← The Epstein Chronicles
The Epstein Chronicles
The Captain Of Security Operations At MCC And His OIG Deposition (Part 3) (5/29/26)
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The document is a sworn OIG interview transcript from June 15, 2021, involving the Bureau of Prisons captain who oversaw security operations at MCC New York during the period surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s death. The captain described the command...
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What's up everyone? And welcome to another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to get right back to the captain of security operations at MCC and his interview with the OIG inspectors. Question all right, Was there any discussion of placing Epstein in one of those units? Answer no. Question could he have been placed in one of those units? Answer I'm sure he could have. Question But I mean by executive staff or would they had to have made the call to the he gets cut off by the guard. I believe they would have had to make special concessions for the inmate. Question okay. Answer they would have to, you know, vet him and someone would have to approve it, I believe outside of the executive staff at mcc. Question okay, and then that's where I meant by. So the executive staff wasn't able to independently. No, we were not. Question okay. Were there many inmates housed within tensouth at the time? No. I believe at the time we may have had a total of four to five. Of course, you know, we had the notorious Joaquin Guzman up there. We also had the apple puff phonetic was up there. We also had inmate. It starts with an S. I can't remember his name. But basically these are inmates, these that have made crimes against the United States, which it was deemed that those inmates would be in that special management unit. And they couldn't of course, go to the general population. Question Was this like a terrorist type of people? Answer I would say some of them were terrorists. You know, of course you had Joaquin Guzman, the terrorist, the jug kingpin, etc. He could go. He couldn't go on the general population. He would normally guys like that would. Would be in places where I come from before, you know, like Florence. He'd be at the adx. Phonetic Apov. I believe that Apopov, I think that was his name. A Popov of or Sopapov. These guys had made terrorist threats against the United States. Or there was guys up there that had material or that was found in cooperation with outside agencies that was trying to detriment of indiscernible and cause harm to the United States. These kinds of guys, they were put in that unit. Guys you wouldn't want in general population because of their recruitment Value or their radical ability, they could be able to do have recruitment value for, you know, for other inmates in the general population. You don't want those guys in there. But Jeffrey Epstein, you know, he's a multi billionaire. Question. Sure. Now, as far as 10 south, is that one inmate per cell? Yes. Question. And video monitored at all times? Yes. Okay, so it's like you're a maximum security type. That would be the highest security that an inmate, an MCC would be placed in. Okay, yeah, could be placed in. But the executive team never discussed that. No. Okay. Redacted. Advised that Epstein preferred not to have a cellmate and engaged in manipulative behavior to avoid having one. What type of behavior? He gets cut off by the guard. I believe that Epstein. And when he first came in, he was doing self manipulative behavior. You know, he was showing passive resistant activity. As far as, you know, when they're taking meals or wouldn't listen to staff as far as when they're giving them direction. You know, he would sit in his cell and he wouldn't talk. You know, I believe he wasn't taking meals. At one point, he was refusing to take showers. Things of those nature. Question. And the sentence continues, including requesting to see a psychologist. Answer. Yeah. Question. Is that part of it? Answer yes. Question. Okay, did he say why he wanted to see a psychologist? Answer I don't know. Question no. Answer I don't remember that. No. Question. Sure. At Epstein's request, he was interviewed by a psychologist. Do you know who he made that request to? Would it have been SHU staff? Answer. He probably made that request to any of the staff that may have been monitoring him at the time. Because if he was placed on psychological observation at the time, psychological observation, you would have had to have staff person that sat there and monitored the inmate. Another inmate couldn't have done it. Question. Okay, and that is that like 24, seven. That would have been 24 hours, seven days a week. Question. So a staff member would just sit there and watch him? Answer. Correct. Question. Communicate with them or no? Yeah, of course. Question. Okay. Answer. I mean, and that's, you know, encouraged. I mean, you know, even though the inmate's placed in that situation. Again, we're talking about humanity here. You know, you want to gauge this guy's mental acuity, meaning that the inmate, you want to know how he's feeling, how he's doing, is he improving or is he declining? Because if he is declining and you can actually see it, you want to contact somebody, you know, if this guy is in there being Very, very, you know, belligerent. He's being passive aggressive or active, resistant or displaying signs of violence. You want to make sure that you notify someone. You're not just going to sit there and allow the guy to do self harm to himself or a staff member when they come to the door to provide his services, you know, such as taking him to shower, providing his meals, providing his medication or whatever it is. So you just don't want to sit there and allow the inmate just, you know, if he's going to be detrimentally, could be a harm to staff or himself. You want to ensure that you notify someone. Question. Okay, so following this assessment and Epstein was initially placed on suicide watch, he was later interviewed again and downgraded to psychological observation. Now, just for the suicide watch and psychological observation, where are they located? Those would be conducted downstairs on the second floor in the health services area. And that's outside of the shoe, correct? That is correct. And that was prior to any attempt on his life or anything like that? That is correct. Question. Okay. After some time, he was returned to the shoe, redacted, began hearing talk to Epstein was trying to get back on suicide watch. Information like this is usually generated from rounds, kites and kites. Your notes, correct answer, correct question. And notes from inmates, specifically correct answer. It could be yes. That could be an inmate correspondence. Question is yeah. And monitoring phone calls and letters. So the hearing of talk, that's all based upon inmate talk. Answer. That would have been all that, all that staff question. Okay, staff as well answer. You know, staffing sitting there and, you know, especially when he's on suicide watch, you know, staff are taking notes. So it's every 15 minutes. You know, staff is. Oh, I'm sorry. Every 30 minutes, I believe. I can't remember. It's been a while. But, you know, a staff member. It's every 30 minutes, I believe, is taking a log of what the inmate's doing inside of his cell. You know, so what he's doing, you know, the inmate's facing to the right, the inmate's facing away from the staff. The inmate is, you know, doing what? Or makes these statements. Those statements will be written on the log question. Okay, it says honor. About July 23, 2019, Epstein was found unresponsive on the floor of his cell with a homemade piece of fabric on his chest. When you say a homemade piece of fabric, can you explain that a little bit? Okay, basically a homemade piece of fabric. It could be anything because it's out of the special housing. That's what we're talking about, right? Yeah, I mean, I'm talking about specifically in this instance. Do you know what it's meant by found on the floor with a homemade piece of fabric on his chest. It could have been fragments from a T shirt. It could have been fragments from sheets. It could have been fragments from cloth. He gets cut off by the investigator. That they could tie together. It was tied together, you know, to make some type of homemade fashioned. He gets cut off by the investigator. Did you see it at all though yourself? I can't remember. Okay, sure. Epstein's cellmate had flagged the attention of a staff member who handcuffed the cellmate and removed Epstein to bring him to a medical unit. Do you recall at that time who his cellmate was? Answer Tartaglione question. Okay, great. And did you. All right, we talk about him in a little bit. Redacted. Heard from his staff that Epstein may have been faking unconsciousness. Do you know who told you that? Answer. Well, basically in memorandum I remember when it was reported to me and I made my report. I believe it was the report of incident by Lt. Redacted.
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Redacted. And I believe that she put out an email which concluded behavior to manipulate the situation through his statements and what was observed by medical staff. So basically they were saying that the incident didn't occur as the inmate may have tried to make it look or occur. Question. Because he was not observed opening his eyes and and making other suspicious movements not consistent with an unconscious state or. Sorry. Because he was observed opening his eyes and making other suspicious movements not consistent with an unconscious state. Epstein was medically assessed and became coherent. Epstein claimed that his cellmate Nicholas Tartaglioni tried to take his life. Was that investigated? Answer. I believe no. I mean, I can't remember, but I believe a report of incident may have been done. Question. Okay, answer. And primarily when a report of incident is generated. So anytime that an incident happens in the institution. I'm going to walk you through this. The lieutenant that's on shift is supposed to do the initial fact finding, the gathering of evidence and all of these things. And then they write a brief synopsis and it's put a packet and then ultimately SIS department will investigate it. Especially if we're having an assault or which would have been a 224 Alpha, which is a minor assault of another. So pictures would have been taken, clinical assessments of both inmates would have been taken, witness statements would have been taken. All of these things would have been done and it goes into an investigative packet. Question. Sure. So redacted. Lieutenant would have created it and provided it to sis. And do you know if. If there was any credibility found to the claim that Epstein made that this other his cellmate had tried to take his life? Answer I don't believe there was any credibility that was ever concluded that that incident happened. Question. And do you know anything about when he was initially found if the homemade rope or whatever it was was found around his neck or it says in this, on his chest, Anything with that, with, you know, do you know what I mean? Like if someone has trying to hang themselves, if it came on their chest, do you know anything about how that may have happened? I mean forensically I wouldn't know. I'm not an investigator on that level. So I can't really tell you the position of any type of homemade fashioned item that would be used to facilitate a suicide attempt or an assault attempt. That's not my level. Again, I'm trying to remember what, what it was or what was used. But again, I don't know exactly. So I can't really determine or give you that type of, you know, I don't have that expertise in that area. So he gets cut off by the investigator. But the information that was provided to you suggested that he tried to take his own life, not that the cellmate tried to take his life. Answer. Correct. That's the inconclusive that the inmate had. Inmate Tartaglioni had. Had tried to kill this guy or tried to do any self harm to this guy. So you have to. So like you have to take advantage because it's one inmate's word against another. So when the investigation comes down, of course inmate Epstein would have been interviewed. Inmate Tartaglioni would have been interviewed, at which time you would have took Those statements you would have waved, and then you would have taken into consideration any witness statements or anything that was observed during the clinical assessment. So that's why health services helps us out, because the inmates don't want to understand that everything they're doing or anything they're saying is being entered into that clinical assessment. So that's where they were saying that he wasn't. His actions may not have been what they should have been. For a person that was quasi. Supposed to have been assaulted or if he was supposed to have been unconscious, he was displaying this type of behavior. So again, we. I wasn't there, so I don't know what occurred. I'm just going by what was the information that was relayed back to me. Question. Absolutely. So as far as Tartaglioni, what was he in for? Answer. I believe that Tartaglioni was responsible for. He was a former police officer, I believe. And I believe he had killed four people and then he buried them. Buried the victim somewhere up near Otisville Prison. I think that's what it was back in the day. Okay, yeah, something like that. So he was actually in for murder, though? Yeah, it was murder. He was in for murder and whatever other stuff he was doing. Okay. Doing in his capacity as a police officer. Question. And who selected him to be Epstein's roommate? I don't remember who vetted Tartaglioni, but I will tell you is that even though Tartaglione had murder on his jacket, Tartaglioni also was an inmate that had issues being in general population. You understand what I'm saying? Question, former police officer. Answer, former police officer. He had issues because I've dealt with Tartaglioni at Brooklyn. So he was up on one of the units in Brooklyn and he had issues with those inmates in those blocks where they're made for people who are sex offenders, for inmates that have issues with. When they go to population general, they can't cope formal law enforcement. These types of guys are in that unit. So you don't really have that much issue in those types of units because these guys are going to do their time or await their sentence and then move on. So you don't really have a lot of violence. But this guy was always, always in the mix of something. But we couldn't put him in the general population unit. And you just can't throw him in the shoe, you know what I'm saying? Just because you just can. So in Brooklyn, we had the ability to put him. And I think it was K82. I can't remember when he goes to MCC, you know, they don't have those type of units, you know, so he would have to go into general population or he would go into the shoe. So if the inmate fails the program and said, I'm not going to population, you can't force me. So when you do his assessment, the unit does the assessment. Psychology does their assessment. Health services does that assessment. And they'll say, hey, this guy is clear to go to gp. There's nothing precluded him to go. But the inmate said, well, you know, I'm a 306. 306 is refusal for programs. I'm not going, so put me in the shoe. So that's how he ended up in the shoe. Sure. So he was in the shoe already. Yeah. And do you believe he was a good placement for Epstein? Answer. Well, at the time, again, you would have to be mindful. We don't. How could I put this? Inmates are not placed in cells based on race or. But however. Or gang affiliations. All of these things that you know. But however you've had inmates. So you say, okay, well, you have guys up there that at MCC that were facing murder charges. There's a lot of them. Hey, I mean, if they're in the shoe, they. That means they can't cope on the outside. They can't cope in general population unit. So we look at him just like another inmate. He never hurt another inmate. Question. And that was going to be my next question. So he was not known to assault anyone. Bro, he never assaulted another inmate. Okay. Yeah, he got a murder beef. Okay, that's fine. But guess what? He's never hurt any inmates while incarcerated. Just to jump in. Yeah, because you had him in the shoe, that's why. How do you think he'd handle himself in gp? Question. So taking though, that he was incarcerated due to murder and that Epstein claimed that he tried to murder him, do you think. Do you believe that there was any credibility to that claim? Answer again. What I will say is that I will tell you, like you said my statements before, that it was brought to my attention that inmate Epstein was doing behavior that was manipulating, kind of testing the water to see what he could get away with being his initial incarceration. Probably not too familiar with being in jail, but however, he's a smart guy. He kind of figured out what he could do in order for him. One, not to go to gp, two, try to get to the shoe and try to get a cell by himself. That's kind of where he wanted to go. Question so then he wanted to go to the shoe by himself. And that may have been why he said okay, okay. So you believe that he made the claim against Artaglione because he wanted to be in a cell by himself? That's in my belief. After looking at everything and everything that was done, I believe so. I think that would be accurate. 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.
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