Forensic specialists are challenging the federal government’s explanation for the enigmatic orange form that was seen on surveillance film taken on the last night of Jeffrey Epstein’s life next to his prison cell.
Around 10:40 p.m. on the evening before the 66-year-old convicted sex trafficker was discovered hanging, the shadowy object, captured on video that CBS News was able to collect and examine, ascends the stairs to Epstein’s cell block at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
According to forensic experts who spoke to the network as part of an examination into the jail video, federal officials had believed the pixelated blob was a corrections officer “carrying linen or inmate clothing.”
However, they now believe it might have been an inmate wearing a jumpsuit.
“Based on the limited video, it’s more likely a person in an [orange] uniform,” Conor McCourt, a retired NYPD sergeant and forensic video expert, told CBS.
On August 10, 2019, Epstein was discovered dead in his cell. According to a combined DOJ-FBI investigation and an official autopsy, the disgraced billionaire committed suicide by hanging.
However, the forensic specialists who talked to CBS News think the Justice Department’s official investigation into the death of the convicted sex trafficker has serious problems.
The DOJ supplied footage that showed the staircase is nearly completely hidden from view, despite the FBI’s assertion that surveillance cameras would have recorded anyone entering or leaving the area where the multimillionaire was detained, according to the outlet’s research.
Additionally, the camera cannot see the entrance to Epstein’s cell.
Additionally, the video doesn’t seem to be uncut; according to the outlet, it’s probably a screen capture, as shown by the menu and cursor that are visible on the screen. Just before midnight, the video feed also abruptly changed its aspect ratio and hopped ahead by a full minute.
In response to the possibilities put up by CBS, the Office of the Inspector General stated that it has not altered or changed its judgment in light of the most current analysis of the sexual predator’s death.
“To say that there’s no way that someone could get to that, the stairs up to his room, without being seen is false,” video forensic expert Jim Safford told CBS, with his view shared by four other leading experts.
WATCH:
“Our comprehensive assessment of the circumstances over the weeks, days, and hours before Epstein’s death included the effects of the longstanding, chronic staffing crisis in the [Bureau of Prisons] and the BOP’s failure to provide and maintain quality camera coverage within its facilities. As CBS notes, nothing in its analysis changed or modified the OIG’s conclusions or recommendations,” the statement to the outlet read.
Just weeks after being charged with sex-trafficking dozens of girls, the DOJ confirmed earlier this month that there was no evidence that Epstein was murdered in his lockup, despite years of conspiracy theorists claiming otherwise. This sparked a flurry and a new wave of public fascination over his death.
Through their inquiry, the FBI and Justice Department also declared that Epstein lacked an incriminating “client list.”
Since then, President Trump has called on Americans to discontinue squandering “time and energy” on the embattled financier.
Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer publicly pleaded for the president to pardon her or commute her sentence during a two-day interrogation session with US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last week.
Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice, is currently incarcerated for 20 years.