December 28, 2020
Last man to share jail cell with Jeffrey Epstein died last month of COVID
By ELIZABETH KEOGH, THOMAS TRACY and STEPHEN REX BROWN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Efrain Reyes, pictured, died Nov. 27. In August 2019 he’d shared a cell with Jeffrey Epstein.
The last man to share a cell with Jeffrey Epstein died last month in a Bronx apartment after catching coronavirus at a jail for cooperating witnesses.
Efrain “Stone” 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.
Jeffrey Epstein in a 2017 photo provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry.
Reyes’s niece, Angelique Lopez, said Epstein was paired with her uncle because he had a bad leg and was mild mannered.
“They took him to my uncle because he had a broken leg. He was disabled. My uncle kept to himself. He was laid back,” Lopez, 27, said.
“(Epstein) liked to read a lot and he kept to himself. He wasn’t a problem starter or too loud. My uncle said he was a good cellmate.”
Photos released by a medical examiner reveal billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's jail cell where he killed himself.
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 said.
“(Staff) were treating him like crap. They were making him sleep on the floor. They wouldn’t let him sleep on a cot.”
The Metropolitan Correctional Facility, where Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in August 2019.
The FBI questioned Reyes about Epstein after the suicide discovered by correctional officers early on Aug. 10, 2019.
“He was a little worried about if he told on the security workers at MCC they would somehow lash out at him. He was worried if they told them what they did to Epstein he was worried it would follow him and affect him negatively,” Lopez said.
“They were asking how Epstein was when he was in the cell, if he seemed suicidal. They were asking if he had any indication that he would do that. My uncle cooperated.”
The Justice Department’s Inspector General is investigating the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s suicide.
Reyes caught COVID-19 at the Queens private jail commonly known by the name of its operator, GEO. The News previously reported that the jail, which recently held rapper-turned-cooperator Tekashi69, was overrun with coronavirus early in the pandemic.
Reyes cried when he shared his diagnosis with his family in a call from jail.
“He thought he wasn’t going to get out of GEO alive. He thought that was going to be it, he was going to die there,” Lopez said.
He was released in April and died five months later.
“I can’t say COVID didn’t play a part (in his death). He came back coughing more than normal. His lungs weren’t the same,” Lopez said.
The city Medical Examiner has not yet determined Reyes’s cause of his death. He suffered from heart problems and was diabetic — underlying conditions associated with severe coronavirus cases.
Reyes’s attorney confirmed his client died but declined further comment. The Southern District of New York also declined comment.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-efrain-reyes-jeffrey-epstein-mcc-20201228-wqmo7p4wefeltlultaaddf3gkq-story.html
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