Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide ‘counselor’ reveals he asked if he needed a ‘black inmate for protection’

Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide confidant has broken his silence exclusively to DailyMailTV to reveal the convicted pedophile was terrified of life in prison and asked whether he needed to hire a black inmate for protection while also sharing anecdotes of his jaunts with Donald Trump and Bill Clinton.

Epstein’s prison confidante Bill Mersey is the first person to speak out about Epstein’s weeks inside New York’s notorious Metropolitan Correctional Center this summer, spending dozens of hours with him in his role as an ‘inmate companion’ while the multimillionaire was on suicide watch.

Mersey, 69, said he has little doubt Epstein committed suicide after another inmate, who was housed next door to Epstein, told him he heard the sound of ‘ripping sheets’ from his cell on the night he died on August 10.

Until the end, Epstein, 66, did not betray any of his influential friends or show remorse, Mersey said. 

Nor did Epstein talk about his crimes or the dozens of alleged victims who have come forward to share stories of their abuse, many which took place when they were underage and have implicated the multimillionaire’s powerful friends, including Prince Andrew and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.

Mersey, 69, said he has little doubt Epstein committed suicide after another inmate, who was housed next door to Epstein, told him he heard the sound of ‘ripping sheets’ from his cell on the night he died on August 10

Mersey doesn’t believe conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein’s suicide. He said: ‘There would have to be so many people in on the conspiracy it would be really difficult to orchestrate. I am 99.999 percent that he committed suicide. I wasn’t there to see it so I can’t be 100 percent but I wouldn’t bet 2 cents against $1M that somebody did him. He did himself’

Mersey served a year at MCC in lower Manhattan after pleading guilty to federal tax evasion for under reporting income from his escort advertising agency. He was released in early November. Although he was housed in a different unit from Epstein – pre-trial and sentenced inmates are held separately – he spent around two dozen hours one-on-one with Epstein.   

Mersey had signed up as an ‘inmate companion’ – an MCC program where prisoners complete four hours of training then take shifts around the clock to observe fellow inmates on suicide watch, for which they are paid as little as 12 cents an hour. 

It was his work with the suicide program that led Mersey to become one of the few people who had direct contact with Epstein while he was in prison, apart from the financier’s lawyers and prison staff. 

Mersey said even before his arrival at MCC, Epstein was a hot topic among guards and inmates alike.

He said: ‘He was on the news. There are four televisions in each unit and another in this little gym area. The inmates saw that he was a billionaire and it was like, ”Wow, how can I extort this guy?” MCC has some gang bangers, there were very few white collar offenders.’

Epstein was arrested on July 6 when his private plane landed in New Jersey after arriving from Paris. He pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking dozens of underage girls, some as young as 14, between 2002 and 2005. He faced up to 45 years in jail if found guilty. 

On July 23, days after he was denied bail by a federal judge, he was believed to have attempted suicide after being found in his cell, semi-conscious, with marks on his neck while in 9 South, a special housing unit, known as the ‘shu’ or the ‘hole’.

Following his suicide attempt, Epstein was moved to a small suicide-watch unit of four cells.

Shortly afterwards, Mersey came face-to-face with America’s highest profile prisoner when he was scheduled on a shift as his prison companion.

‘In the [suicide watch] cell, there’s a little steel toilet, really filthy and it stank. A metal bunk with a mattress bed that’s about [an inch] thick. Some kind of blanket that’s not even a blanket and almost looks like moving material, the stuff that you wrap furniture in,’ Mersey said.

Until the end, Epstein, 66, did not betray any of his influential friends or show remorse, Mersey said. Nor did Epstein talk about his crimes or the dozens of alleged victims who have come forward to share stories of their abuse, which have implicated the multimillionaire’s powerful friends, including Prince Andrew and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell. Pictured: Andrew and Maxwell with alleged Epstein victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre

He continued: ‘You can’t read or write in the suicide cell. You need a special dispensation for that.

‘In order to brush your teeth, they gave a rubber thimble-like object to put over your finger. Epstein was mostly unshaven as there was next to no hot water in the suicide cells. It’s really threadbare.’

Suicidal inmates are barred from leaving their cells, the lights are never turned off and are watched 24/7 by other inmates in 4-hour shifts.

‘[In the suicide unit] we are all locked into that area on the second floor. You’re alone with the suicide inmates and the other companions,’ Mersey said.

‘When [guards] do checks, they would open the door to the unit and ask how everyone was doing.

‘You are assigned to one person with a log book. Every 15 minutes, you have to write down your observations as to what’s going on – inmate so-and-so is asleep or resting on his bunk,’ Mersey said.

‘Officers came in periodically and signed the log book. On the day shifts, they came in fairly often, on the night shifts they came in once or twice.

‘The psychologist would stop by once a day for 10 or 15 minutes with each inmate. [They would ask] have you been thinking about killing yourself? Are you going to hang up? That was the expression.’

Mersey said he believes Epstein felt something of a connection with him.

‘We were a similar age, race, religion and background. I was the obvious guy to relate to Jeffrey Epstein,’ he said. ‘My first impression was that he was unassuming, regular. He didn’t seem super intelligent.

‘When I first met him, I said I don’t want anything, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m not going to extort you, I’m on your side.’

Mersey said the suicide unit was relatively quiet compared to other units.

‘Epstein was locked in a cell and I sat outside about three or four feet away from him. There’s a big window in the door which is pretty much all glass except for the food slot. Jeffrey was on the other side of the glass and he would sit on the toilet, side-saddle, so we could hear each other and that’s how we could converse.’

Mersey said he believes Epstein felt something of a connection with him. ‘We were a similar age, race, religion and background. I was the obvious guy to relate to Jeffrey Epstein,’ he said. ‘My first impression was that he was unassuming, regular. He didn’t seem super intelligent’

Mersey served a year at MCC in lower Manhattan after pleading guilty to federal tax evasion for under reporting income from his escort advertising agency. Although he was housed in a different unit from Epstein – pre-trial and sentenced inmates are held separately – he spent around two dozen hours one-on-one with Epstein as an inmate companion 

Mersey had signed up as an ‘inmate companion’ – an MCC program where prisoners complete four hours of training then take shifts around the clock to observe fellow inmates on suicide watch, for which they are paid as little as 12 cents an hour. It was his work with the suicide program that led Mersey to become one of the few people who had direct contact with Epstein while he was in prison, apart from the financier’s lawyers and prison staff

During their first conversation, Mersey’s crime piqued Epstein’s interest.

He said: ‘I told him that I had made money catering to escort services. He lit up immediately and we talked for two hours on escort services in New York.’

Mersey continued: ‘He had a thousand and one questions, he was fascinated by it. He wanted to learn everything about it and had a genuine curiosity. I had the sense that he knew nothing of it and hadn’t used escorts.

‘He wanted to know how the business worked: were the girls really cute, did I partake? How much money did the owners make, how much money the girls make? He asked about the girls’ tips, if they had a place to live and security. We talked for a long time about that.

‘He didn’t ask about underage girls, nothing like that. I had no discussions with him about pedophilia or his predilection for girls under 18.

‘He didn’t brag on sexual exploits at all but he seemed like a really oversexed individual.

‘His interest was somewhat salacious but more academic because he was a teacher by trade.

‘I remember describing to another inmate what Paul Manafort’s crimes were [Manafort was also housed at MCC in the same time period as Epstein]. When I was done, Jeffrey said, ”That was really a good explanation of Paul Manafort.”

Mersey said Epstein volunteered no information about his alleged sex crimes or his victims.

‘I didn’t get in his business like that. It wasn’t my job. I mean specifically. you weren’t supposed to do that,’ Mersey said.

‘I felt like my role was to entertain, to make life worth living. Not to ask him pointed questions about his crime and depress him.’

Mersey said Epstein’s biggest worry was how to cope with life in prison.

‘He was really apprehensive about prison life, this was a big problem for him,’ Mersey said.

‘He was always asking about how to handle fellow inmates. He felt threatened. He asked me, ”Do I need a shvar?” [an offensive Yiddish word meaning black person].

‘He told me that when he grew up in Coney Island, he’d been bullied by black guys throughout his youth and he was just really scared of prison.

‘Everybody told him the same thing: Man up, stand up straight, look the guy in the eye if he’s trying to intimidate you.

‘I would say, ”It’s not really that bad, Jeffrey. This is not the penitentiary. The Aryan Brotherhood does not exist at MCC.”’

Mersey said Epstein ‘didn’t ask about underage girls, nothing like that. I had no discussions with him about pedophilia or his predilection for girls under 18. He didn’t brag on sexual exploits at all but he seemed like a really oversexed individual. His interest was somewhat salacious but more academic because he was a teacher by trade’. Pictured: Epstein saying goodbye to a young woman outside his New York mansion 

But Epstein never articulated a fear of prison for being an accused child sex offender.

‘I think he was more afraid because he was a rich man. He was afraid for his physical safety, he thought he was going to get his ass kicked,’ Mersey said.

He added: ‘Mostly chomos – child molesters – hide their crime because that’s the lowest thing in prison, along with being a snitch.’

Mersey broached the topic of Epstein’s attempted suicide with him.

‘I saw he had a couple of abrasions. I didn’t take it all that seriously.

‘I asked him, Jeffrey what happened? He said, ”I got up to get a drink of water in the middle of the night and that’s the last thing I remember. I blacked out.”

‘I thought he was full of crap but I’m not going to push it. But that was obviously what his lawyer told him to say.’

Soon after Epstein was placed on suicide watch, Mersey took over coordinating shifts for inmate companions, another role that is delegated to prisoners inside MCC. 

‘After the first time I met with him and I was being taken back to my cell, Epstein asked me, ”Mersey, are you coming back tomorrow?” He seemed keen to have someone he could talk to.

‘Jeffrey would visit his lawyer from noon until eight at night. I worked in the kitchen from 1pm until 6.30pm and then I assigned myself the 7-11pm shift because it was a good time to hang out with him,’ he said.

Mersey estimates he spent more than two dozen hours with Epstein during his inmate counselor shifts, where they fell into a routine.

‘He was probably paying $10,000 a day to hang out with his lawyer for eight hours a day and I asked him if he was getting anything done.

‘He said, ”We just read document after document after document.” I got the impression that he wanted to get into a routine and hoping that somehow his lawyer was going to get him out on bail.

‘After he came back from his lawyer, we talked for an hour and a half, two hours. Then he would say, ”Mersey, I’m going to sleep.” He would lie on his back, put a sock over his eyes and five minutes later he’d be snoring.’

Mersey said: ‘He didn’t brag about his lifestyle but Epstein knew everybody that matters, so I did ask him one time, Jeffrey, give me one anecdote that’s emblematic of the essence of Donald Trump. Epstein thought about it and then said, ”Donald and I are flying in my private jet to Florida and I have a French girl with me. Donald says to me, why don’t we land in Atlantic City so I can show your friend my casino? [Epstein] said, I’m not landing in Atlantic City, it’s all white trash down there. So the French girl goes, what does white trash mean? I don’t understand. And Trump says, ”It’s me without money”

He said there was no mention of his famous friends Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell, who the FBI are now reportedly seeking to interview over their connections to Epstein. Both Andrew and Maxwell have denied any wrongdoing.

Mersey said: ‘He didn’t brag about his lifestyle but Epstein knew everybody that matters, so I did ask him one time, Jeffrey, give me one anecdote that’s emblematic of the essence of Donald Trump.

‘Epstein thought about it and then said, ”Donald and I are flying in my private jet to Florida and I have a French girl with me. Donald says to me, why don’t we land in Atlantic City so I can show your friend my casino?

‘[Epstein] said, I’m not landing in Atlantic City, it’s all white trash down there. So the French girl goes, what does white trash mean? I don’t understand. And Trump says, ”It’s me without money.”’

On a roll, Mersey claimed Epstein then launched into an unsolicited tale about Bill Clinton.

He said: ‘[Epstein] said he was walking down the street in a Chinese city with him and a really beautiful Asian girl walked by. [Clinton] turned to him and said, ”That woman makes my d*** harder than Chinese arithmetic”.’

Flight manifest records for Epstein’s private plane, dubbed the Lolita Express, show Clinton flew with Epstein to Hong Kong on January 22, 2002, then Shenzhen, China on January 23, then left the same day for Singapore, went to Bangkok on January 25 and then traveled to Brunei later in the day on January 25. 

Clinton flew with Epstein on his private plane again in 2003, picking up Clinton in Oslo and heading to Russia on November 5, then going to Hong Kong on November 6, then onwards to Chengdu, China on November 9 and later in the day going to Beijing.

Mersey asked Epstein if Clinton liked young girls and Epstein replied, ‘No, he liked them mature and he can’t do anything now anyway, too many heart operations. His philandering days are over.’ 

Despite his precipitous fall, Epstein ‘never complained’ and ‘didn’t whine’ about the well-documented, wretched conditions at MCC.

‘He wasn’t a prima donna,’ Mersey said. ‘He hadn’t reconciled himself on how to deal with the fear of prison but aside from that, he was very composed. He held it together, didn’t talk about his old life.

‘At no point did he look like was losing it. By comparison, there were some guys in the suicide unit who were really losing it and throwing feces against the wall.’

On a roll, Mersey claimed Epstein then launched into an unsolicited tale about Bill Clinton. He said: ‘[Epstein] said he was walking down the street in a Chinese city with him and a really beautiful Asian girl walked by. [Clinton] turned to him and said, ”That woman makes my d*** harder than Chinese arithmetic”.’ Flight manifest records from Epstein’s private plane, dubbed the Lolita Express, show Clinton flew with Epstein to Hong Kong in January of 2002, then again to Hong Kong and Beijing in November of 2003 

Epstein, a financier whose accumulated wealth of $577 million remains much of a mystery, was happy to talk investments when Mersey asked him for financial advice during one of his shifts.

‘Epstein asked how old I was, how much money I had and where I had it. He said it was wise but I could be a little more speculative.

‘Epstein then asked, ”Do you have a wife or a significant girlfriend in your life?” I said, ”Let’s say I do for the sake of the conversation.”

‘He said, ”Well, stocks are like p****. You get to know her moods, what’s going to set her off and what’s going to make her happy. Stocks are like that. Pick three stocks and study them every day for six months, see how they react to international news, economic news, news in that industry. After six months, you should be able to predict when they’re going to go up, when they’re going to go down. 

‘So that was his investment advice, which I took it with a grain of salt.’

Mersey said Epstein did not strike him as remorseful but at times seemed to be jolted by the gravity of his situation, adding: ‘He didn’t seem mentally unbalanced and had no emotional outbursts.

‘He didn’t strike me as suicidal but sometimes you could see it in his eyes, ”Oh my God, I’m never getting out of here.” He would kind of drift off and I would try to bring him back,’ Mersey said.

The only medication he was aware of Epstein taking was laxatives which he presumed came about due to his age and the prison diet, which featured heavily in potatoes, rice and beans.

‘He complained about being given a certain brand, Ducosate, which he didn’t like,’ Mersey said.

During his last shift with Epstein, Mersey noted some significant changes in his behavior.

‘The last time I saw him, he was eating his dinner sitting on the floor, with his food between his legs. I asked him what he was doing and he said, ‘It’s easier this way.’

‘He had just kind of spiraled down to the floor. I thought that’s a long way down from a $77 million mansion to eating prison food sitting on a stone floor.

‘He also offered me money. He asked for my full name and [prison registration] number, so he could put some money on my books [commissary account].

‘I knew he was going back to the SHU the next day and that was the last time I saw him. He never did put any money on my books. Everyone was saying that was a good thing because if he did, I would have been investigated by the FBI.

‘There was a rumor that he had put money on some people’s books. I don’t know if he ever did or not but he never put any money on mine.

‘I was never questioned by the FBI even though I was all over the log books as having watched him several times.’

During his last shift with Epstein, Mersey noted some significant changes in his behavior. ‘The last time I saw him, he was eating his dinner sitting on the floor, with his food between his legs. He had just kind of spiraled down to the floor. I thought that’s a long way down from a $77 million mansion to eating prison food sitting on a stone floor’ 

Mersey added: ‘On my last shift with him, when he fell asleep, I wrote him a note. It was full of prison platitudes – Jeffrey, take it one day at a time, stay positive, we are all in the same boat. I left him my cousin’s phone number in case he ever wanted to reach out to me.’

According to a letter sent to Congress by the Department of Justice, Epstein was taken off suicide watch by ‘a doctoral-level psychologist’, NBC reported, because it was deemed it was ‘no longer warranted’. 

Mersey later learned Epstein had also requested him as his cellmate before he left the suicide unit.

‘A guy named Lopez, who was in the next suicide cell, told me that Epstein requested me as his bunky. Dr Imeri [MCC psychologist] said that he couldn’t do that because I was sentenced and he was pre-trial. That’s oil and water and they don’t mix.’

The Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on Mersey’s time in MCC. ‘We do not provide additional information on individuals who released from the custody of the BOP,’ a spokesperson said.

Just over a week after he was taken off suicide watch, on August 10, Epstein was found unresponsive in his cell in 9 South and later pronounced dead in hospital. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging.

Mersey said: ‘I have this theory that the SHU killed him because it can be a maddening place.

‘The SHU can get really noisy, it’s like a zoo. You’re caged in. You can really spiral down emotionally.

‘You can’t make phone calls, you can’t buy commissary. You only shower three times a week.

‘The cells at MCC are crawling with roaches, water bugs and families of mice.’

After Epstein’s suicide, Mersey was approached by another inmate, Brown, who had been sent to the SHU for a period after he tried to set up a drug deal over the prison-monitored email system Trulincs. He claimed to have been in the cell next to Epstein on the night that he took his life.

Just over a week after he was taken off suicide watch, on August 10, Epstein was found unresponsive in his cell in 9 South and later pronounced dead in hospital. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging

Following Epstein’s suicide, two guards, Tova Noel (left) and Michael Thomas (right), have been charged with conspiracy and falsifying records. They allegedly were asleep for several hours and surfing the Internet during their shift while performing none of the required checks between 10pm and 6am

Mersey said: ‘When he got back from the SHU, Brown came up to me. He said, ”I had the cell next to Jeffrey Epstein when I was in the SHU and I talked to him that night. I asked him if he got his radio back and we conversed briefly and he said everything was good.

‘And then about an hour later I heard him tearing up sheets.’ Brown said he definitely killed himself, nobody killed him. About six o’clock in the morning, the guards came through. They did not come through during night.

‘Brown said, ”When they saw him, they freaked out. They were going, Epstein, Epstein, nudging the body. They really sounded panicked.”’

Following Epstein’s suicide, two guards, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, have been charged with conspiracy and falsifying records. They allegedly were asleep for several hours and surfing the Internet during their shift while performing none of the required checks between 10pm and 6am.

MCC’s warden, Lamine N’Diaye, was reassigned following the suicide and acting director of the Bureau of Prisons, Hugh Hurwitz, was removed by Attorney General Bill Barr. An internal investigation is ongoing.

Mersey said he didn’t believe it was suspicious that Epstein’s bunkmate in the SHU had been moved on the day he committed suicide.

‘Guys went in and out of the SHU routinely depending on the offense,’ he said.

Following Epstein’s suicide, Mersey said inmates ‘got locked down for two or three days. The FBI were all over the building and then other people came in to appraise the performance of MCC’.

He added: ‘Many guards told me it was the worst place they had ever worked. They thought it was really inefficient and they were always short of officers. At one point, we spent three days in our cells eating bologna and cheese sandwiches without an explanation. We just assumed that it had to do with not having enough guards.’

Mersey doesn’t believe conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein’s suicide.

‘There would have to be so many people in on the conspiracy it would be really difficult to orchestrate.

‘When Brown told me what he heard from the cell right next to him, those doors are pretty close to each other.

‘I am 99.999 percent that he committed suicide. I wasn’t there to see it so I can’t be 100 percent but I wouldn’t bet 2 cents against $1 million that somebody did him. He did himself.’