The “lacking minute” from the surveillance video on the Manhattan Metropolitan Correctional Heart the place Jeffrey Epstein died in 2019 is probably not lacking in any case, CBS Information has realized.
When the Justice Division and FBI launched almost 11 hours of footage earlier this month, the time code on the display screen jumped ahead one minute simply earlier than midnight, prompting questions concerning the one-minute hole. The video reveals a part of the world close to the cell the place Epstein was being held the evening he died in what the medical expert dominated a suicide.
A authorities supply aware of the investigation says the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons and the Division of Justice inspector basic are all in possession of a duplicate of the video that doesn’t minimize from simply earlier than 11:59 p.m. to midnight of the evening Epstein died by suicide in his cell.
What’s unclear is why that part was lacking when the FBI launched what it stated was uncooked footage from contained in the Particular Housing Unit the evening Epstein died, Aug. 9-10, 2019. The recording got here from what officers stated was the one video digital camera that was recording its footage within the unit. This video has been cited by a number of authorities officers as a key piece of proof within the willpower that Epstein died by suicide.
Epstein’s demise, as with many facets of his high-profile intercourse trafficking case, has develop into fodder for conspiracy theories. The lacking minute added to the conjecture after the discharge of the video, when information organizations and novice sleuths who reviewed the video rapidly seen that onscreen soar within the time stamp.
U.S. Bureau of Prisons
Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi was questioned concerning the hole throughout a July 8 Cupboard assembly with President Trump. She stated the lacking minute was the results of a nightly reset of the video that triggered the recording system to overlook one recording minute each evening, and attributed that info to the Bureau of Prions.
“There was a minute that was off that counter and what we realized from [the] Bureau of Prisons was yearly, each evening, they redo that video,” Bondi stated. The tools was outdated — “from like 1999, so each evening is reset, so each evening ought to have that very same lacking minute,” she stated.
Bondi stated the division would share different video that confirmed the identical factor occurred each evening when the video system reset. That video, nevertheless, has not but been launched.
Specialists in surveillance video, together with video forensic professionals, instructed CBS Information {that a} nightly reset would have been uncommon and was not one thing they encountered in most video programs.
One factor that’s clear, forensic consultants say, is that the model of the recording launched by the FBI was edited and never uncooked, as the federal government acknowledged. Bondi, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino and others have stated publicly that the video can be launched unaltered.
When the DOJ and FBI shared the video with the general public, they stated in a information launch that it was the “full uncooked” video, and that “anybody coming into or trying to enter the tier the place Epstein’s cell was situated from the SHU frequent space would have been captured by this footage.”
Jim Stafford was considered one of a number of video forensic analysts who seemed on the video for CBS Information utilizing specialised software program to extract the underlying coding, generally known as metadata. He stated the metadata confirmed that the file was first created on Might 23 of this 12 months and that it was seemingly a “display screen seize, not an precise export” of the uncooked file.
He additionally instructed CBS Information the metadata confirmed that the video was in reality two separate movies stitched collectively. It was additionally barely sped up, so the video overlaying 11 hours runs roughly 10 hours and 53 minutes in size.
CBS requested the FBI and Justice Division for a response, however they declined to remark. The Bureau of Prisons stated they “had no further info to offer”.
