HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_010541.jpg

...TTERSON

...ting their way to the courthouse,
...nder, and an appearance before
...oner, if only they can make bail.
...ney—or at least collateral—and,
...r is often what lands people in jail

...osted bail for every single inmate

...ays in which Epstein is unlike his
...pedophile now. Even a famous one.
...tend to fare poorly in jail.
...radshaw, the sheriff in charge of
...o the infirmary, where he spends
...ng transferred seven miles up the
...location: the Palm Beach County
...r, as it's known, the Stockade.
...ot a serial killer," Ric Bradshaw says.
...e are addicts who take part in drug
...utes, petty criminals, and drunks.
...in to be, and, unlike other inmates
...g held in solitary), he'll end up with
...n wing, which he has to himself.
...security guard, who sits outside the
...e's allowed any number of visitors.
...an extraordinary benefits package.
...radshaw, who also oversees the Stock-
...er the treatment he is receiving.
...he had to go to prison at all," Brad-

...hink he belonged there."

200

CHAPTER 53

Sheriff Ric Bradshaw: June 2015

"Our job," says Ric Bradshaw, "was to make sure nobody killed him."

Sheriff Bradshaw could have stepped off the set of a Western. Imposingly tall, with his cowboy hat, Kurt Russell mustache, and slow, southern drawl, he looks exactly like an old-school law officer—the kind you once would have found patrolling the streets of Tombstone, Deadwood, or Dodge City. He's been a lawman for forty-four years, eleven of which have been spent as the head of the county's jails. As a rule, he doesn't talk to the media, and today, as he talks about Jeffrey Epstein, he's clearly uncomfortable, fidgety, and ill disposed.

But here in his wood-paneled office on the first floor of the Gun Club, Bradshaw remembers Epstein quite well.

"We have a thousand sexual predators in the county," he says. "When he arrived here, he was one of them. He definitely

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