Jeffrey Epstein used ‘strip of bedsheet’ in first suicide attempt: feds

Jeffrey Epstein was found with a “strip of bedsheet around his neck” during his failed, July suicide attempt — and should have had a cellmate when he hanged himself the next month with what sources have said was a bedsheet, it was revealed Tuesday.

The details emerged in the indictment of two Manhattan prison guards charged with failing to check on the notorious pedophile and falsifying reports to cover their tracks.

But law-enforcement sources familiar with Epstein’s case said higher-ups at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center should also be held accountable for his death.

“These are just the little guys,” one source said of guards Tova Noel and Michael Thomas.

“The bigger question is: Why was he in that cell alone? Because that was against protocol. And if these guys were arrested . . . someone else can be arrested for leaving him alone.”

Another source noted that the guards “weren’t responsible for him being alone in the cell and they weren’t responsible for giving him the sheet.”

Following his apparent attempted suicide on July 23, Epstein was kept under 24-hour watch in the prison hospital wing until July 30.

He was returned to the MCC’s “Special Housing Unit” “at the direction of the MCC’s psychological staff” and “required to have an assigned cellmate,” court papers say.

But that inmate left MCC “in a routine, pre-arranged transfer” at 8 a.m. Aug. 9, the indictment says.

Noel and another guard put Epstein back in his cell at 7:49 p.m. that day following an attorney visit and he was found hanging at 6:30 a.m. the following morning, according to the indictment.

Sources said the situation called for further probing by feds.

“You can see why everyone doesn’t think this was a suicide,” one source said.

“The investigation has to continue.”