BURSTThe Department of Justice (DOJ) released surveillance footage Monday to back up its determination that disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in a New York City prison in 2019.
The nearly 11-hour-long video was filmed outside Epstein's prison cell during the final hours of his life while he was awaiting trial on additional federal sex trafficking charges.
"After a thorough investigation, FBI investigators concluded that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on August 10, 2019," the DOJ wrote in a memo cosigned by the FBI on Monday. "This conclusion is consistent with previous findings."
Conspiracy theories have lingered about the cause of Epstein's death since his lifeless body was found in the Special Housing Unit (SHU) cell where he was being held. Epstein, a wealthy New York socialite who owned his own private jet and private island, frequently hobnobbed with celebrities and the political elite, including President Trump and former President Bill Clinton.
The footage the DOJ released this week covers the area outside of Epstein's cell — not what happened inside, but no one is seen entering or exiting.
"As DOJ’s Inspector General explained in 2023, anyone entering or attempting to enter the tier where Epstein's cell was located from the SHU common area would have been captured by this footage," the DOJ's memo states. "The FBI's independent review of this footage confirmed that from the time Epstein was locked in his cell at around 10:40 pm on August 9, 2019, until around 6:30 am the next morning, nobody entered any of the tiers in the SHU."
But more skepticism emerged after the video's release regarding the timestamp, which appears to jump ahead one minute at midnight on August 10. The jump is noticeable in the original video and an enhanced version from the FBI.
The DOJ didn't immediately respond to The Hill's request for comment on the apparent timestamp shift.
Federal authorities announced Monday that Epstein's long-discussed "client list" does not exist and the government does not plan to release additional documents from the case.
Attorney General Pam Bondi facilitated a splashy release of documents related to Epstein's case in February, but the records — many of them files already available to the public — did not quell skeptics. Bondi later claimed she was "misled" about the contents.