It’s been almost five years since Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in a Manhattan jail cell, and the controversy surrounding his death hasn’t let up. Now, a new investigation by CBS News is adding fresh fuel to the fire, raising serious questions about the surveillance footage the government released from the night he died.
Epstein, a financier with powerful friends like Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and Prince Andrew, was facing federal charges for sex trafficking underage girls when he was found dead in August 2019. His death was officially ruled a suicide, but that ruling never sat right with a lot of people, and it quickly became the subject of endless conspiracy theories.
CBS News recently took a close look at the video footage from that night, and while they didn’t uncover anything that directly contradicts the suicide ruling, what they did find was still pretty weird.
For starters, experts told CBS that what’s been released doesn’t look like raw security footage at all. Instead, it seems to be a screen recording—complete with a mouse cursor and menu bar visible onscreen. That detail alone raises major questions about how this critical evidence was handled and shared.
“When reporters reached out to the FBI and the Bureau of Prisons for comment, both agencies stayed quiet. The only response came from the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General, which defended its previous conclusions in a statement.
‘The OIG appreciates the careful review of our report,’ the statement read. ‘Our comprehensive assessment… included the effects of the longstanding, chronic staffing crisis in the BOP and the BOP’s failure to provide and maintain quality camera coverage within its facilities. As noted in the analysis, nothing changed or modified the OIG’s conclusions or recommendations.’
So officially, nothing’s changed. But unofficially, it’s one more reason for the public to keep asking what really happened that night in Epstein’s jail cell.”
And that’s not the only eyebrow-raising moment. Just before midnight, the footage skips ahead by about a minute. The aspect ratio also suddenly changes, which is another sign that this might not be untouched, original footage.
Then, shortly after midnight, a person—still unidentified—can be seen moving through the unit.
When reporters reached out to the FBI and the Bureau of Prisons for comment, both agencies stayed quiet. The only response came from the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General, which defended its previous conclusions in a statement.
‘The OIG appreciates the careful review of our report,’ the statement read. ‘Our comprehensive assessment… included the effects of the longstanding, chronic staffing crisis in the BOP and the BOP’s failure to provide and maintain quality camera coverage within its facilities. As noted in the analysis, nothing changed or modified the OIG’s conclusions or recommendations.’
So officially, nothing’s changed. But unofficially, it’s one more reason for the public to keep asking what happened that night in Epstein’s jail cell.