Laura Cavanaugh/Getty ImagesBy LUKE BARR and MARK OSBORNE, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Ghislaine Maxwell, the recently arrested confidant of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was given paper clothes upon checking into the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, over fears that she might take her own life, two federal law enforcement sources confirm to ABC News.
It’s unclear whether Maxwell has been placed on suicide watch.
Sources stressed to ABC News that it is standard procedure for high-profile inmates or new inmates. However, one source told ABC News that the federal Bureau of Prisons has gone to “great measures” to ensure Maxwell’s safety.
The Bureau of Prisons declined to comment.
Maxwell, 58, was charged by the Southern District of New York with conspiring to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, perjury and other offenses.
From at least 1994 to 1997, Maxwell assisted, facilitated and contributed to Epstein’s alleged abuse of minor girls, according to the six-count indictment.
Attorney General William Barr told ABC News on Wednesday that he is keeping a close watch to make sure that Maxwell makes it to trial after Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial last year.
“We have asked [the Bureau of Prisons] to tell us specifically the protocols they’re following and we have a number of redundant systems to monitor the situation,” Barr said.
Barr said he was “livid” Epstein died while in custody last August. The investigation into Epstein has continued even after his death.
“I believe very strongly in that case,” Barr told ABC News on Wednesday. “And I was very proud of the work done by the department, the Southern District [of New York], on that case. And as you will recall, after he committed suicide, I said that I was confident that we would continue to pursue this case vigorously and pursue anyone who’s complicit in it. And so I’m very happy that we were able to get Ms. Maxwell.”
A source said the BOP is taking extra preventative measures to regain the public’s trust and confidence as well as preserving the integrity of the Justice Department.
Epstein’s death set off an investigation that has not yet concluded, but has resulted in the indictment of two of the corrections officers who stood watch of Epstein that night.
Authorities have accused the two officers of falsifying government records.
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