Videos released in Epstein files raise fresh questions about jail footage
A recently released cache of surveillance video from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City is raising new questions about the prison cameras at the facility where Jeffrey Epstein died in his cell in 2019.
The videos were among a huge cache of materials released on Dec. 23 by the Department of Justice as congressionally mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Rather than clarifying events surrounding Epstein's death, the footage appears to complicate the official narrative, and contradicts some prior statements about the prison's surveillance system.
The Epstein jail videos
Epstein was found dead in his cell at approximately 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 10, 2019, by a corrections officer delivering breakfast at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide by the city's chief medical examiner.
Three months later, then-Attorney General Bill Barr said he had personally reviewed prison surveillance footage and verified that no one entered Epstein's cell area in the hours before his death, which supported his conclusion that Epstein died by suicide.
The FBI released that footage this summer and analysis by CBS News found that the footage did not provide a clear enough view to definitively prove that no one entered Epstein's cell area, and there were other inconsistencies with official statements and witness interviews. The DOJ and FBI declined to comment at the time.
Specifics about what cameras were and were not operating comes mostly from a 2023 report by the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General. That report stated that although there were 11 cameras in the Special Housing Unit (SHU), 10 were not recording due to malfunctioning hard drives.
The single camera inside the common area of the SHU that was recording was positioned on an upper tier and showed only a sliver of the staircase that led to Epstein's tier.
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