NEW YORK —

Nearly four years after Jeffrey Epstein's death, thousands of pages of records obtained by The Associated Press are shedding new light on the financier’s time behind bars and a frantic response by federal corrections officials to his death.

The documents, including emails between jail officials and psychological evaluations, offer a fuller picture of Epstein as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges at the now-shuttered Metropolitan Correctionalnassar Center.

Epstein killed himself at the federal jail in 2019. In the days and weeks that followed, corrections officials struggled to explain how such a high-profile detainee had managed to take his own life.

The records show how he was moved from the jail’s general population to specialized housing and how he was briefly on suicide watch before being downgraded to psychiatric observation — his status when he killed himself.

Here are takeaways from the more than 4,000 pages of documents:

AN AGITATED INMATE

Epstein was anxious and despondent during much of his time in jail, prompting concern from jail guards and psychological experts about his mental state. He complained often about jail life, including poor sleep, constipation, the color of his uniform and his treatment by other detainees. The noise from a broken toilet in his cell left him sitting in the corner with his hands over his ears, according to one psychologist.

But despite his litany of complaints, Epstein insisted that he wouldn't take his own life. Even after he was discovered on his cell's floor with a strip of bedsheet around his neck and placed on suicide watch for 31 hours, he denied that he was contemplating suicide, which he said was against his Jewish religion. Plus, he added, he was a “coward” who didn’t like pain.

“He described having a ‘wonderful life,’’” a psychological evaluation stated. “He said ‘it would be crazy’ to take his life. He furthered, ‘I would not do that to myself.’”

A LETTER TO ANOTHER SEX OFFENDER

Among the new revelations was an attempt by Epstein to reach out to another notorious pedophile: Larry Nassar, the USA Gymnastics team doctor convicted of sexually abusing scores of young athletes.

A letter sent by Epstein to Nassar was found returned to sender in the jail’s mail room weeks after Epstein’s death. “It appeared he mailed it out and it was returned back to him,” the investigator who found the letter told a corrections official by email. “I am not sure if I should open it or should we hand it over to anyone?”

The letter itself wasn't included among the documents turned over to the AP, which also don't indicate what became of the letter.

FINAL PHONE CALL

Epstein was found dead on the morning of Aug. 10, 2019. He had hanged himself with a bedsheet, according to the medical examiner. Hours earlier, he appears to have successfully deceived jail guards one last time by telling them he wanted to talk on the phone to his mother, who had been dead for 15 years.

A correctional officer escorted Epstein to a shower area at around 7 p.m., where he was permitted to make a 15 minute “social call.” Reports later indicated that he had phoned his 30-year-old girlfriend.

Weeks after his death, a jail warden questioned why an employee had failed to follow policy by allowing Epstein to make an unmonitored call.

MUDDLED RESPONSE

The documents shed light on the lurching response by the Bureau of Prisons in the critical hours of Epstein’s death.

In one email, a prosecutor involved in Epstein’s criminal case complained to an agency lawyer that it was “frankly unbelievable” that the agency was issuing public news releases “before telling us basic information so that we can relay it to his attorneys who can relay it to his family.”

In another email, the prosecutor wrote of getting “increasingly frantic calls” from Epstein’s lawyers.

“We need to know as soon as possible the very basic facts, such as time and cause of death at the absolute minimum,” wrote the prosecutor, whose name was redacted. “It has now been hours since this was reported publicly,” the prosecutor wrote, adding that it was “extraordinary frustrating to have to tell them that we have less information than the press.”

As news outlets began reporting details of the agency’s failings, a high-ranking federal prison official made the apparently baseless suggestion to the agency’s director that reporters must have been paying jail employees for information.

THE AFTERMATH

Epstein’s death touched off a wave of anger toward the Bureau of Prisons and questions about the operation of the Metropolitan Correctional Center. In an internal memo, officials blamed “seriously reduced staffing levels, improper or lack of training, and follow up and oversight” for the death.

Two guards who were supposed to be watching Epstein on the night of his death were found to have falsified records, admitting to napping and browsing the internet instead of monitoring the high-profile inmate.

The documents show other efforts to implement reforms, such as requiring jail captains to review footage, ensuring that guards are completing their rounds every 30 minutes. Jail officials said they would allow psychological experts to play a larger role in determining how housing decisions are made.

In some respects, the officials may have overcorrected. A memo sent to the Bureau of Prisons director shortly after Epstein’s death warned that wardens were “defaulting to leaving inmates on suicide watch longer than the psychologists have advised.”

By 2021, the Metropolitan Correctional Center had closed down. An investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general is still ongoing.

Melinda French Gates is opening up for the first time since finalizing her divorce from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

In an interview with "CBS Mornings" co-host Gayle King, French Gates said after filing for divorce from Gates after 27 years of marriage, there were days that she was upset, and she is working on her journey towards healing.

She told King that there are days she's crying and there are also days she's angry, but that it was "part of the grieving process."

Last May, the couple announced they were separating. Their divorce was finalized in August.

Following their divorce, news of Bill having an affair with a staffer 20 years ago came to light, which a spokesperson for the Microsoft co-founder confirmed last May, USA Today reported.

King asked French Gates about the affair, which she said that eventually, she couldn't trust what they had.

French Gates also spoke about her ex-husband's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who she met one time because she needed to "see who this man was."

She told King that she did not like that her former husband had meetings with Epstein, adding that any further questions about that relationship should be addressed with her ex.

In a statement to CBS News, the former Microsoft CEO said that he deeply regrets meeting Epstein, which he called a mistake.

French prosecutors say a modeling agent who was close to disgraced U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein was found dead Saturday in his French jail cell.

Agent Jean-Luc Brunel was being held in an investigation into the rape of minors and trafficking of minors for sexual exploitation. The French investigation was prompted by sex-trafficking charges against Epstein in the U.S., and Brunel was considered central to the probe.

Paris police opened an investigation into Brunel's death. Brunel's lawyer did not comment. Epstein killed himself in 2019 in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial.

As the Associated Press reported, Brunel was a frequent companion of Epstein and considered a central part of the French probe into allegations of sexual exploitation of women and girls by Epstein and his inner circle. Multiple women have said they were victims and reported it to police since the investigation was opened in 2019.

A former boyfriend of a woman who says she was paid to give sexual favors to Jeffrey Epstein, starting at age 14, corroborated parts of her account Wednesday at the sex trafficking trial of the millionaire's longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell.

The man, identified only as Shawn to protect the identity of his ex-girlfriend, said on multiple occasions in the early 2000s he drove three girls he knew to Epstein’s estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

He would wait in the car for an hour until the teenagers would emerge with $100 bills.

The girls included a woman who testified on Tuesday only as Carolyn to protect her privacy. She had told the jury she made hundreds of dollars giving sexualized massages to Epstein, and that Maxwell had fondled her and told her she “had a great body."

Shawn said he and Carolyn used some of the cash to support their drug habit.

The testimony came as the government neared the end of its case against Maxwell, who has denied charges she instructed teenagers to give Epstein sexual messages at the millionaire’s residences in Florida, New York and elsewhere.

Maxwell's lawyers have said she's being made a scapegoat for sex crimes committed by Epstein, who briefly went to jail in a child prostitution case in 2008, and then killed himself after he was hit with new charges in 2019.

The last of four key accusers was expected to testify Thursday before the government rests its case. The defense is set to start its case next week.

In his testimony Wednesday, Shawn said he drove the girls to Epstein's posh property from the much less affluent neighborhoods of West Palm Beach, where the teenagers lived, whenever he received a call from one of three women who worked for Epstein.

One of them, he said, had a “proper English" accent. Maxwell was raised in England.

Shawn testified that he never met Maxwell but he once met Epstein in his driveway when Epstein arrived late for a massage. He said Epstein “introduced himself and showed off his car.”

He said the teenagers would exchange their $100 bills at a Palm Beach gas station for smaller bills because no businesses in West Palm Beach would accept the large bills.

NEW YORK —

A judge on Monday rejected a $28.5 million proposed bail package for Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend, saying her incarceration is necessary to ensure she faces trial on charges she recruited teenage girls for the late financier to sexually abuse.

U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan rejected the proposed bail for Ghislaine Maxwell in an order. But she did not immediately release an opinion explaining her reasoning, in order to allow defense lawyers and prosecutors to propose redactions.

Defense lawyers for Maxwell, who had lost a bail request shortly after her July arrest, recently offered the new bail package, saying Maxwell and her husband were offering all of their wealth — $22.5 million — and millions more in the assets of friends and family to secure bail. Maxwell's husband has not been publicly identified.

Her attorneys said Maxwell would remain in a New York City residence under 24-hour guard and would submit to electronic monitoring if the judge accepted the bail package.

A message seeking comment was sent to Maxwell's lawyers after Nathan ruled.

Prosecutors said Maxwell still retained access to significant wealth and was a high risk to flee because of her connections abroad — in addition to U.S. citizenship, she holds citizenship in the her native United Kingdom and France.

Maxwell, 59, was arrested in July at a secluded New Hampshire home and was brought to New York City.

She was charged with recruiting three teenagers as young as age 14 for Epstein to sexually abuse between 1994 and 1997. She also was accused of sometimes participating in the abuse. She pleaded not guilty to an indictment.

She has remained at a federal lockup in Brooklyn after Nathan concluded shortly after her arrest that there were no bail conditions that would ensure she would not flee.

"For substantially the same reasons as the Court determined that detention was warranted in the initial bail hearing, the Court again concludes that no conditions of release can reasonably assure the Defendant's appearance at future proceedings," Nathan wrote Monday.

"In reaching that conclusion, the Court considers the nature and circumstances of the offenses charged, the weight of the evidence against the Defendant, the history and characteristics of the Defendant, and the nature and seriousness of the danger that the Defendant's release would pose," the judge added.

Epstein killed himself in August 2019 at a Manhattan federal jail as he awaited a sex trafficking trial.

NEW YORK —

Prince Andrew's legal team said Tuesday that a civil lawsuit alleging the senior British royal sexually abused Virginia Roberts Giuffre when she was 17 is baseless, and argued that legal papers in the case weren't served properly.

Los Angeles attorney Andrew Brettler, who appeared virtually during a pre-trial teleconference in New York on behalf of Andrew on Monday, said the prince's legal team would challenge the validity of the lawsuit.

Brettler referenced a settlement that Andrew's lawyers said Giuffre had previously entered, precluding her from pursuing litigation against anyone connected to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

"We believe, however, that this is a baseless, non-viable and potentially unlawful lawsuit that plaintiff has filed against the Duke. There has been a settlement agreement that the plaintiff has entered into in a prior action that releases the Duke and others from any and all potential liability," Brettler said.

Giuffre accuses Andrew of having sex with her when she was a minor, and filed a civil lawsuit against the prince in New York in August. Andrew has denied similar allegations from Giuffre in the past.

But the case can't proceed until judicial authorities determine that legal papers have been legally served to the prince. Brettler said Monday that the Duke of York's legal team had been in contact with the High Court in the United Kingdom which they say must weigh in on the service — or formal notification — of the lawsuit.

Giuffre's lawyers say this has been done. In an affidavit filed in the Southern District of New York on Friday, a process server hired by Giuffre's legal team to give formal notice of the lawsuit to Andrew said he left the papers with the Metropolitan Police security detail at the main gates of the prince's home, the Royal Lodge in Windsor, on Aug. 27.

"We've proceeded to serve Prince Andrew in several ways pursuant to Article 10 of the Hague Convention," an attorney for Giuffre, David Boies, said during Monday's hearing.

Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan and attorneys for Giuffre agreed it was premature to discuss the previous settlement agreement with Epstein, which is currently sealed in another civil action in the Southern District of New York.

"I think we are making this more complicated that it already is," the judge said in court Monday.

Kaplan ordered a schedule for the parties to file procedural motions that will play out before he makes a decision on the service of the lawsuit and whether that settlement agreement should be shared with the Prince's counsel. An in-person hearing in New York is scheduled for Oct. 13.

CNN reached out to attorneys for both parties for comment.

Giuffre says she was trafficked by Epstein and forced to have sex with his friends, including Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth's second son, when she was a minor. While Andrew has denied the claims, he has been seen in photos with Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and former girlfriend of Epstein who is currently charged with conspiracy and sex trafficking amongst other charges.

U.S. authorities have previously accused Andrew of not cooperating with attempts to interview him as part of the investigation into the alleged sex trafficking ring ​Epstein and Maxwell are suspected of operating.

The prince stepped back from royal duties in the wake of a 2019 interview he gave the BBC in which he was widely considered to have damaged his own credibility. He now rarely appears in public.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates regrets his gatherings with Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financial manager who was accused of child sex trafficking, he told CNN Wednesday.

"It was a huge mistake to spend time with him, to give him the credibility of being there," Gates said.

Speaking with CNN's Anderson Cooper Wednesday, Gates said he only met with Epstein in the hopes of raising more money to deal with global health issues.

"I had several dinners with him, you know, hoping that what he said about getting billions of philanthropy for global health through contacts that he had might emerge," Gates said. "When it looked like that wasn't a real thing, that relationship ended."

In July 2019, federal prosecutors in New York unsealed a criminal indictment accusing Epstein of having operated a sex trafficking ring in which he sexually abused dozens of underage girls, allegations that had circulated around the politically connected businessman for years.

The well-connected hedge fund manager previously evaded similar charges when he secured a non-prosecution deal with federal prosecutors in Miami in 2008. Instead of facing federal charges, Epstein pleaded guilty to two state prostitution charges and served just 13 months in prison. He also registered as a sex offender and paid restitution to the victims identified by the FBI.

In August 2019, Epstein was found dead in a New York jail cell. The New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said his cause of death was suicide by hanging.

Gates declined to respond to the Wall Street Journal's reporting that his social connection to Epstein played a role in his divorce from Melinda French Gates, which was finalized this week.

"It's a time of reflection, and at this point, I need to go forward," Gates told CNN. "Within the family, we'll heal the best that we can."

The tech magnate has focused most of his time in recent years on global health issues through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose leader recently told staffers that the Gates family would determine over the next two years whether it's possible for them to continue their foundation work together. If not, Bill Gates will pay his ex-wife to leave the foundation using his own personal funds.

Gates told CNN he hopes Melinda French Gates will stay.

"That would definitely be the best thing for the foundation," Gates said. "Melinda has incredible strengths that she brings that help the foundation be better."

WASHINGTON —

Related video above: The future of Jeffrey Epstein's Zorro Ranch in New Mexico

The two Bureau of Prisons workers tasked with guarding Jeffrey Epstein the night he killed himself in a New York jail have admitted they falsified records, but they will skirt any time behind bars under a deal with federal prosecutors, authorities said Friday.

The prison workers, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, were accused of sleeping and browsing the internet instead of monitoring Epstein the night he took his own life in August 2019.

They were charged with lying on prison records to make it seem as though they had made required checks on the financier before he was found in his cell. New York City’s medical examiner ruled Epstein’s death a suicide.

As part of the deal with prosecutors, they will enter into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department and will serve no time behind bars, according to a letter from federal prosecutors that was filed in court papers Friday. Noel and Thomas would instead be subjected to supervised release, would be required to complete 100 hours of community service and would be required to fully cooperate with an ongoing probe by the Justice Department’s inspector general, it says.

The two have "admitted that they 'willfully and knowingly completed materially false count and round slips regarding required counts and rounds'" in the housing unit where Epstein was being held, the letter says.

The deal would need to be approved by a judge, which could happen as soon as next week. Attorneys for the guards did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Sen. Ben Sasse, a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who has been a vocal critic of the Justice Department’s handling of Epstein’s case, called the deal "unacceptable" and said the public deserves to see a report detailing the prison agency’s failures.

"One hundred hours of community service is a joke — this isn’t traffic court," Sasse said in a statement. "The leader of an international child sex trafficking ring escaped justice, his co-conspirators had their secrets go to the grave with him, and these guards are going to be picking up trash on the side of the road."

Prosecutors alleged that Noel and Thomas sat at their desks just 15 feet from Epstein’s cell, shopped online for furniture and motorcycles, and walked around the unit’s common area instead of making required rounds every 30 minutes.

During one two-hour period, both appeared to have been asleep, according to the indictment filed against them.

Both officers who were guarding Epstein were working overtime because of staffing shortages. One of the guards, who did not primarily work as a correctional officer, was working a fifth straight day of overtime. The other guard was working mandatory overtime, meaning a second eight-hour shift of the day.

Before they were arrested, both officers had declined a plea deal with federal prosecutors.

Epstein's death and the revelation that he was able to kill himself while behind bars at one of the most secure jails in America was a major embarrassment for the Bureau of Prisons and cast a spotlight on the agency, which has also been besieged by serious misconduct in recent years.

Staffing shortages at the agency are so severe that guards often work overtime day after day or are forced to work mandatory double shifts. Violence leads to regular lockdowns at federal prison compounds across the U.S. And a congressional report released in 2019 found that "bad behavior is ignored or covered up on a regular basis."

The falsification of records has been a problem throughout the federal prison system. Union officials have long argued that the reduction of staff is putting both guards and inmates in danger, but they’ve faced an uphill battle getting attention.