Videos released in Epstein files raise fresh questions about jail footage

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A precocious released cache of surveillance video from the Metropolitan Correctional Center successful New York City is raising caller questions astir the situation cameras astatine the installation wherever Jeffrey Epstein died successful his cell successful 2019.

The videos were among a immense cache of materials released connected Dec. 23 by the Department of Justice arsenic congressionally mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Rather than clarifying events surrounding Epstein's death, the footage appears to complicate the authoritative narrative, and contradicts immoderate anterior statements astir the prison's surveillance system.

The Epstein jailhouse videos

Epstein was recovered dormant successful his compartment astatine astir 6:30 a.m. connected Aug. 10, 2019, by a corrections serviceman delivering meal astatine the Metropolitan Correctional Center, wherever helium was awaiting proceedings connected national enactment trafficking charges. His decease was ruled a termination by the city's main aesculapian examiner.

Three months later, then-Attorney General Bill Barr said helium had personally reviewed situation surveillance footage and verified that nary 1 entered Epstein's compartment country successful the hours earlier his death, which supported his decision that Epstein died by suicide.

The FBI released that footage this summertime and analysis by CBS News recovered that the footage did not supply a wide capable view to definitively beryllium that nary 1 entered Epstein's compartment area, and determination were different inconsistencies with authoritative statements and witnesser interviews. The DOJ and FBI declined to remark astatine the time.

Specifics astir what cameras were and were not operating comes mostly from a 2023 study by the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General. That study stated that though determination were 11 cameras successful the Special Housing Unit (SHU), 10 were not signaling owed to malfunctioning hard drives.

The azygous camera wrong the communal country of the SHU that was signaling was positioned connected an precocious tier and showed lone a sliver of the staircase that led to Epstein's tier.

In the 2021 report, the DOJ's inspector wide did admit the beingness of an further camera covering a secondary entranceway to the SHU. That footage was ne'er released and, according to the report, did not amusement thing revealing astir Epstein's visitors oregon his death.

New footage brings questions, not answers

Among the files released by the Justice Department connected Dec. 24 were much than 400 one-hour clips of surveillance videos from MCC. The footage spans non-sequential, seemingly arbitrary clip periods dating backmost to July 5, 2019, much than a period earlier Epstein's death.

According to interior DOJ emails included successful the disclosure, the surveillance strategy was configured to clasp lone 30 days of footage. That raises an contiguous question: Why bash videos from July 5 beryllium astatine all?

One imaginable explanation, experts successful video forensics that CBS News spoke with said, that if the strategy had excess retention capableness the aged footage wouldn't beryllium overwritten, truthful footage extracurricular of that 30-day model would beryllium easy recovered.

"[The system] won't overwrite thing until the abstraction is needed," said Stacy Eldridge with Silicon Prairie Cyber Services.

The caller cache of video besides includes footage from 5 much cameras wrong the prison. Most notably, the merchandise includes respective hours of footage from a camera antecedently described arsenic non-recording. It provides an unobstructed presumption of the superior entranceway to the SHU and the stairs starring to Epstein's tier.

The 4 non-sequential one-hour videos from this camera are each dated Aug. 12, 2019 — 2 days aft Epstein's death. However, Department of Justice correspondence states that the surveillance strategy stopped signaling connected July 29 and was not repaired until Aug, 14.

This raises questions astir which cameras were successful information signaling astatine the clip of his death. One imaginable mentation is that, pursuing Epstein's death, the strategy could person been reconfigured truthful that this camera was attached to a different, functioning DVR recorder. Based connected the information that the on-screen show stays the aforesaid and the dates bash not overlap, experts told CBS News they thought a wiring alteration was the astir logical explanation.

"There is simply a plausible mentation for it, but it's conscionable odd," said Nick Barreiro, a integer forensic adept with Principle Forensics.

If anything, this camera reveals the missed accidental that a wide changeable similar this would person provided for investigators moving to find what happened that night.

"It fills successful gaps that are evidently missing from the position of the different camera," Barreiro said.

Another question is what happened with the footage from the nighttime of July 23, little than 3 weeks earlier his death, erstwhile Epstein was recovered unconscious connected the level of his compartment but past revived. That incidental happened anterior to the hard thrust failures that led to the breached DVR system. Epstein's tier had a camera positioned astatine the extremity and it would person captured his cellmate calling for assistance and corrections officers responding. The DOJ has antecedently said they person been incapable to find it.

Experts accidental that footage could person been damaged erstwhile the hard thrust failed. Correspondence included successful the merchandise indicates efforts to retrieve the information from the damaged hard drives were abandoned due to the fact that the process could person taken six months oregon much and wouldn't needfully output results.

"They're astir apt going to person to manually power everything backmost together," said Eldridge. "Like everything successful each investigation, what's your priority."

Other cameras

In summation to the SHU footage, the DOJ besides released 188 one-hour video clips from a camera covering an adjacent lodging country known arsenic "10 South," which is designated for lodging the astir unsafe inmates, including suspected terrorists (although it was seemingly mislabeled arsenic "9S, L tier"). Those videos likewise bash not tally continuously, but alternatively span sporadic hours opening July 5 and ending the time aft Epstein's death.

The disclosure besides includes 3 one-hour videos showing a table country from seemingly random hours connected Aug. 11 and Aug. 12, arsenic good arsenic 26 one-hour clips from the antecedently acknowledged elevator bank, covering assorted hours betwixt Aug. 7 and Aug. 11.

In summation to those videos, a 2-minute and 23-second-long video labeled "J tier" was included that shows respective guards walking astir a compartment tier. No day is fixed for this video. According to the 2023 inspector general's report, the J tier camera was not signaling astatine the clip of Epstein's death.

Additional video?

These videos are apt a fraction of the videos held by the DOJ. Documents obtained by CNN earlier this twelvemonth revealed that the DOJ had footage from 147 cameras from the situation covering a 24-hour play earlier and aft Epstein died, totaling implicit 8 terabytes of data. The interior documents bespeak that the footage does not uncover thing important "since the cameras successful the Special Housing Unit … were not progressive astatine the time."

After corrections officers discovered Epstein's body, it was transported from his compartment to a aesculapian installation wrong the prison, past to an ambulance waiting outside. It's apt that immoderate of that question would person been captured connected moving cameras, but nary of those person been made public.

It's not wide if the DOJ plans to merchandise further video. If they bash not, they could beryllium successful usurpation of the instrumentality which requires the merchandise of "all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials" related to Epstein and his death.

CBS News has reached retired to the Department of Justice for remark but has not received a response.