Jeffrey Epstein’s family have hired a celebrity forensic pathologist to oversee his autopsy.
Relatives of the 66 year old disgraced former financier, who hanged himself in his Manhattan cell on Saturday awaiting trial for sex trafficking, instructed Dr Michael Baden to monitor the procedure.
Dr Baden was present yesterday when the autopsy on Epstein’s body was performed by the New York City Chief Medical Examiner Barbara Sampson.
But rather than release the results immediately as expected she said she needed “further information” before doing so.
The New York Times cited an anonymous city official as saying the death was by hanging.
Dr Baden is known as the “Death Correspondent” for Fox News and has investigated the deaths of John Belushi and Anna Nicole Smith and testified at the trial of OJ Simpson.
The involvement of Dr Baden, who has examined more than 20,000 bodies and was host of the HBO TV show Autopsy, adds another layer of intrigue to a death that has rapidly become engulfed in lurid conspiracy theories.
President Trump, a former friend of Epstein, yesterday promoted an unsubstantiated claim linking the Clinton family to the death when he shared a tweet and a video from conservative comedian and commentator Terrence Williams that was viewed more than three million times.
The autopsy took place as officials in the prison where Epstein was being held admitted that there was no video footage inside his cell.
It was the latest bungle after it emerged that Epstein was not checked on every 30 minutes as he should have been and his cell mate was moved to another unit, another breach of protocol.
It also emerged that the guards on Epstein’s prison unit at the Metropolitan Correctional Center had been working extreme overtime shifts because of staff shortages.
One guard was working a fifth consecutive day of overtime, according to reports in the New York Times.
Epstein was on suicide watch after a previous attempt but six days later on Saturday morning, he was found hanged in his cell at 6.30am at the Mahattan Correctional Centre.
The FBI does not normally look into suicides at a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility, but a senior law enforcement official told NBC News that it was investigating out of an “abundance of caution”.
In a statement Dr Sampson said that her “determination is pending further information at this time”.
She said: “At the request of those representing the decedent, and with the awareness of the federal prosecutor, I allowed a private pathologist (Dr. Michael Baden) to observe the autopsy examination. This is routine practice.”
It has been suggested that Mark Epstein, Epstein’s younger brother, was the person who approved the hiring of Dr Baden as he is his only known living relative.
However, Epstein could have asked one of his many lawyers to take care of his affairs in the event of his death.
If his demise is determined to be a suicide his family could pursue a claim for wrongful death as he was in the custody of the state, raising the prospect of a compensation payout if they succeed.
In previous cases Dr Baden has been hired where the family of a deceased person are suspicious about the official process and want the supervise it.
Dr Baden has written dozens of books on autopsies and was chairman of the forensic pathology panel for the Congressional committee that investigated the assassination of John F Kennedy.
He served as chief medical examiner for New York City in the 1970s but after that moved into lucrative private practice with frequent high profile appearances.
In 2007 he gave evidence in the Phil Spector murder trial where it emerged that his wife was one of the defendant’s main attorneys.
Epstein, a wealthy financier with homes around the world, who was due to go on trial for sex trafficking young girls and loaning them out to his powerful friends.
Among those who had been named in court documents was Prince Andrew, a close friend of Epstein for years, who was accused of groping one of his sex slaves.
Buckingham Palace has strongly denied that the Queen’s second son has had any improper involvement “with underage minors.”
