Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / Inside The OIG Interview: The Warden's Statement Detailing The Death Of Jeffrey Epstein (Part 23) (4/23/26)

Transcript

Inside The OIG Interview: The Warden's Statement Detailing The Death Of Jeffrey Epstein (Part 23) (4/23/26) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
• 0:02
  Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to pick up
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  where we left off with the warden from MCC and
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  this interview with the OIG investigators. Question, Okay, institution duty
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  officers do not routinely visit the shoe each day, as
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  required by the institution supplement. Additionally, the ideal reports consistently
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  document the condition of shoe as satisfactory when observations have
• 0:30
  shown the shoe to be less than satisfactory. Do you
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  have any comment on that? Do you agree with that assessment? Answer? Oh,
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  I don't know that day that they went in there
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  again when these observations were done. I wasn't the warden
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  in the institution. Question okay, But prior to when you
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  were the warden, do you know about the institution duty
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  officers not routinely visiting the shoe each day is required? Answer? No,
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  I didn't know about that. Question You didn't know about that? Answer?
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  I didn't sure it's annotation. You know, I made sure
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  they made sure that the areas were clean. Question okay,
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  and what was their ultimate responsibility when they would visit
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  the shoe? Answer? I guess the same thing to make
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  rounds in the unit, check on the inmates, make sure
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  that there are no issues. Question and is that, like
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  you said, the ideal was the guy that's on at night.
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  Answer that's the duty officer the institution duty officer. Question
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  always at night though, answer they use They typically work
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  from like one to nine, twelve to nine, they cover
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  the evening shift. Question because I thought it was explained
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  to me it was kind of like the person in
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  charge when you're not here. Answer well, yeah, but then
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  the other flip side of it go to the other shift.
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  You know, the operation lieutenant is the CEO in the
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  absence of the warden, So the duty officer is just
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  the bridge to the executive staff. Question but they were
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  actually supposed to be conducting those shoe rounds every day?
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  Answer and then and again, I don't know if they
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  were or were not. I don't know what they were.
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  You know what he was looking at? Question now, why
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  would was a reoccurring Was he a reoccurring? Answer? No,
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  the duty officer like sometimes you can get it twice
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  a year. Question Oh okay, but is it like a
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  quarterly submitted post type of thing? Answer, well, I remember
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  he is also he is also the duty officer, but
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  he is also his unit manager. Question but was he
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  the consistent duty officer? Answer no, No, they rotate question
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  every day answer no, every week question every week answer yeah,
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  you have other ones every week. So he gets cut
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  off by the other investigator. So it goes between the
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  unit managers. Answer other unit managers, other department heads. So
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  it kind of goes, you know, question and what is
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  the great level requirement? Question the department heads it's usually
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  twelve or higher. Question twelve or higher answer and some
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  like maybe some GS eleven's our trust fund supervisors Hayes.
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  What grade level are you? Answer ses Hayes, which means
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  answer it's like a general no staff question. No, it's
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  what's equivalent to So if you're looking at the military equivalent,
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  it would be the equivalent of a general the warden. No, no,
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  I can't afford that, I got kids. Question. So the
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  highest level you can go to is the GS level
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  is fifteen, and that's basically a full indiscernible kernel in
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  the military, sees is the general level. He's being modest.
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  Question I did not know. I thought I assumed you
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  were fifteen since your aws R four teens though. Answer no,
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  but certain institutions you are sees. Question and mcc was
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  one of those institutions. Answer MCC is one. Your pre
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  trials are fifteen, your penitentiaries, your big lows like Fort Dix,
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  certain mediums. Question and have you maintained Are you still
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  in sees now? Answer yes? Question okay, since this time?
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  Have you ever been demoted or anything like that? Answer?
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  No question, no, no, just got moved Hayes indiscernible. You
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  know I always give law enforcement guys a big you know,
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  a discount, but I didn't. He's an f in indiscernible.
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  Couldn't afford to pay the warden. Remember I'm a federal employee.
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  Question federal boys, it doesn't matter if you're a general
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  or not. The warden. We don't make money. Question you're
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  not making a lot of money. Answer? Remember I think
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  the p resident makes what two hundred and fifty thousand?
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  Is it four hundred thousand? Now, so they're just talking
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  about the president, blah blah blah. We're gonna skip that.
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  We're gonna get back to the questions. Question Okay, so is.
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  The report also says that psychology intake screening of Epstein
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  contained errors in identifying details, including that Epstein was referred
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  to as a black inmate and by different inmate names Hayes, Oh, no,
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  you're kidding me. They said he was black. Hell, that
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  was a mistake. Question Do you know anything about that? Answer?
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  I don't know anything about that question? Would that be
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  a psychology issue? Answer? That is a psychology whoever was
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  doing the review question? All right, Shoe has multiple cells
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  equipped with video recording capability. Inmate Epstein was not housed
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  in one of these cells, and there appears to be
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  no set guidance on when to utilize these cells. So
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  you already said that you didn't believe like he should
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  have been. Is that correct answer? Let me correct that.
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  None of the cells, none of the cells that we
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  had in Shoe were had cameras in the cells that
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  were being working and being used. The only ones up
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  in Shoe that had cameras in the cell is ten South. Question. Okay,
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  so nowhere else in the institution he gets cut off
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  by the warden. Nowhere else in there had cameras in
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  the cell ten South. We have it in the cells
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  where you can see. Question, how about like nine south
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  lower or something like that? Would they isn't that like
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  the mini ten South. Answer, Yeah, that's the g tier.
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  Did they have cameras? Question answer that they did not
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  have recording cameras? Question just live cameras answer in South? Yeah,
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  just nope. But then we had no cameras on there
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  that had live cameras in the south. Okay, so only
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  ten South answer only ten South. The other investigator Pipes
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  in this statement might actually associate ten South as part
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  of the shoe. The word answers right, because a lot
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  of people that come in, when they first come in,
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  ten South is part of their actually part of nine
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  South we call it. It's part of the annex. So
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  when most people come in and they have never been there,
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  they don't differentiate. Question. So, being that these are BOP
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  individuals that did this report, what is your response to
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  them saying that there appears to be set guidance on
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  when to utilize these cells. If they're referring to ten South,
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  was their guidance on that answer? Yeah, ten South, like
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  I said, was specifically for sam inmates. Question, So do
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  you also believe that is an incorrect statement? Then answer?
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  If that's what they are referring to, I do believe
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  it is. Question and you believe there was no other
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  working camera outside of ten South for a single cell.
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  Answer ten South is the only one where we had
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  our cameras. Question because we also had been informed that
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  there were cells outside of ten South that had cameras
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  in them specifically, I think, G Tier, that's inaccurate. Answer,
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  g Tier, there's no recording of inmates in those cells.
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  Question just live answer and I don't believe live. I
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  know the only ones we had was ten South question okay. Answer.
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  We also heard that ten South wasn't supposed to be
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  utilized anymore. It was actually supposed to be phased out.
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  That was the other investigator asking that question. Now the
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  word and answers. It was supposed to what question phased out? Answer?
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  What do you mean phased out? Answer? It was actually
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  brought up, brought out during the time after nine to
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  eleven the house terrorist inmates. Have you ever heard anything
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  about the fact that no one was supposed to be
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  housed up there anymore? Answer? No, it's not. It's not
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  the house terrorists inmates. It' Stall's inmates that have a
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  SAM on them. So mostly the most of the inmates
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  that have sam's on them are terrorist inmates, or you know,
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  maybe an inmate house for espionage, you know, and then
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  he gets cut off by the investigator. Was it supposed
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  to have been phased out due to prea concerns? Answer?
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  I don't know anything about that question. Okay. The next
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  one is the report also shows that a review was
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  done regarding overtime conducted by the CEOs at the MCC
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  and the shortage of staff. It doesn't say much about that.
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  Do you know what the overall team's finding was? Do
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  you agree that there was a shortage of staff? Answer? Yeah,
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  there was. I mean, I'll give you an example. We
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  were short staffed. I was relieving officers on their posts
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  and on some weekends I would come in and work
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  a post. Question as the warden. Answer as the warden.
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  I mean we had we were short. Question now, is
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  there was there a way to rectify that issue? Answer?
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  We could, I mean hiring we had, I mean forty
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  or fifty staff on OWCP question and can you explain
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  what that is? Answer workers compensation question? Oh and what
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  was the percentage there? You said? Answer about forty or
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  fifty staff on it question? Forty or fifty staff? Answer? Yeah?
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  Question did they seem to abuse that? Answer? We all
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  knew it was an abuse. I mean we even had
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  a conversation with the IG about it. You know, you're
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  going to the same doctor, but I understand the same redacted.
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  But again I understand every agency is short. Question uh
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  huh answer. I mean, so we just had that constant problem,
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  you know, the hiring. We had a lot of department
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  heads that we would use to cover some of my
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  associated wardens you know, would cover So it was just
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  you know, had to make do with what we had.
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  Question now, was there like a plan in place to
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  try to get you guys up to proper staffing levels?
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  And I mean we were working on hiring, you know,
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  getting people in, but it's a process, you know, to
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  get somebody hired, it takes between six and eight months.
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  Question and were there are a number of people in
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  the pipeline? Answer? Not really. I mean we went out,
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  we did recruiting because we were competing with other agencies.
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  You know, other agencies are hiring, you know, and we
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  had incentives you know, to get people on So it
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  was just a matter of you know, getting people on board.
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  Question and do you think it could have been handled
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  better by some in some way by the BOP in
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  order to rectify the issue. Answer, there are certain things
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  we can't control staff and you know, the budget, we
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  don't control that. I mean, we can turn around and
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  say I want this, but once the law has passed
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  and it said this is what you're getting, you don't.
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  We need to work with what we've got. Question No.
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  And I understand that that as like as far as
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  the BOP goes, but I mean the MCC, especially you know,
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  covering SDN y Epstein in a lie and having such
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  high profile inmates there. Do you think that there could
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  have been anything done better though by the BOP to
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  make sure that your institution, specifically MCC, was better staffed. Answer?
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  You could, so let's go TDHY. We couldn't really couldn't
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  td why at that point, But then there are some
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  other institutions around the agency that were, you know, the
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  staffing was an issue, so they can't send somebody out
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  to help, and then it just brought down the finding
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  I mean and getting people to clear your background. Not
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  everybody can clear the background to work. I mean, yeah,
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  we can go out on the street and say hey,
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  we got a job for you, but can you pass
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  the guidelines? And a lot of times do we know,
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  all right, folks, we're gonna wrap up right here and
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  in the next episode dealing with the topic, we're gonna
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  pick up where we left off. All the information that
• 12:48
  goes with this episode can be found in the description box.