A short video that appeared online Monday afternoon — seemingly showing Jeffrey Epstein inside his prison cell during the final hours of his life — has been identified as fake.
The 12-second clip surfaced briefly among other files released by the agency and appeared to be hosted under a Justice.gov URL. It was time-stamped Aug. 10, 2019, at 4:29 a.m. and purported to show Epstein inside a cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York.
Epstein was found dead in his cell at about 6:30 a.m. that same morning, after hanging himself with bedsheets.
However, the briefly posted video does not match official accounts of how Epstein was discovered, as detailed in a Bureau of Prisons (BoP) report on procedural failures that night. The report, released in June 2023 following a lengthy internal investigation, states that no camera was recording video inside Epstein’s cell on the night of his death.
The BoP also noted that no camera in the facility had a clear view of Epstein during the relevant period. The report said recorded video evidence from the special housing unit (SHU) area where Epstein was housed was available from only one prison security camera due to a malfunction — and that camera did not provide a view inside his cell.
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The video also shows the cell lights on, which is common for inmates on suicide watch. But the BoP report says Epstein was no longer on suicide watch at that time. The report states he was removed from suicide watch on July 24 — a day after a guard entered his room shortly after 1 a.m. and found him with an orange cloth around his neck. The BoP wrote that Epstein’s cellmate confirmed Epstein had attempted suicide the night of July 23.
Several visual details in the clip have also raised questions. The cell door does not resemble photos of Epstein’s cell previously released by the BoP. The footage appears to lack realistic three-dimensional depth in places, giving it a more animated look than authentic surveillance video — particularly a cluster of orange, white, and gray shapes near the top center, which appears flat rather than three-dimensional.
The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment by publication time, and the video has since been taken down.
