'Rush to judgement' 'makes no sense’ to Judge Jeanine

FPI / August 20, 2019

Fox News host Jeanine Pirro said that the New York medical examiner’s ruling of suicide in the death of Jeffrey Epstein was “rushed” and many questions surrounding the pedophile’s death in a New York City prison cell remain unanswered.

Dr. Barbara Sampson, chief medical examiner in New York City, ruled out foul play, saying that after a “careful review of all investigative information,” she had determined Epstein’s death was via “hanging” and the manner was “suicide.”

Pirro said during an Aug. 19 appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show that Sampson’s “rush to judgement as to decide that this was a suicide makes no sense. We don’t know why the cameras weren’t working, why everybody was asleep, why they lied. The FBI, the DOJ, the Inspector General, Bureau of Prisons, everybody is doing an investigation.”

Epstein’s lawyers have said they were "not satisfied with the conclusions of the medical examiner," according to the New York Times.

Pirro contended that the “manner of death” should have been listed in the report, noting the difference between “what actually caused the death” and the way it occurred, such as suicide or homicide.

“You’ve got to give me the additional dots that cause me to believe it is one way versus another,” Pirro said. “And by the way, Tucker, I have tried cases that were listed as suicides and I’ve gotten a homicide conviction. So they weren’t suicides, they were intentional murders.”

“And secondly, the breaking of the hyoid bone…that’s classic in a strangulation, not in a hanging,” Pirro added, referring to reports that bones in Epstein’s neck were broken.

Pirro told Carlson that it “makes no sense to me as a prosecutor.”

Carlson asked Pirro if she had ever seen a medical examiner who “was influenced by political concerns or pressure.”

“Absolutely!” Pirro replied. “Look, everybody is human. Everybody can be influenced. But here is the saving grace … when we get all of the facts, we can decide what happened.”

“People say, ‘oh he tried to kill himself, he definitely committed suicide.’ That’s not true,” Pirro continued, noting that Epstein had said his former cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, had “beat the hell out of him.”

“I know that probably is true because I knew Nicholas Tartaglione. He was a cop when I was a DA in Westchester,” Pirro told Carlson.

Tartaglione, a 51-year-old former Briarcliffe Manor officer, was charged in 2016 with the deaths of four men. He was reportedly transferred out of Epstein’s cell in the Special Housing Unit of Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center at some point soon before Epstein died.

“Would it be like him to slap this guy around?” Pirro asked as she continued to question Epstein’s suicide ruling.

“Without a doubt, that’s number one. And, number two, the fact that he was very upbeat with his attorneys and said ‘I will see you Sunday,’ all these facts need to be looked into to decide whether or not it is a homicide versus a suicide,” she said, adding that issuing a ruling before the toxicology report on the microscopic tissues is back “makes no sense to me as a litigator who has tried homicide cases.”

Pirro also shut down her critics after Carlson asked his colleague what she makes of those insisting she is “being a conspiracy nut.”

“They haven’t done what I’ve done… personally,” she replied. “I don’t really care what people say. I did this for 30 years. I was a judge and I ran an office with 40,000 cases a year for 12 years. You figure it out. I went to every homicide. I oversaw every one of them.”

Free Press International