Jeffrey Epstein Found Dead in His Cell

 Alan Dershowitz (right) represented sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in a controversial 2008 plea deal. (JTA illustration by Laura E. Adkins)

  

By Tom Winter, Jonathan Dienst, Nicole Acevedo and Yuliya Talmazan

Jeffrey Epstein, the millionaire financier and accused sex trafficker, is dead by suicide, according to three officials familiar with the matter.

The officials told NBC News that Epstein was found at 7:30 a.m. ET at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, a federal jail in Manhattan, and that he hanged himself.

Epstein ,66, was transported Saturday morning from the Metropolitan Correctional Center to a hospital in Lower Manhattan. Upon arrival, he was in cardiac arrest, people familiar with the matter say. Epstein, who was being held on federal sex trafficking charges, had been found injured and in a fetal position in his cell a little over two weeks ago. He was semiconscious with marks on his neck. Two sources told NBC News in July Epstein was on suicide watch.

H e was arrested July 6 in Teterboro, New Jersey, as he returned from Paris on a private jet.

He had pleaded not guilty and was denied bail. The indictment on his case showed that he sought out minors, some as young as 14, from at least 2002 through 2005 and paying them hundreds of dollars in cash for sex at either his Manhattan townhouse or his estate in Palm Beach, Florida, federal prosecutors revealed last month.

Epstein was charged with one count of sex trafficking conspiracy and one count of sex trafficking. He faced up to 45 years in prison if found guilty.

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His death came less than three weeks after he was found unresponsive in his cell at the federal prison in Lower Manhattan, with marks on his neck that appeared to be self-inflicted, sources told ABC News.

 He had been on suicide watch since the July 23 incident.

Epstein was arrested on July 6 for alleged sex trafficking of minor girls at his Upper East Side mansion and his home in Palm Beach, Florida. Some of the charges date back to the early 2000s. Epstein, 66, pleaded not guilty to the charges. He faced up to 45 years in prison if convicted.