Fake video that circulated on 4Chan of Jeffrey Epstein killing himself resurfaces in Epstein Files document dump

A fake video was briefly included in the Department of Justice’s Epstein file dump on Monday, appearing to show a computer-generated recreation of the night that infamous financier Jeffrey Epstein died.

The 12-second clip showed a white-haired man kneeling in a jail cell in an orange jumpsuit, while struggling and jerking his head. Orange cloth strewn about the room appears to look like puddles, while the door to the cell does not match the one he was in. The video had a timestamp that stated 4:29 am on August 10, 2019, two hours before Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Facility.

A Trump administration official confirmed to the New York Post that the video is fake and has been on YouTube for years. The video had circulated on 4chan and had been flagged to investigators by a Florida conspiracy theorist. The video has since been taken off the DOJ's website.

Per WIRED, the latest round of files wasn't on the DOJ’s website yet as of Monday evening, however, someone "had apparently guessed the link by following the URL formatting of previous releases.” WIRED was able to obtain a preceding email that accompanied the video "following that same formatting to view the preceding file."

The email to investigators said, referring to an attachment, "Came across a purported video of Epstein's suicide (leaked by anonymous source)." The email added, "Is this real??? There is another version, better quality less choppy (as my re-encoding software seems to have made it choppy)."

WIRED spoke with Ali Kabbaj, the owner of the phone number listed on the website included in the email. He said that he had found the video on the dark web and sent it to investigators in 2021. He told the outlet, "I’m shocked I’m in these files."

Congress passed a bill in November that requires the Department of Justice to release all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials relating to the Jeffrey Epstein case in "a searchable and downloadable format."

A June 2023 report from the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General stated, "Recorded video evidence for August 9 and 10 for the SHU area where Epstein was housed was only available from one prison security camera due to a malfunction of MCC New York’s Digital Video Recorder system that occurred on July 29, 2019." The available footage captured a common area and portions of the stairways leading to different tiers, but not Epstein’s cell door or inside his cell.