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.

Gymnast Simone Biles didn’t expect her Olympics to go the way it did. The gold medal favorite left Tokyo with silver and bronze medals.

Biles pulled herself out of numerous events after coming down with a case of the “twisties.”

In an interview with New York Magazine, Biles said she had no air awareness.

She compared it to someone losing their sight.

“Say up until you’re 30 years old, you have your complete eyesight,” Biles said. “One morning, you wake up, you can’t see (expletive), but people tell you to go on and do your daily job as if you still have your eyesight. You’d be lost, wouldn’t you?”

Biles told New York Magazine that she should have never made it to Tokyo.

She said the mental toll of being a survivor of sexual assault was a lot. Biles was one of Larry Nassar’s victims. He served as the doctor for U.S. Gymnastics.

“I should have quit way before Tokyo, when Larry Nassar was in the media for two years,” Biles says in the article. “It was too much. But I was not going to let him take something I’ve worked for since I was 6 years old. I wasn’t going to let him take that joy away from me. So I pushed past that for as long as my mind and my body would let me.”

Biles said she learned a lot about herself after pulling out of the Olympic competitions.

“I wouldn’t change anything, because everything happens for a reason. And I learned a lot about myself — courage, resilience, how to say no and speak up for yourself,” Biles said.

Biles said she is back in therapy, but no longer training. However, she isn't completely done with gymnastics. She said she is ready to go on tour with other members of Team USA.

Related video: U.S. gymnastics team boarded a flight to Tokyo

The team’s outfits looked similar to the others in the room as the arena lights gleamed off crystals crisscrossing their chests and down their crimson and white sleeves.

But the German gymnastics team’s new Olympic suits didn’t stop at their hips.

For decades, female gymnasts have worn bikini-cut leotards. In qualifying on Sunday, however, the German team instead wore unitards that stretched to their ankles, intending to push back against sexualization of women in gymnastics.

The Tokyo Olympics are the first Summer Games since Larry Nassar, a former USA Gymnastics national team doctor, was sent to prison for 176 years for sexually abusing hundreds of gymnasts, including some of the sport's greatest stars. At his sentencing, athletes — some of them Olympians — described how the sport’s culture allowed for abuse and objectification of young women and girls.

Male gymnasts wear comparatively body-covering clothes: singlets, with loose shorts for their floor exercise and vault, and long pants on bar and pommel horse routines.

The German team first wore unitards at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in April.

Sarah Voss, a 21-year-old German, said they weren't sure they would decide to wear them again during Olympic competition until they got together before the meet.

“We sat together today and said, OK, we want to have a big competition," Voss said. “We want to feel amazing, we want to show everyone that we look amazing."

Their wardrobe revolution, while widely championed, has not so far started a trend. Leotards that leave the legs bare were worn by every other female gymnast during qualifying at the Tokyo Games.

At 4-foot-8, American superstar Simone Biles said in June that she prefers leotards because they lengthen the leg and make her appear taller.

“But I stand with their decision to wear whatever they please and whatever makes them feel comfortable,” Biles said. “So if anyone out there wants to wear a unitard or leotard, it’s totally up to you.”

Matt Cowan, the chief commercial officer for GK Elite, the U.S.’ premier leotard manufacturer, said most requests for unitards now come from countries the require modesty for cultural and religious reasons. They have otherwise seen no rush toward catsuits.

“Would we do it? Absolutely. We have the capabilities of designing it and doing it, and we have done it," Cowan said. "But from a consumer demand perspective, we are not there yet.”

Gymnastics is often viewed as a sport best performed by very young women and girls. Biles, at 24, often jokes about being old; she recently called herself a grandma on social media.

But other nations have defied that emphasis on youth, including the Germans: Elisabeth Seitz is 27, Kim Bui is 32, Pauline Schafer is 24, and Voss is 21. Their average age of 26. Voss said that gymnastics customs should leave room for female bodies as they age and change.

Their outfits comply with the wardrobe rules of the International Gymnastics Federation. But that doesn’t mean female athletes are generally free to cover their bodies as they choose.

Just days before the Games began, the Norwegian women’s beach handball team refused to play in bikini bottoms during European tournaments, opting instead for skin-tight shorts. For that, they received a fine for violating a wardrobe requirement.

But at gymnastics qualifying Sunday, the announcer over the loudspeaker called the outfits “very nice indeed." The German team did not qualify for finals, but the announcer pondered if their team debut on the Olympic stage might increase unitards' popularity.

Related video above: Simone Biles opens up about sexual abuse

FBI officials investigating allegations of sexual abuse by disgraced USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar violated the agency's policies by making false statements and failing to properly document complaints by the accusers, resulting in a delay in the probe into the claims, the Justice Department's inspector general said in a scathing report Wednesday.

The Office of the Inspector General found that senior officials in the FBI Indianapolis Field Office failed to respond to the Nassar allegations with the utmost seriousness and urgency that they deserved and required, made numerous and fundamental errors when they did respond, and violated multiple FBI policies when undertaking their investigative activity.

The probe was opened in 2018 to see whether the FBI and its field offices dragged their feet to respond to allegations of sexual assault made by gymnasts and the USA Gymnastics organization in 2015 and 2016.

The release of the 119-page report comes a little over a year after more than 120 of the survivors asked the Justice Department to make the findings public.

The bureau said in a statement that the "actions and inactions of certain FBI employees described in the report are inexcusable and a discredit to this organization," adding that it has taken action to "ensure and has confirmed that those responsible for the misconduct and breach of trust no longer work FBI matters."

Nassar, 57, is serving a 40-to-174-year state prison sentence after 156 women and girls said he sexually abused them over the course of 20 years.

The former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor pleaded guilty in November 2017 to seven counts of criminal sexual conduct for using his profession as a cover to sexually abuse his patients.

Nassar also pleaded guilty to federal child pornography charges and separate state criminal sexual conduct charges in Eaton County.

"According to civil court documents, approximately 70 or more young athletes were allegedly sexually abused by Nassar under the guise of medical treatment between July 2015, when USA Gymnastics first reported allegations about Nassar to the Indianapolis Field Office, and September 2016," the report reads. "For many of the approximately 70 or more athletes, the abuse by Nassar began before the FBI first became aware of allegations against Nassar and continued into 2016. For others, the alleged abuse began after USA Gymnastics reported the Nassar allegations to the Indianapolis Field Office in July 2015."

The report says Indianapolis Field Office Special Agent in Charge W. Jay Abbott and another unidentified supervisory special agent conducted a "limited follow-up" investigation in 2015 that included "a handful of email exchanges" and five pages of handwritten notes. The officials also neglected to interview two of the three accusers who were available for interviews, the report says.

Josh Minkler, an attorney for Abbott, told CNN in a statement that his client has received and reviewed a copy of the report.

"Mr. Abbott thanks the law enforcement officers and prosecutors who brought Larry Nassar to justice. Mr. Abbott hopes the courageous victims of Nassar's horrible crime find peace," Minkler said.

The report also said that the Indianapolis Field Office "did not advise state or local authorities about the allegations and did not take any action to mitigate the risk to gymnasts that Nassar continued to treat."

The unnamed agent was demoted and his status with the FBI is pending review by the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility. Abbott retired in January 2018.

"When the FBI's handling of the Nassar matter came under scrutiny from the public, Congress, the media, and FBI headquarters in 2017 and 2018, Indianapolis officials did not take responsibility for their failures," the report said. Instead, the agency "provided incomplete and inaccurate information," and after Abbott retired he also provided inaccurate information to the media "to make it appear that the Indianapolis office had been diligent in its follow-up efforts and they did so, in part, by blaming others for their own failures," according to the report.

Douglas Leff, the assistant director of the FBI's Inspection Division, said following the report's release that the officials' actions were "completely unacceptable."

During the eight months the FBI was supposed to be investigating the gymnasts' claims, Abbott met with a high-ranking official with the USA Gymnastics organization at a bar to discuss a potential job offer with the Olympics security detail when he retired, according to the report.

The FBI Los Angeles Field Office learned about the same allegations from the three gymnasts in May 2016, where it "appreciated the utmost seriousness of the Nassar allegations and took numerous investigative steps upon learning of them" but it, too, did not notify local authorities, the report says.

"Simply put, the behavior described in the report is not representative of the FBI or of our tens of thousands of retirees and current employees," Leff wrote in a letter Tuesday that's included in the report. "To the extent the review reveals additional misconduct by FBI employees, we will similarly act promptly as warranted upon OPR's adjudication."

John Manly, an attorney for more than 150 of the women and girls Nassar sexually abused, urged the Justice Department to criminally charge the agents who mishandled the investigation, saying in a statement on Wednesday that "those responsible need to be held to account, with all the force the law can provide."

"When an ordinary American citizen lies to the FBI in the course of an investigation, they are prosecuted, yet no charges have been filed against anyone as a result of this five-year investigation," Manly said. "The FBI betrayed generations of Olympic champions. It betrayed the hundreds of children Nassar savaged, and it betrayed the American people's trust."

Nassar is housed at the high-security U.S. Penitentiary Coleman II in Sumterville, Florida. His release date, according to online Federal Bureau of Prisons records, is Jan. 30, 2068.