Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein jail video reveals new discrepancies

Watch Video Forensics expert analysis of Jeffrey Epstein jail video contradicts administration s declares In the weeks after Jeffrey Epstein died at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan in August then-Attorney General William Barr disclosed his personal review of surveillance footage clearly proved that no one entered the area where Epstein was housed leading him to agree with the conclusion of the healthcare examiner that Epstein had died by suicide It s a claim that s been repeated by other top federal leaders including FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino who revealed on Fox News Fox and Friends in May There s video clear as day he s the only person in there and the only person coming out But a CBS News analysis of the video the FBI made masses earlier this month reveals that the recording doesn t provide a clear view of the entrance to Epstein s cell block one of several contradictions between authorities descriptions of the video and the video itself CBS News also digitally reconstructed the Special Housing Unit or SHU where Epstein was held using diagrams and descriptions from the record on Epstein distributed by the Justice Department inspector general The CBS News review detected the video does little to provide evidence to assistance declares that were later made by federal executives Additionally CBS News has identified multiple inconsistencies between that account and the video that raise serious questions about the accuracy of witness statements and the thoroughness of the cabinet s inspection The review doesn t refute the conclusion that Epstein died by suicide But it raises questions about the strength and credibility of the authorities s research which appears to have drawn conclusions from the video that are not readily observable The Epstein jail video The silent surveillance video which runs for nearly hours provides a narrow window into Epstein s world during his last hours on earth Staffers on duty that night in the Metropolitan Correctional Center carry blankets fill out paperwork and occasionally appear to doze off The grainy pixelated footage shows two doors a nondescript blue trash can and a stair landing Beyond the banister a third of the frame is filled with a bright fluorescent-lit open area A staircase is visible on the left and in the back a dark blurry patch marks the correctional officer s desk To the right of the desk is the faint outline of part of the staircase leading up to Epstein s cell Video circulated by the Justice Department and FBI shows a view of the Special Housing Unit of the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Aug Agents say Jeffrey Epstein can be seen at the left partly obscured walking towards the staircase that leads to his cell U S Bureau of Prisons Several cameras in the Special Housing Unit were functioning but unmonitored the summary revealed and the administration has stated that a failure of the digital video recording system resulted in the loss of most of of the footage from the night of Aug - that would have provided a fuller view The video that was disclosed begins at p m Nine minutes later according to the description of the Justice Department inspector general Epstein appears for the first and last time on camera He emerges from the left side of the screen and walks down a stairwell accompanied by a corrections officer Employees stated investigators that Epstein had just finished an unmonitored call later released to have been with his girlfriend in Belarus The video rolls almost uninterrupted for the next hours At a m corrections officers can be seen rushing across the frame The Justice Department later disclosed that that s when Epstein s body was discovered Over the discipline of the night the staff on duty failed to conduct the required -minute check-ins on Epstein while he spent the night alone in his cell Prison administrators had already determined that he was a suicide peril he had allegedly tried to kill himself weeks earlier in mid-July Because of this under prison protocol he was assigned a roommate But that roommate had been transferred earlier in the day and prison staff had not assigned him a new one Two staff members Tova Noel and Michael Thomas were ultimately charged with falsifying records but the charges were later dropped There were no supervisors or Bureau of Prisons personnel punished for these alleged oversights that preceded the death of the highest-profile prisoner in the facility perhaps in the entire federal prison system Last month the FBI declared the Epstein incident was closed based partly on the video evidence and reiterated that Epstein had killed himself in his cell as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges Here are the inconsistencies identified by CBS News The FBI claimed 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 video cross-referenced with diagrams of the Epstein holding area does not appear to assistance that finding That becomes obvious in the first minutes of the video Epstein s cell was in the L Block accessible via a staircase from the Special Housing Unit s common area When Epstein appears on camera he is seen walking toward the stairs leading to his cell but since the staircase is almost entirely out of view from the camera he is never seen ascending The entrance to Epstein s cell as well as the primary entrance to the SHU are off camera in the same direction meaning there s no way to tell from the video if he went to his cell or exited the SHU This illustration shows the location of Jeffrey Epstein s cell in red The common area of the Special Housing Unit is at the center CBS News While brief movement is occasionally visible on the stairs when someone is walking up the left side the area remains mostly obscured throughout the recording making it impossible to determine if someone may have entered the SHU through the primary entrance and accessed the staircase without ever being captured on the recording This illustration shows a path from the entrance to the Special Housing Unit common area to the stairs leading up to Epstein s cell Only a narrow portion of the staircase could be seen in video disclosed by federal leaders CBS News This appears to directly contradict the FBI and the inspector general s assertion and allows for the possibility of unrecorded movement between those areas Without visual evidence the episode relies on the word of staff members Noel and Thomas that no one entered At one point the Justice Department noted both of them appeared to have fallen asleep although Noel denies this Jim Stafford a video forensics expert reviewed the footage and the inspector general s statement and recounted CBS News To say that there s no way that someone could get to that the stair up to his room without being seen is false Four other leading video forensics experts interviewed by CBS News concurred Experts question investigators interpretation of orange shape moving up the stairs Just before p m an orange shape is seen moving up the stairs leading to Epstein s tier The overview says Through review and analysis of the SHU video footage witness statements and BOP records the OIG determined that at approximately p m a CO corrections officer held to be Noel carried linen or inmate clothing up to the L Tier which was the last time any CO approached the only entrance to the SHU tier in which Epstein was housed Video forensic experts who reviewed that footage at the request of CBS News were skeptical about that interpretation and suggested that the shape could be a person dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit climbing the stairs This image from the video zoomed in and highlighted by CBS News shows a partial view of something orange on the stairs leading to Jeffrey Epstein s cell tier U S Bureau of Prisons Conor McCourt a retired NYPD sergeant and forensic video expert informed CBS News Based on the limited video it s more likely it s a person in an orange uniform A cursor and a menu appear on screen and the video is sped up The Justice Department announced the FBI seized the prison s digital video recorder system or DVR containing the raw footage five days after Epstein s death When federal bureaucrats issued the jail video they attested that it was raw footage but the presence of a cursor and onscreen menu raise questions about that Experts informed CBS News those images indicate the video was likely a screen recording rather than an export directly from a DVR system A cursor can be seen on the image of the garbage can in this closeup U S Bureau of Prisons Several forensic experts CBS News spoke with including Jim Stafford of Eclipse Forensic Services and Conor McCourt of McCourt Video Analysis noted they had not viewed surveillance footage in this format They noted it was unlikely to have been an export of the raw footage and that instead it appears to be two separate video segments that were stitched together Stafford who looked at the video using specialized application to extract the underlying coding known as metadata commented the metadata evidenced that the file was first created on May of this year and that it was likely a screen capture not an actual export of the raw file In addition the analysts mentioned a shift in the frame aspect ratio that is the ratio of the width to the height of an image indicated that it was two clips edited together not a continuous run of footage Establishment sources familiar with the inspection tell CBS News that the actual raw video is in possession of the FBI but that it was not what the department circulated A document by the website Wired had previously alleged nearly three minutes of footage appeared to be missing based on the metadata CBS News analysis uncovered that because the video was running at a slightly higher speed and with one minute missing when the clock jumped ahead to midnight the video was indeed only hours and minutes in length as opposed to the full hours The missing minute The time counter burned into the video moves without interruption until shortly before midnight Then the time leaps forward by one minute without explanation When the feed returns at a m the video s aspect ratio changes slightly a barely perceptible shift in view that experts announced is another indication that the footage was edited or reprocessed and is not raw During this minute an unnamed staffer with the title Materials Handler on duty from p m to midnight would have finished his shift and and is assumed to have left the unit While there is nothing to suggest this action has any relevance to the events of that evening the missing stretch of time raises questions about the value of the video to conclusively determine what occurred There is no mention of a missing minute in the inspector general s assessment A regime source familiar with the review tells CBS News that Attorney General Pam Bondi was incorrect in her declaration that the prevention system had a nightly reset resulting in a lost minute every night There was a minute that was off that counter and what we learned from Bureau of Prisons was every year every night they redo that video Bondi commented July noting that the system was old Every night is reset so every night should have that same missing minute So we re looking for that video as well to show it s missing every night But a high-level administration source familiar with the inspection informed CBS News that the FBI the Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Justice s Office of Inspector General are in possession of full unedited copies of the video and those copies do not have a missing minute Why Bondi announced that the video resets is not clear In a comment to CBS News the Bureau of Prisons stated We can confirm Attorney General Bondi s message At a m an unidentified individual passes through the SHU The inspector general s record says only two staff members entered the unit after midnight one is a corrections officer identified only as CO and the other is described as the Morning Watch Operations Lieutenant The presence of a third unidentified individual seen on the video is not addressed by the inspector general s review In one instance the inspector general s statement appears to conflate the actions of Tova Noel with another female staff member The review says Noel stated she left Epstein alone in the shower area where he had made his unmonitored phone call She recounted agents she left the area to use the restroom in an adjoining area and when she returned Epstein had already been escorted to his cell by someone else But the video shows what appears to be Noel remaining in the unit and personally escorting Epstein to the staircase leading to his cell There is another female staffer present who is seen on camera exiting the unit just before Epstein is escorted She returns shortly afterward This discrepancy occurs during a crucial time period Epstein had been allowed to make an unmonitored call from a shower area using a phone line intended only for attorney communications According to the account this was facilitated by the unit manager who was the senior officer in charge Epstein allegedly disclosed he demanded to call his mother even though his mother died in The unit manager dialed a number a New York City area code a man answered and he handed the phone to Epstein The unit manager then left the area but later called and urged Noel to retrieve the phone The Bureau of Prisons Northeast regional director later communicated investigators that the unmonitored call was extremely concerning stating We don t know what happened on that phone It could have potentially led to the situation Epstein s death but we don t we will never know Multiple staff members are seen entering the Epstein unit while Noel and Thomas remain visible in the common area In assessing the video Justice Department authorities have reported no one could have entered Epstein s tier without being seen because the staircase was visible on the tape and access to the SHU was only manageable by passing through two locked doors which are both off camera One door is remotely operated and one requires a physical key which Noel stated investigators only she and Thomas possessed However the video shows several individuals entering and exiting while Thomas and Noel are seen nowhere near the door or not present at all contradicting her announcement As a conclusion there is no way to know from the video if it indeed was manageable for someone to enter the unit and climb the stairs to Epstein s cell without being seen Were there other cameras recording In addition to the cameras that failed to record other angles of the SHU common area the inspector general s review states there were two additional cameras recording events in the vicinity of the Epstein unit one covering an elevator bank used to delivery inmates and another focused on a nearby guard desk Neither of those videos has been circulated but a screen grab from one was included in the summary While federal representatives have dismissed those recordings as unhelpful in documenting what occurred that night experts narrated CBS News that those videos could add value to the analysis They could for instance help determine whether the DVR system did in fact reset nightly and consistently lose one minute as Attorney General Pam Bondi has disclosed or provide evidence to contradict her claim This image from the Justice Department inspector general s analysis shows the view of an elevator bank from another camera at the jail where Epstein was held The video from this camera was not circulated U S Department of Justice CBS News has reached out to the Justice Department the Bureau of Prisons the FBI and the Justice Department inspector general to discuss what is shown on the video recording The FBI and BOP declined to comment and the Justice Department referred us back to the FBI In a report to CBS News a spokesperson for the inspector general emailed the following The OIG appreciates the careful review of our review Our comprehensive assessment of the circumstances over the weeks days and hours before Epstein s death included the effects of the longstanding chronic staffing situation in the BOP 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 CBS News has also sought interviews with Tova Noel and Michael Thomas directly and through their attorneys They have not responded but have previously denied any involvement in actions that could have contributed to Epstein s death Robert Hood a former Bureau of Prisons chief of internal affairs and warden of the Supermax facility in Colorado reported he has reviewed the inspector general s statement and in an email recounted CBS News In my opinion the summary investigative reports don t provide adequate details concerning Epstein s death The BOP s new director William Marshall should provide internal investigative reports concerning the MCC involving Epstein s death and related historical records at the jail Mark Epstein Jeffrey Epstein s younger brother has long voiced his belief that his brother did not die by suicide but was murdered He spoke with CBS News and stated without a recording of the camera in the actual tier where Epstein was housed it is unclear if the door to his brother s prison cell had been properly locked or if other prisoners could have had access That tier housed as plenty of as inmates and only three voluntarily spoke to investigators according to the IG review Only one has been identified publicly by name Source