Efrain Reyes, the last man to share a jail cell with deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, died of coronavirus last month, law enforcement told a New York City news outlet.
The New York Daily News reports:
Reyes, 51, was found dead in bed on Nov. 27 at his mother’s apartment, the NYPD confirmed. In August 2019 he shared a cell with Epstein, only to be transferred to the privately-run Queens Detention Facility the day before the accused sex trafficker hanged himself, according to his family and Bureau of Prisons records. Reyes’s niece, Angelique Lopez, said Epstein was paired with her uncle because he had a bad leg and was mild mannered.
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Reyes, who pleaded guilty to a narcotics conspiracy involving crack and heroin at Bronx housing projects, saw firsthand that Epstein was trapped between inmates and cruel correctional officers, according to Lopez.
“They knew how much money he had. They said let’s push him around and extort him for money. They thought they could get his money,” Lopez told the outlet. “(Staff) were treating him like crap. They were making him sleep on the floor. They wouldn’t let him sleep on a cot.”
The report comes as a federal judge denied bail for Ghislaine Maxwell, the alleged madame of Epstein, for a second time this year.
Judge Alison Nathan said Maxwell poses a serious flight risk due to her wealth and multiple citizenships.
In recent weeks, Maxwell asked Nathan if she could be released from jail on a $22.5 million personal recognizance bond, and she proposed being under constant watch by guard at her New York City home. She also proposed to wear an electronic tracking device.
the judge wrote in her two-page ruling:
The Court … finds that the Defendant’s proposed bail conditions would not reasonably assure her appearance at future proceedings. The Court concludes that none of the new information that the Defendant presented in support of her application has a material bearing on the Court’s determination that she poses a flight risk.
Maxwell, 58, is in a federal lockup in Brooklyn awaiting a July trial on charges she recruited three teenage girls in the 1990s for Epstein to sexually abuse.
She has pleaded not guilty. Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan federal jail in August 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.
The AP contributed to this report.
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