time of day that they left. You know, you could have afternoon court. You don't have the list generated. And they say we need all his belongings. Question. And then we will keep this in front of you. This might help explain this. So this is an email that was sent from the U. S. Marshal Service, someone named redacted on Thursday August 8, 2019, 10:33am it says transfer of prisoners from NY from NYM to GEO. The following prisoners are to be transferred. The second person listed out of the two is Efren Reyes. Please schedule the transfer for Friday, 8 9, 2019. Please include 7 days medication with a medical summary. Thank you. Answer Right. Question so this is obviously sent R and D. Correct? Answer Right. Question do you know what kind of medication that we're talking about? That was a question by Mr. Hayes. Answer by the investigator. Well, that's Efren Reyes. But this is not relevant. I don't think it's relevant. Here's another email that the US Marshals Service sent. This time it was at redacted. It says prisoner production. It looks like it was sent to custody on Thursday Aug 8, 2019 at 3:36. And then this document, prisoner schedule report is attached. You're looking at the second one. Question so for the mcc, it shows right here, the second person listed is Efren Reyes. And it just says TF transfer within MCC New York. And right here it says Judge MCC T O T geo. What I was told is that it means he's transferring from MCC to geo. Is that your understanding? Yes. Question and then on this one, this is the PP38. On the 3rd, 489-2019. On the 3rd page it shows Reyes from Z0622. And that means the shoe. Correct Answer yes, the shoe. Question Pre move. Answer yup. Question at 8:38. Answer yep. Question so this was 8:38am he's keyed out of our system. We got these two emails from the U. S. Marshal Service saying He's being transferred from the MCC to geo. Answer A contract facility, a private prison. Hayes pipes in okay, and you had nothing to do with. In other words, somebody else decides to go from one place to another. Warden yes. Hayes, you indiscernible okay. Hayes and would that be the judge or the marshals? The warden, the marshals, I guess the judge. I don't know who the how who the marshals work, but he gets cut off by the investigator, prosecutors, marshals and the judge all in coordination. They make those determinations. But and then here is an email from you to Mr. Redacted with what you are talking about. And that memo it says on Friday, August 9, 2019. But before we even get into that, now that you've seen this, you have seen these two emails from the Marshal Service on August 8th on August 9th at 838rd actually keys them out. Right. Question all of them say pre removed or transferred. Yeah. Does that now tell you anything about this court documentation regarding wab? Yeah. Now it explains that they had gotten a court order to give them the go out. Question so what do you think is referred to in that court documentation? Answer I guess it must be all these documents right here. Question this Answer Yes. Question so what we're actually looking at you think that she's referring to. Answer that's. I think that's what she was referring to. Question all right. All right folks, we're going to wrap up right here and in the next episode dealing with the topic, we're going to pick up where we left off. All the information that goes with this episode can be found in the description box.