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shifts, and the Captain had oversight over all of the Lieutenants.®° The OIG found that the failure of these individuals to adequately supervise SHU staff and ensure that a high-profile inmate who had recently been on suicide watch and psychological observation had an appropriate cellmate constituted a job performance failure. 3. Failure to Have a Contingency Plan for Assigning Epstein a Cellmate Additionally, the OIG found that the Warden's failure to have a back-up cellmate assignment for Epstein constituted poor judgment. The Evening Watch SHU Officer in Charge told the OIG that although he knew that Epstein needed to be assigned another cellmate, SHU staff could not just put anyone in the cell with Epstein. The Warden confirmed this in his OIG interview, when he explained that he and BOP executive leadership selected Inmate 3 as Epstein’s cellmate following the events of July 23, 2019. The Warden told the OIG that no inmates were pre-vetted to serve as Epstein’s cellmate if Inmate 3 left MCC New York. ® The Northeast Regional Director, the Warden, and the Captain all told the OIG that if Inmate 3 had been removed as Epstein’s cellmate, they would have had to review a new list of potential cellmate candidates to ensure that Epstein was housed with an appropriate inmate. This selection process, which involved multiple steps undertaken by high-level BOP management, would be difficult to accomplish in a short period of time and ultimately may have impeded SHU officers’ ability to house Epstein with a cellmate on August 9, 2019. 4. Lack of Candor BOP policy requires that “[d]uring the course of an official investigation, employees are to cooperate fully by providing all pertinent information they may have. Full cooperation requires truthfully responding to questions.””° As discussed above, the Day Watch SHU Officer in Charge and the Evening Watch SHU Officer in Charge told the OIG that they notified supervisory personnel regarding the need to assign Epstein a new cellmate. Based on a lack of corroborating evidence for these assertions, the OIG found that they lacked candor in their OIG interviews in violation of BOP policy. Similarly, the OIG found that Noel lacked candor in violation of BOP policy when she said she did not know that Epstein needed a cellmate or that his then-cellmate Inmate 3 had been transferred out of the SHU. The OIG also found that the Morning Watch Operations Lieutenant lacked candor in her interview with the OIG in violation of BOP policy when she said she was not aware that Epstein was required to be housed with acellmate. Her statement is contradicted by the fact that she was one of the MCC New York staff members who responded to the July 23, 2019 incident involving Epstein, which resulted in him being placed on suicide watch and psychological observation; she was a recipient of the Psychology Department's July 30, 2019 6 The Senior Officer Specialist who served as the Acting Evening Watch Activities Lieutenant from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. on August 9, 2019, told the OIG that she was not aware of Epstein’s cell mate requirement. The OIG credited her account because she did not ordinarily work in or supervise the SHU and did not receive the Psychology Department's July 30, 2019 email regarding the need for Epstein to have an appropriate cellmate or the USMS August 8, 2019 email notifying that Inmate 3 would be transferred to another facility the following day. 6 Upon reviewing a draft of this report, the Warden told the OIG that there were no suitable backup cellmates for Epstein. 7° BOP Program Statement 3420.11. 101 DOJ-OGR- 00023468