Jeffrey Epstein hit with lawsuit a day before he was found injured in jail
Jeffrey Epstein got slapped with legal papers in a Lower Manhattan lock-up one day before he was found sprawled in his cell with injuries to his neck, a court filing revealed Monday.
A city official personally handed Epstein a draft lawsuit and related documents filed against him by childhood rape accuser Jennifer Araoz, according to a certificate of service filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Deputy Sheriff Qin Zhang described the convicted pedophile and multimillionaire financier as a 5-foot-10, 240-pound, light-skinned man with white hair, who appeared his 66 years of age, the filing said.
Zhang delivered the papers to Epstein around 10:15 a.m. on July 22 at 150 Park Row, which is the address for the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center.
The following day, Epstein – who’s being held without bail on conspiracy and child sex trafficking charges – was found nearly unconscious on the floor of his cell, law enforcement sources have said.
Based on the appearance of the marks on his neck, investigators suspect he was choked by someone else, and they questioned his cellmate, a hulking ex-cop awaiting a death penalty trial in four drug-related killings upstate, the sources said.
The inmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, 51, denies any wrongdoing, his lawyer has said.
Araoz, 32, claims Epstein sexually abused and raped her in his Upper East Side townhouse in 2002 and 2003, beginning when she was just 14 years old.
Araoz is seeking to depose Epstein to learn the identity of the young woman who allegedly recruited her outside the Talent Unlimited High School and took part in his “grooming” of Araoz “to be sexually assaulted by Epstein.”
“Now that he has gotten notice and has been properly served with a petition he or his lawyer will now have to appear on Aug. 27 to explain to the court why she shouldn’t order his deposition and why she shouldn’t order him to produce all the discovery we asked for,” said Araoz’s lawyer, Daniel Kaiser.
Araoz plans to sue both Epstein and the recruiter but has to wait until Aug. 14 under terms of the state Child Victims Act, according to court papers.
The law, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed in February, lifted a statute of limitations that barred victims of childhood sexual abuse from suing their attackers more than three years after turning 18.
The new law will give victims up to age 55 one year to file suit, regardless of when the alleged attacks occurred.
Court records don’t show whether Epstein has hired a lawyer to represent him against Araoz’s claims, and his criminal defense lawyers didn’t return a request for comment.
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