The Epstein affair was not just Epstein the single individual. He could not have operated alone all these years in the way that he did. He got lenient sentences whenever he was brought to justice. The people who supported him remain untouchable.
There's a between-the-wars novel by English author Evelyn Waugh called Decline and Fall. The main character gets involved in all kinds of unspeakable crimes, more out of naivety than inherent criminality, and at the end is "disappeared" out of jail and given a new identity.
Waugh was an Establishment insider and knew how the upper classes operated. It's a very interesting novel.
I'm not suggesting Epstein was naive - far from it.
But if you're in a position to bribe prison guards and authorities to cover up murder-by-fake-suicide, I suspect it's not significantly harder or more expensive to bribe prison guards and authorities to cover up an escape.
It's debatable if it would more expedient to remove the evidence permanently or have it moved to another location where some of its skills might continue to be useful. But I would be surprised if option 2 wasn't at least a possibility.
As for the Sacklers - we'll see if any of them do jail time.
> It's debatable if it would more expedient to remove the evidence permanently or have it moved to another location where some of its skills might continue to be useful. But I would be surprised if option 2 wasn't at least a possibility.
To think any of this is plausible given the context requires an unwell mind.