Epstein had a lot of advantages, but they weren't enough to buy him a luxurious prison experience. He paid off other prisoners and exploited loopholes, but was still in a spartan cell. The luxurious pay-for-play prisons in the news occasionally are generally municipal prisons; Eppstein was in federal pretrial detention which is much harder to game.
When he died Epstein was in a cell in the Special Housing Unit for uncooperative prisoners. He clearly wasn't able to buy better treatment from the government. (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/real-scand...)
> Jeffrey Epstein, inmate 76318-054, hated his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. It was cramped, dank and infested with vermin, so Mr. Epstein, long accustomed to using his wealth to play by his own rules, devised a way out.
> He paid numerous lawyers to visit the jail for as many as 12 hours a day, giving him the right to see them in a private meeting room ... he and his entourage regularly emptied the two vending machines of drinks and snacks.
> “It was shift work, all designed by someone who had infinite resources to try and get as much comfort as possible,” said a lawyer who was often in the jail visiting clients.
> Outside the meeting room, Mr. Epstein mounted a strategy to avoid being preyed upon by other inmates: He deposited money in their commissary accounts, according to a consultant who is often in the jail and speaks regularly with inmates there.
> But in his final days, Mr. Epstein’s efforts to lessen the misery of incarceration seemed to be faltering.
> He was seldom bathing, his hair and beard were unkempt and he was sleeping on the floor of his cell instead of on his bunk bed, according to people at the jail.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/nyregion/epstein-suicide-...