Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself one year ago, setting off wave of conspiracy theories and celebrity denials

When Jeffrey Epstein took his life in a jail cell one year ago, dozens of his victims feared their hope for justice died with him.

The registered sex offender, who made a mockery of the legal process since at least 2007, undermined the law one last time. Using orange sheets tied to the railing of a bunk bed in his cell, Epstein hanged himself, snapping a bone in his neck in three places.

The multimillionaire financier’s death triggered a wave of outrage, disappointment, denials and conspiracy theories that continue to this day.

“The immediate reaction was disappointment. She and I wanted him alive and well and prepared to face justice in a courtroom,” said lawyer Dan Kaiser, who represents Epstein accuser Jennifer Araoz. “She felt deprived of that opportunity when he died. The anniversary has resurrected those feelings.”

Epstein was accused of running an elaborate underage sex trafficking scheme in which victims were lured into giving him massages that devolved into a routine of sexual abuse. He paid victims to bring in new underage girls, maintaining a steady stream of young lives for him to destroy, prosecutors said. Lawsuits against his estate allege that defiling his victims was part of his sick thrill.

Epstein’s suicide the night between August 9 and 10 capped a frenzy of shocking revelations that emerged seemingly every day after his arrest the month prior for sex trafficking minors in the early 2000s. Prosecutors said they found a stash of nude photographs of underage girls in the Epstein’ US$77 million Upper East Side mansion. The feds cracked a safe belonging to Epstein, 66, and found a foreign passport with a fake name and his photo, diamonds and piles of cash. The passport, issued in the 1980s, listed Epstein’s residence as Saudi Arabia. He owned palatial retreats in Palm Beach, New Mexico and the US Virgin Islands.