Clerical error? A press release announcing Jeffrey Epstein’s death is dated a full day before guards found the accused sex trafficker’s body in his Manhattan jail cell.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York dated the statement Friday, August 9, claiming officials found Epstein unresponsive “earlier this morning.” Prison logs show guards discovered his body at 6:30 a.m. on August 10 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
Multiple versions of the statement appear in recently released Justice Department files, each with different redactions. The documents suggest prosecutors prepared the announcement before officials confirmed Epstein’s death.
Epstein faced federal sex trafficking charges when he died. The New York City Medical Examiner, the FBI, and the Justice Department Inspector General ruled his death a suicide by hanging.
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His death came weeks after his July 2019 arrest, before he could potentially cooperate with investigators or testify. Epstein maintained connections with powerful figures, including Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, tech billionaires, British royalty, and other high-profile individuals. Trump called Epstein a “terrific guy” in a 2002 interview, noting he “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
No one besides Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell has faced criminal charges related to his sex trafficking operation. Maxwell received a 20-year prison sentence in 2021.
Related: Convicted Child Sex Trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell Cleared for Work Release
Most Americans don’t believe the suicide ruling. A 2020 Rasmussen poll found a majority thought Epstein was murdered. Only 21% accepted the suicide determination.
There’s a wealth of institutional failures that fueled the skepticism. Guards falsified logs, claiming they performed required cell checks that never occurred. Officials removed Epstein’s cellmate hours before his death but assigned no replacement, violating protocol.
Two cameras directly outside Epstein’s cell malfunctioned the night he died. Of 11 cameras in the Special Housing Unit, 10 were not recording due to failed hard drives. The single working camera captured common areas but not Epstein’s cell or its entrance. Forensic analysis later found that the released footage was missing nearly three minutes and showed signs of editing.
Federal prosecutors indicted two guards in November 2019. Michael Thomas and Tova Noel faced charges of falsifying records and conspiracy. The Justice Department Inspector General’s 2023 report condemned jail officials for “negligence, misconduct, and outright job performance failures.”
Multiple 4Chan posts appeared the morning of Epstein’s death before news outlets reported it. One post at 8:16 a.m. claimed Epstein died an hour earlier. A separate post at 8:44 a.m. claimed Epstein was removed from his cell Friday night in a medical wheelchair and that an unauthorized van arrived at the prison.
Prosecutors subpoenaed 4Chan, Apple, AT&T, and Citibank, seeking information about the posts. Citibank records contain the name Roberto Grijalva, a Metropolitan Correctional Center lieutenant. People are connecting Grijalva to the wheelchair post.
The prison swap theory claims officials secretly replaced Epstein with another prisoner before staging a fake death. No credible evidence supports this. Multiple federal reviews rejected it.
Viral images claim to show Epstein alive in Tel Aviv, Israel. The photos show a bearded man in sunglasses with long hair. Fact-checkers identified a Google Gemini watermark on the images, confirming they were AI-generated. Hebrew street signs in the photos contain nonsensical text, a common AI error. Despite being debunked, the images garnered millions of views on social media.
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