Prison officials had not ruled out the possibility, however, that Epstein had been assaulted by another inmate or had staged the incident, a person with knowledge of the investigation said.
Epstein’s injuries were not serious, the law enforcement official said.
The Bureau of Prisons, in an email Thursday morning, gave no details about the incident, citing “privacy and security reasons.” The bureau said Epstein, 66, was not in a hospital but still at the jail, the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan, where he has been held on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.
Epstein has been held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center since his arrest July 6 on federal charges that he sexually abused and trafficked underage girls in the early 2000s. Last week, Judge Richard M. Berman of U.S. District Court denied him bail, rejecting his request to be detained at his Upper East Side mansion as he awaited trial.
The former financier has been housed in a cell with Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer facing murder charges, one of the law enforcement officials said. Both men are in a special unit with strict security measures that is used to separate some inmates from the general population.
Tartaglione is awaiting trial on charges that he conspired to sell cocaine and took part in the killings of four men in 2016 in Chester, New York, a small town about 60 miles north of Manhattan.
Tartaglione’s lawyer, Bruce Barket, said Tartaglione had cooperated with the inquiry into Epstein’s injuries. Barket added that Epstein and his client “speak regularly and get along well.”
“Any insinuation that he had assaulted Mr. Epstein is a complete and utter fabrication,” Barket said.
Barket’s law partner, Aida Leisenring, said that on a visit Wednesday morning to meet with Tartaglione, she saw Epstein in passing, through a window, and saw no apparent injuries or evidence of a fight.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.