Barr Shakes up Prison Bureau after Epstein Death

August 20, 2019 Focus Washington Administration

U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Monday shook up the leadership at the federal Bureau of Prisons, removing its acting chief following the suicide of financier Jeffrey Epstein in a New York City jail, Reuters informed.

Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, a veteran of the Bureau of Prisons, will return to the agency to serve as its director, Barr said. He named another former agency official, Thomas Kane, to serve as her deputy.

Epstein was arrested on July 6 and pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of underage girls as young as 14. He died on Aug. 10 in his jail cell, and an autopsy report released on Friday concluded he hanged himself.

Just two days before, Epstein had signed a will placing all of his property, worth more than $577 million, in a trust called The 1953 Trust after the year of his birth, according to a copy of the document seen by Reuters.

The will was filed on Thursday in Superior Court of the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein was domiciled, according to a stamp on the document and a statement sent to Reuters on behalf of Epstein’s estate, Reuters adds.

According to the petition to the court, Epstein’s personal property included some $56 million in cash, $18 million in planes, cars and boats, and nearly $200 million in hedge funds and private equity investments.

He also owned shares of a corporation valued at nearly $56 million that holds title to a home on East 71st street in Manhattan, and others that hold title to a $17 million property in New Mexico, and a $12 million home in Palm Beach, Reuters writes.

The petition also lists shares worth over $22 million of a corporation that holds title to Great St. James Island, and nearly $64 million to another that holds title to Little St. James Island, both in the Virgin Islands.

In a statement on behalf of the estate, William Blum, counsel for the will’s executors, said that appropriate procedures would be implemented to ensure that assets are properly managed and that claims against the estate are “fairly administered.”