The death by suicide of Jeffrey Epstein in a Manhattan jail cell in August ended one of the nation's most notable criminal prosecutions of 2019, but it also set in motion a series of events, the impact of which is expected to reverberate for years to come.

Since the Manhattan and South Florida-based financier was found hanging in his jail cell on the morning of Aug. 10, two federal agencies have begun investigating what went wrong at Metropolitan Correctional Center, and how such a high-profile inmate, awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, could be allowed to take his own life on the government's watch.

The investigation of Epstein's alleged underage sex ring, meanwhile, remains ongoing in the Southern District of New York, where prosecutors are said to be looking into Epstein's associates and employees.

Denied their day in court and aided by a state law extending the statute of limitations for cases brought by survivors of child sexual abuse, Epstein's victims have sued the millionaire's estate for money damages.

A claims resolution program, headed by mediation expert Kenneth Feinberg, has been set up in hopes of settling some of the cases, which have been filed in the Manhattan federal court. However, there has been no buy-in from plaintiffs and their counsel, and an attorney for one unnamed victim said at a hearing recently that there was little hope for a settlement.

The cases themselves are expected to last for years, as attorneys sift through thorny choice-of-law issues complicated in part by Epstein's decision to file his will in the U.S. Virgin Islands just days before he died.

Epstein was found hanging around 6:30 a.m. Aug. 10 and was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

The city medical examiner later determined that Epstein had died by suicide. However, an expert hired by Epstein's brother has claimed the death was more consistent with homicide by strangulation. Both the indictment and public statements from the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan have fully endorsed the medical examiner's finding that Epstein had committed suicide by hanging.

Two guards who were working in MCC's special housing unit the night of Epstein's death have been charged in the Southern District for allegedly falsifying official records to make it appear as though they were performing required checks on inmates, when in fact they had not.

According to a Nov. 19 indictment, the MCC employees, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, spent the evening at their desk, browsing the internet and milling about the common area. When Epstein's body was on the morning of Aug. 10, Noel told her supervisor that she and Thomas failed to complete their 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. rounds, and Thomas tried to take the blame for his colleague, saying, "I messed up, she's not to blame, we didn't do any rounds."

An attorney for Thomas has said that his client was being used as a "scapegoat" for broader, "systemic issues" at the federal Bureau of Prisons.

"There's only two people charged, but for this to happen, the whole system had to fail," the lawyer, Montell Figgins, said after a hearing last month. "Where are all the other people in the system who may have not done their job?"

The judge in the case has set a "firm" trial date for the end of April.

Prosecutors have left open the possibility of more indictments stemming from Epstein's death, and a report from the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General is expected to be released in the coming year.

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