Federal Investigators Arrive at NY Jail Where Jeffrey Epstein Died From Apparent Suicide

The Metropolitan Correctional Center where financier Jeffrey Epstein was being held, in New York City, N.Y., on Aug. 10, 2019. Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images

A team of federal investigators was set to arrive on Aug. 14 at the New York jail where Jeffrey Epstein was found unresponsive on Aug. 10 before being declared dead by apparent suicide.

A Department of Justice (DOJ) official told USA Today that the team was from the Bureau of Prisons and is known as an “after-action” team.

The team would be trying to figure out whether jail staffers followed the proper protocols during Epstein’s detention.

Another person familiar with the probe said authorities have been investigating whether guards at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) were sleeping overnight on the morning Epstein died. The probe would also examine whether the guards correctly recorded what they were doing at certain times.

The Metropolitan Correctional Facility, where Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his jail cell, is seen on Aug. 10, 2019 in New York City. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

Jeffrey Epstein looks on near his lawyer Martin Weinberg and Judge Richard Berman during a status hearing in his sex trafficking case, in this court sketch in New York on July 31, 2019. REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg

Epstein was found unresponsive at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, authorities previously said.

Jeffrey Epstein in a file photograph. New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP

In addition to the bureau’s after-action team, the FBI and Department of Justice’s inspector general are conducting investigations, Attorney General William Barr said.

Barr said on Monday that he was “appalled” and “frankly, angry, to learn of the MCC’s failure to adequately secure this prisoner,” vowing to “get to the bottom of what happened at the MCC.”

“We will hold people accountable for this failure,” he said.

The after-action team’s arrival comes after the DOJ announced that the center’s warden was temporarily reassigned to the Bureau of Prisons Northeast Regional Office pending the outcome of the probes.

In this July 30, 2008, file photo, Jeffrey Epstein, center, appears in court in West Palm Beach, Fla. Uma Sanghvi/Palm Beach Post via AP, File

“The Bureau of Prisons also placed on administrative leave two MCC staff assigned to Mr. Epstein’s unit pending the outcome of the investigations. Additional actions may be taken as the circumstances warrant,” a department spokeswoman said in a statement.

On Aug. 13, President Donald Trump told reporters in New Jersey that he was demanding a “full investigation” into the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death.

“Basically what we’re saying is we want an investigation,“ Trump said. ”I want a full investigation. And that’s what I absolutely am demanding. That’s what our great attorney general is doing; he’s doing a full investigation.”

The Metropolitan Correctional Center, in Manhattan, New York, on July 1, 2019. AP Photo/Richard Drew

The exterior of the residence owned by Jeffrey Epstein on the Upper East Side is seen on July 15, 2019 in New York City. Kevin Hagen/Getty Images

It was previously reported that the guards assigned to work in Epstein’s area of the jail were working “extreme overtime shifts“ to make up for staffing shortages. One of the guards was apparently working their fifth consecutive day of overtime.

Another guard was forced to work overtime.

Sources told the New York Times on Tuesday that guards fell asleep and falsified records regarding what they were doing.

The warden and guards haven’t been named publicly.