Federal authorities knew Jeffrey Epstein was a big deal when they booked him into custody after the FBI arrested him on sex-trafficking charges in 2019 — with top officials demanding daily updates from the leadership of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, according to emails the government released Tuesday evening.

Corrections officers were told they had orders from “God” to make sure they kept a close eye on him, according to a U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General investigation. They didn’t.

“Shirley – Please provide me with a daily update on this inmate, including his status and any changes/activities I should be aware of,” the Bureau of Prisons Northeast Regional Director J. Ray Ormond wrote to MCC Associate Warden Shirley Skipper-Scott on July 24, 2019, less than a month before Epstein’s death in custody.

Jeffrey Epstein’s former home on the island of Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands. (Emily Michot/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

“He said he forgot what happened,” Mark Epstein said. “Jeffrey wasn’t an idiot. You don’t forget why you ended up with marks around your neck and on the floor. You don’t forget how you got there.”

After a stint on suicide watch, Jeffrey Epstein was later placed with a different cellmate, who left for court on Aug. 9. The judge wound up authorizing his release from custody, so Epstein was alone in his cell from then until his death.

Epstein spent a large portion of that day meeting with his lawyers. After they left around 6:45 p.m., guards let him make an unauthorized, unmonitored phone call, according to the IG report. He claimed he was calling his mother. He is believed to have called his girlfriend. 

A still image from surveillance video shows a portion of the wing where Jeffrey Epstein was held when he died. The camera with a direct view of his cell was not recording at the time, according to authorities. (MCC/U.S. Bureau of Prisons)

Although most of the security cameras in Epstein’s wing of the jail were not actually recording, he is believed to have been returned to his cell before 8 p.m., when authorities locked the unit down for the night.

His last contact with guards came around midnight on Aug. 10. Although guards were supposed to conduct checks every 30 minutes, and Epstein’s cell was within line of sight of an officer’s desk, no one checked on him until around 6:30 a.m., when staff serving breakfast found him unresponsive in his cell, according to authorities. 

He was pronounced dead, and the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an autopsy the following day, called for further investigation and later ruled that he hanged himself. 

His brother has publicly rejected that conclusion, and his former lover and only convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, also said more than once that she doesn’t believe he would have killed himself.

Two MCC guards who were accused of sleeping on the job and searching the internet instead of monitoring Epstein, then lying about details of their shift, accepted a plea deal that gave them each 100 hours of community service. They cooperated with the OIG probe.

In August 2021, the jail was ordered closed temporarily. Authorities have not yet announced plans to reopen it.

Many of Epstein’s accusers rallied on Capitol Hill Wednesday ahead of a congressional vote to release more Epstein records to the public.