Ghislaine Maxwell, the only person convicted in relation to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, said she believed the deceased financier didn't kill himself, noting that life is cheap in prison, according to transcripts from a Florida jailhouse interview with federal prosecutors released Friday.
Epstein was found dead in 2019 in his jail cell inside the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in lower Manhattan. His death, which was ruled a suicide, has spawned several conspiracy theories about whether Epstein really took his own life.
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On Friday, the Justice Department released hours of transcripts and audio recordings from interviews in which Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche sat down with Maxwell in a federal prison in Tallahassee.
During the interview, Maxwell was asked if she believed Epstein killed himself.
"I do not believe he died by suicide, no," she said.
She added that she didn't have any speculation about who could have killed him. However, she added that the U.S. Bureau of Prisons is rife with mismanagement.
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"There's a third component to that, which is having experienced now, the mismanagement and inefficiencies and total dereliction of duty at the Bureau of Prisons."
"In prison, where I am, they will kill you or they will pay - somebody can pay a prisoner to kill you for $25 worth of commissary," she added. "That's about the going rate for a hit with a lock today."
Maxwell further stated that she didn't believe that someone outside the prison could have had Epstein killed.
"If it is indeed murder, I believe it was an internal situation," she said, further stating that she didn't believe his death was a way to silence him.
"I do not have any reason to believe that," she added. "And I also think it's ludicrous because if that - I also happen to think if that is what they wanted, they would've had plenty of opportunity when he wasn't in jail. And if they were worried about blackmail or anything from him, he would've been a very easy target.
