The U.S. Department of Justice released a short video this week as part of its ongoing public release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
The video that set the internet on fire, before officials confirmed the footage was not real.
The 12-second video appeared on the Justice Department’s website without explanation and was included among thousands of documents and images released under a court-ordered Epstein files release.
Highlights
- The DOJ released a 12-second video purportedly showing Epstein's 2019 jail suicide, which sparked intense online reactions before being debunked.
- Closer inspection revealed the video was fake, with mismatched cell doors and unrealistic orange clothes, traced back to conspiracy forums from 2015.
- The DOJ confirmed the video was not authentic and later removed the link after it was flagged as a longstanding hoax spreading on YouTube.
The video allegedly showed the convicted sex offender’s suicide inside his Manhattan jail cell in 2019.
A video released by the DOJ seemed to show footage of Epstein’s suicide
Image credits: New York State Sex Offender Registry
The grainy, computer-generated video showed a white-haired man wearing an orange prison jumpsuit kneeling near a bunk bed and moving erratically.
A timestamp on the footage read 4:29 a.m. on August 10, 2019, roughly two hours before Epstein’s body was discovered at the Metropolitan Correctional Facility in New York.
At first glance, the scene appeared to resemble Epstein’s jail cell, where authorities previously concluded he died by suicide while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.
Investigators had long said no video footage existed from inside Epstein’s cell due to malfunctioning cameras.
Image credits: chad chaddington/YouTube
But a closer inspection revealed several inconsistencies, primarily that the cell door did not match official photos of Epstein’s actual cell. In addition, a pile of orange prison clothes can be seen on the ground, looking unrealistic, like orange puddles without any texture.
Such orange clothes can be seen splattered around the bed and the room in pictures of Epstein’s jail cell after his body was found.
Another document included in the same file, released later, identified the clip as a fake.
Image credits: Office of the Chief Medical Examiner
The video can be traced back to online conspiracy forums, including 4chan, that had posted the video on YouTube five years ago.
It was previously flagged by a Florida-based conspiracy theorist. A Trump administration official later confirmed to The New York Post that the video was bogus and had been circulating online for years on YouTube. It was taken down on Monday.
The video was also preceded by a document that makes it clear it did not originate from the DOJ itself.
“Came across a purported video of Epstein's suicide (leaked by anonymous source),” the email reads, linking to a Google Drive file. “Is this real???”
The link to the video file on the DOJ’s website now seems to be broken.
The lack of video evidence from the night Epstein died has long fueled conspiracy theories. Authorities previously stated that the cameras monitoring his cell malfunctioned, leaving no usable footage.
Earlier this year, the DOJ released surveillance video from outside Epstein’s cell block, but there was a critical minute missing in it.
The video was created in 2015, and the DOJ confirmed it is fake
The video released by the DOJ in July was described as “full raw” surveillance footage. But Wired reported that video metadata indicated that the footage had instead been modified, and a deeper analysis further showed that two clips had been stitched together, cutting out minutes of footage in the process.
Epstein was placed on suicide watch but was later removed from it. He was supposed to share a cell, but his cellmate was transferred the day before his death. Two guards assigned to monitor him later admitted they slept during their shift.
WARNING: The video below may be distressing for sensitive viewers.
A medical examiner ruled Epstein’s death a suicide by hanging, but an independent autopsy commissioned by his family suggested Epstein suffered a neck fracture, which usually occurs during strangulation murders.
Congress ordered the full release of Epstein-related DOJ files in November, after the Epstein Files Transparency Act was passed into law. The ongoing dump has revealed photos, emails, records, and internal documents, but some lawmakers have criticized the release for being heavily redacted.