Notorious paedophile Jeffrey Epstein signed up for kosher meals in an attempt to adapt to prison surroundings before he killed himself, a new collection of documents about the billionaire has revealed.

The disgraced financier, who was born to Jewish parents, opted into the kosher meals scheme which is provided at most federal facilities operated by the US Bureau of Prisons.

The new details are from a tranche of 4,000 pages of documents that shed light on Epstein’s erratic behaviour during his 36 days in jail in New York, his death and its chaotic aftermath.

Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy and died in a prison cell of Metropolitan Correctional Centre on August 10, 2019 as he awaited trial.

The records, obtained by the Associated Press under US Freedom of Information legislation, also reveal that he told prison officials through his lawyer, that he wanted permission to exercise outside. 

Two days before he was found dead, Epstein also bought $73.85 worth of items from the prison commissary, including an AM/FM radio and headphones. He had $566 left in his account when he died.

This record also included an attempt to connect by mail to Larry Nassar, the US gymnastics team doctor convicted of sexually abusing scores of athletes.

Nassar was sentenced to between 40 and 175 years in prison for abusing more than 150 women and young girls in one of the biggest sexual abuse scandals in US story. 

Epstein's letter to Nassar was found returned to sender in the jail's mail room weeks after his death. 

The investigator who found the letter told a prison official by email, said: “It appeared he mailed it out and it was returned back to him. I am not sure if I should open it or should we hand it over to anyone?"

It comes as new documents revealed that leading Jewish figures including Woody Allen, Ehud Barak and Noam Chomsky continued to associate with the former hedge fund manager years after he was convicted of sex crimes against minors in 2008.

A new report from the Wall Street Journal trawled through thousands of pages of unreported emails and schedules from 2013 to 2017 to discover that “Epstein arranged multiple meetings with prominent individuals after he had served jail time in 2008 for a sex crime involving a teenage girl and had been registered as a sex offender.”