Jeffrey Epstein’s cell buddy Bill Mersey believes Epstein killed himself

Bill Mersey was Paul Manafort’s cellmate. Bill Mersey was also Jeffrey Epstein’s cell buddy. So is Bill Mersey writing a book? You can bet your behind on it. Mersey: “When I was incarcerated in the downtown [Metropolitan Correctional Center], we had a room companion program for monitoring prisoners who needed special protection or who might …

Bill Mersey was Paul Manafort’s cellmate. Bill Mersey was also Jeffrey Epstein’s cell buddy. So is Bill Mersey writing a book? You can bet your behind on it.

Mersey: “When I was incarcerated in the downtown [Metropolitan Correctional Center], we had a room companion program for monitoring prisoners who needed special protection or who might be on suicide watch. Inmates — not professionals — got quick quasi training plus 40 cents an hour pay to sit for a four-hour watch, which included periodic check-ins. I was its boss. The inmate companion coordinator.”

Why was he chosen? The short version is he was a “college educated nice Long Island Jewish boy.” Same background, same schooling, as Epstein. The rest of the answer is, flunking arithmetic, he’d been sentenced to a year and a day.

“It was a two-man cell, 60 square feet. Originally designed for only one man, there was no upper bunk ladder and no bar to keep you falling from the top.

“Daily routine was up 6:15, breakfast, back to sleep, lunch, then five hours, then dinner. These room companion programs meant six four- hour shifts daily.

“Epstein wasn’t depressed nor was he a diva. One-on-one we talked about everything. We hung out. He even asked if I needed money. Even about flying a private plane once with Donald Trump to Florida. I was like a kid he went to school with. He didn’t ask dumb questions about my life. And 7 p.m. to 11 I kept him entertained. Normal conversation.

“He was future oriented. Like, ‘How am I going to survive?’ He did not appear suicidal nor visibly depressed. He’d sit on the toilet sideways to see me. Then, lying on his back, he’d go to sleep.

“The incongruity was I’d see him drift off saying, ‘Oh, my God, I’m going to be here for the rest of my f - - king life.’ But when the judge denied him bail, he did obsess a little on how to handle prison life. But not my job to stress him.

“Truth is he did try to do himself in once. When I saw he had marks on his neck I asked, ‘What the f - - k happened’?’ He said, ‘I got up to get a drink of water,’ and he did not elaborate on the lie.

“That then brought him into the Special Housing Unit. It’s for troublesome boys or suicide cases or those afraid of the general population because there were really dysfunctional bad inmates there.”

So did Mersey believe Epstein did himself in or did any other source do him in?

“I didn’t know those guards around him in that Special Housing Unit. They were end-of-the-line guys. Rotated. They punched a time clock. They were collegiate and hung out with inmates. It wasn’t a crackerjack organization. When a wave of staff was brought in afterwards to assess what happened, they said: ‘This is the worst run prison we’ve ever seen in our lives.’

“That unit is a detention. A hole. You just sit in a corner. Lockdown 23 hours a day. The warden hadn’t seen fit to put somebody in there with him. So there was nobody to stop him. It’s been said that others heard Jeffrey tearing sheets that night.

“So do I believe Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide, my answer is yes.”

Discovery Channel’s Henry Schleiff: “Our three-part program ‘Who Killed Jeffrey Epstein?’ begins Sunday, May 31.”

Mersey: “I haven’t yet seen the footage. But I’m a principal character in it. Listen, I’ve done freelance writing before. So am I inclined to consider writing a book? Yes.”

Note to Leo DiCaprio: Call your agent.

Should this become a movie, the Manhattan Correctional Center prisoners will not be filmed in Technicolor. Their authentic uniforms will be shot in living dark brown.

Only in New York, kids, only in New York.