The latest release of the Epstein files by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) casts more doubts on Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide. Some very important files, including interviews of key witnesses, were neither released earlier nor their versions included in the DoJ’s Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) 2023 investigation report.
Allegations that it was premeditated murder ordered by Epstein’s wealthy and mighty friends, who feared getting exposed or blackmailed, have swirled around since his death at the now-closed Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), Lower Manhattan, NYC, on August 10, 2019.
The disgraced financier hobnobbed with society’s crème de la crème—Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and other politicians, Bill Gates, power brokers, royals, top celebs, sportspersons, actors, heads of financial institutions, scientists, political/social activists and philanthropists.
The latest files contain
allegations of orgies (file No. EFTA01660651) against Trump and Clinton and rape against the current president. The DoJ removed the file twice from its website. Other files allege murders and even cannibalism.
Epstein trafficked girls to powerful men to curry favours, which expanded his network and wealth.
It wouldn’t have been shocking if Epstein recorded their sexcapades and blackmailed or threatened to expose them—hence, he was eliminated.
According to Epstein’s younger brother Mark, the pervert had shocking information on Trump and the Clintons.
“If I said what I know about both candidates, they’d have to cancel the election [2016],” he told
Mark in 2016.
In his book Ticking Clock: Behind the Scenes at 60 Minutes, former 60 Minutes producer Ira Rosen recounts Epstein’s girlfriend-pimp Ghislaine Maxwell telling him before the 2016 election that Epstein had videotapes of both presidents in compromising positions with women.
Mark
repeated his claim last November, when Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released thousands of emails.
“He didn’t tell me what he knew, but Jeffrey definitely had dirt on Trump,” he told host Chris Cuomo on NewsNation.
It’s been widely alleged that Epstein
blackmailed several of his clients and friends after ‘video-recording’ their sexcapades and also threatening to leak their affairs, including that of
Gates.
Epstein also maintained a Black Book containing 1,749 entries of 1,510 individuals, including 40 members of royalty and European nobility and 12 high-ranking politicians and diplomats. Discovered by famous investigative journalist Nick Bryant in 2012, the Black Book also has Trump’s name.
“If Epstein talks, there’s gonna be a lot of powerful people who could go down,”
Bryant told Vanity Fair in July 2019.
Epstein committed suicide by hanging himself from his cell’s bunkbed—that’s what the OIG report and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s autopsy concluded in 2023.
On July 7, 2025, a joint DoJ-FBI
two-page memo stated that the FBI, “after a thorough investigation”, concluded that “Epstein committed suicide in his cell” citing the report and the autopsy.
However, analyses by forensic experts and the media since August 2019 show that the suicide conclusion was riddled with inconsistencies, contradictions and missing evidence.
And some of the latest files contradict the suicide conclusion.
So, was it a homicide, not suicide?
Three DoJ Files Raise Strong Suspicions
On February 22, 2023, Mark wrote to the FBI National Threat Operations Center (file No. EFTA00038986) alleging, “He had reason to believe he [Epstein] was killed because he was about to name names. I believe President Trump authorised his murder.”
Two big revelations in the latest DoJ files raise questions of why Epstein would commit suicide and why he was declared dead a day before.
First, Epstein was considering cooperating with federal prosecutors.
FBI file No.
EFTA00172119, titled “Epstein Investigation Summary & Timeline”, states that Epstein’s lawyers discussed his potential cooperation with Manhattan federal prosecutors on July 29, 2019—a few days before his death.
“…FBI and (prosecutors) met with Epstein’s attorneys, who, in very general terms, discussed the possibility of a resolution of the case, and the possibility of the defendant’s cooperation”.
Another file,
EFTA01699578, titled “Jeffrey Epstein Significant Case Notification”, but not attributed to any investigative agency, again states Epstein’s potential cooperation with prosecutors.
Why would Epstein kill himself if he wanted to cooperate with prosecutors?
Second, the latest DoJ release contains, at least, 23 files having the same draft statement from the SDNY’s Attorney’s Office on Epstein’s death.
Some of the files are redacted in different ways with Manhattan US attorney Geoffrey S Berman’s name visible in some and invisible in others along with other redactions.
However, one file declares Epstein dead on August 9, a day before his death.
According to file No. EFTA01649538, Berman said: “Earlier this morning [August 9], the Manhattan Correctional Center confirmed that Jeffrey Epstein … had been found unresponsive in his cell and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter of an apparent suicide.”
Why would the SDNY attorney declare Epstein dead a day before his death?
First Suicide or Murder Attempt?
A former NYPD officer, a quadruple murderer and paedophile hater named Nicholas Tartaglione was initially Epstein’s cellmate.
Why was Tartaglione, sentenced to four consecutive life sentences in June 2024 for the 2016 killings of four men, Epstein’s cellmate despite being a notorious felon?
On July 23, 2019, Epstein was found semiconscious in his cell with an injured neck. Initially, Tartaglione was suspected, but an internal prison probe cleared him.
Epstein, after gaining consciousness, told officers that
Tartaglione attacked him, contradicting the suicide attack claim.
However, MCC officials said that Epstein tried to kill himself. “Tartaglione claimed he had been asleep and woke up to see Epstein with a string around his neck.”
There’s no camera footage of Epstein being found unconscious.
Epstein was placed on suicide watch the same day only to be taken off the next day.
Subsequently, he was housed in an observation cell, but later moved to an ordinary cell following a psychiatric examination.
However, Tartaglione alleged in a pardon petition filed last year that the
Trump administration wanted Epstein dead.
Putting him inside Epstein’s cell was “deliberately” done and was “no coincidence”, Tartaglione wrote.
The timeline of Epstein’s arrest, a psychology report on his mental health, death and autopsy is mentioned in a 23-page FBI New York Field Office report titled “
Jeffrey Epstein Death Investigation” (files EFTA000161494-EFTA00161516).
The psychology report doesn’t conclude that Epstein tried to commit suicide earlier and belies the claim that he was suicidal.
The psychologist said that Epstein couldn’t remember what happened on July 23—but both of them conversed a few hours later the same day.
“Epstein denied remembering how he ended up on suicide watch and denied current suicidal thoughts or ideation. It was unclear at this time if he had placed the string around his neck or if someone else did,” the psychologist concluded.
July 24: Epstein said, “I have no interest in killing myself.” It “would be crazy”.
The fact that Epstein was taken off suicide watch on the same day, a day after the incident, contradicts the conclusions that he attempted suicide or was suicidal.
July 25: Epstein again denied suicidality as he “too vested in my case to fight it”. “I have a life, and I want to go back to living my life.”
July 26, 27, 28 and 30: Epstein repeatedly “denied suicidal ideation” on these dates. The psychological observation ended on July 30.
Something suspicious happened on August 1.
When Epstein returned from court, he was asked to sign a form that noted he had “suicidal tendencies”.
Epstein “seemed surprised that there was a form noting suicidal tendencies. He denied stating that he was suicidal”.
Why was Epstein asked to sign the form despite repeatedly denying suicidal tendencies?
Tangled Noose of Evidence with Big Holes
Epstein was housed in cell No. 220, on the L Tier (upper level) of the Special Housing Unit (SHU), which had three wings and two levels. His cell was accessible by a staircase from the central common area, which has the guard station.
Every cell had two inmates. His next cellmate, Efrain Reyes, was transferred to another facility in a prearranged transfer on the morning of August 9, a day before his death, leaving Epstein alone.
Michael Thomas and Tova Noel were the only correctional officers (COs) on duty on L Tier when Epstein died.
According to the OIG report, Thomas found Epstein “suspended” with “an orange string presumably from a sheet or a shirt, around his neck that was tied to the top portion of the bunkbed” in “a near-seated position with his buttocks merely 1-1.5 inches off the floor” at 6.30 am.
The exact timing of Epstein’s death was never reported.
Per the report, Thomas “ripped” the string to bring Epstein’s body down.
The report is a tangled noose of contradictions, inconsistencies and evidence tampering.
First, old photos show a piece of bedsheet looped, not tied, through a hole on the upper bunk.
Epstein was around 6 feet and weighed 84 kg. Only a noose, not a string (that too looped), could have held his weight.
Second, the string was a piece of evidence at the crime scene that should have been handled carefully—provided Thomas told the truth to the investigators that he “ripped” it.
Some very important Epstein files, not released earlier, smack of a cover-up.
Moreover, the OIG report deliberately didn’t mention the content of these files despite investigating a suspicious death inside a prison.
For example, OIG investigators
interviewed Thomas in June 2021, but didn’t mention his statement.
The digitally recorded sworn statement, in file No. EFTA00113577, shows Thomas either lied or didn’t tell the whole story of the morning of August 10.
Thomas’s answers are a bunch of contradictions, inconsistencies and apparent memory lapses.
He didn’t say how he ripped Epstein down.
If he did, some part of the string would have been around Epstein’s neck.
When asked, did he remember if the string “like tore and broke and came into two separate pieces”, he said, “I don’t.”
However, he also said that the ligature “wasn’t just that singular piece; it might have more rope to it”.
Shockingly, he also said, “I don’t recall taking the noose off. I don’t recall taking the thing from around his neck.”
Noel also didn’t see a noose around Epstein’s neck, per the OIG report.
Most importantly, Thomas couldn’t recall which part of the neck the knot was on or whether he had tried to loosen it or remove it.
Thomas also couldn’t recall whether the string was part of a sheet or a shirt. “I don’t know if that’s a sheet or shirt or whatever the case may be.”
If it were a shirt, why did Epstein use it instead of so many sheets inside his cell to hang himself?
Thomas also said that Epstein was shirtless and only in pants.
However, photos in the latest Epstein files show him lying in an open shirt on the stretcher with prison medics giving him chest compressions.
Third, photos from the crime scene show several bedsheets strewn around inside the cell, which is against the law as an inmate is assigned one bedsheet.
Third, the OIG reports mention there were “multiple nooses that had been made from torn prison linens”. However, photos show only two nooses with complicated knots at the crime scene, and only one of them was cited by the OIG as evidence.
Why would Epstein make multiple nooses? It’s impossible that he was trying them to make sure which one would work.
However, as rightly pointed out by Epstein’s brother, the ligature had glaring loopholes.
“If you look at the noose, the long end of the noose has a hemmed edge, and
it wasn’t cut [ripped, as claimed by Thomas]. No creases,” Mark told ABC News affiliate WPBF (Channel 25).
Mark has repeatedly alleged that the noose was
false evidence.
Moreover, Epstein had a
bloody wound on his neck, per photos in the file EFTA00134598. However, the noose had no blood or skin attached.
Clearly, that noose wasn’t used by Epstein—if he committed suicide at all.
Inmate’s Version Contradicts Hanging
Media reports have often highlighted Mark’s murder allegations and analyses of forensic experts.
However, a September 5, 2019, joint OIG-FBI interview with an inmate (name redacted) in the file
EFTA00098078 has not been highlighted by the media.
The OIG report has no mention of the inmate’s interview.
The interview totally contradicts the OIG report that Epstein was found hanging.
The prisoner, referred to as “INMATE 2”, was also housed on the L Tier since August 2, 2019, with his cell the first one on the left, allowing him to view all the other cells on the right, including that of Epstein’s.
An FBI agent and an OIG agent interviewed the inmate in the presence of the assistant US attorney (all names redacted) and the inmate’s attorneys, Andy Patel, Jill Shellow and Donald Yanella.
The inmate was advised that it is a separate crime to lie to a federal agent.
The inmate, who could also see the G and H Tiers, along with the middle portion of the multi-purpose room in the SHU, from his cell, was “always up for breakfast, which is around 6.10 am”.
On the morning of August 10, he saw a guard “who he described as a black male, on the shorter side height-wise and had close-cut hair [Thomas], knock on Epstein’s cell door.
When the guard opened the door, “the inmate could only see Epstein’s legs from the knee down, but could tell that he was lying on his back because his feet were pointed upward”.
The inmate’s version completely contradicts the OIG’s report, which said that Thomas found Epstein hanging.
“INMATE 2 could only see this portion of Epstein because Epstein always slept on the floor to the right side of the cell.”
The guard bent down to shake Epstein and said, “Epstein. Epstein,” the inmate added.
When the guard tried to pick him up from behind “with his arms wrapped around Epstein”, both “fell back to the floor with Epstein falling to the side of the guard”.
According to the interview, “The guard then started giving Epstein chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth.”
Immediately, a lieutenant arrived with a male nurse who tried to revive Epstein. “However, Epstein was not responsive because, according to the inmate, Epstein was already dead.”
Why would Epstein commit suicide with his headphones on?
Here comes the most contradictory and the strangest part of the inmate’s version.
“Epstein didn’t have any marks around his neck, and he didn’t see a rope around his neck.”
Assuming that Epstein hanged himself, he would have some kind of mark on his neck.
According to the inmate, his cellmate made a similar remark. “The cellmate made a comment that Epstein didn’t hang himself because he didn’t have the typical injuries.”
Does that mean Epstein was murdered earlier and the supposed ligature mark was made later?
Per the autopsy report, Epstein had three fractures in his neck.
Mark alleged that the
fractures resembled injuries caused by a karate chop. “I found out from Special Forces people that it is how they kill people. In this particular case, as if someone gave him a karate chop and garrotted him.”
Online pics of other suicide victims show the noose high up on the chin and behind the ears. But the mark on Epstein’s neck was “at the centre of his neck and straight back as if he was strangled with a rope”, according to Mark.
Mark hired famous forensic pathologist Michael Baden, who was present during the four-hour autopsy.
Baden saw something unusual.
“There were fractures of the left, the right thyroid cartilage and the left hyoid bone. I have never seen three fractures like this in a suicidal hanging,” he told CBS News 60 Minutes. “Going over a thousand jail hangings, suicides in the New York City state prisons over the past 40-50 years, no one had three fractures,” Baden said.
The most notable part of INMATE 2’s version is that he “saw a male come out of Epstein’s cell with a sheet that had a loop and a knot”.
Who was that male? Thomas told investigators that he couldn’t recall taking the noose off Epstein’s neck.
Subsequently, “MCC personnel, including the lieutenant and the doctor, started to cover up the windows to the cells on L Tier. They also brought dividers to block views from his cell and the camera.”
INMATE 2’s version raises the three most important questions.
First, blocking the view of a crime scene is logical and understandable—but why were no photos of Epstein’s cell with his body hanging or lying, like the Tartaglione episode, taken? And if photos were clicked, why were they never released?
Second, why did emergency medical technicians move Epstein’s body from the crime scene before the medical examiner and investigators arrived?
Therefore, there’s no evidence of Epstein’s hanging body being discovered by Thomas.
Third, why was Epstein left alone in his cell against instructions to the contrary?
Epstein’s State of Mind Before Death
“Jeffrey wasn’t a wimp. I knew him better than anybody; we were brothers,” Mark told the WPBF (Channel 25). He “was upbeat before his death because he was about to have a bond hearing?” He spent most of August 9 with his legal team.
Mark made the same point earlier in December 2023. He told journalist Declan Hill on the
Crime Waves podcast that “Jeff was looking forward to defending himself against the charges”.
In fact, during the last meeting with his lawyers on August 9, Epstein was in “
great spirits”, a source close to the Epstein case told the New York Post on August 14.
“Everyday, he was very positive, and the night before, he was really positive,” the source said. “I’ll see you Sunday,” he told one of his lawyers.
“What he really wanted to do was get bail so he could cooperate [with prosecutors].”
INMATE 2 also told the FBI that Epstein “was with his lawyers all day as usual”. He met his attorney for hours daily.
If Epstein hoped for a plea deal, why would he commit suicide?
Surveillance footage Triggers More Suspicion
The surveillance footage of Epstein’s prison floor from the night till his death in the morning has always questioned the credibility of the DoJ and FBI accounts.
It’s hard to believe and highly unusual that of the 11 CCTV cameras in the SHU, only two were functional.
Only footage from one camera covering the SHU’s common area and a small portion of the staircase leading to Epstein’s tier was released. Footage from a second camera covering a secondary entrance to the SHU was never released.
Last July, the FBI released
10 hours of footage (7.40 pm to 6.40 am). A missing one minute raised suspicion of a cover-up that deepened after it was released in an 11-hour footage (6 pm to 7 am) by the House Oversight Committee in September.
A detailed study of the footage reveals contradictions and inconsistencies in the OIG report, which said that only Thomas and Noel were present that night. A third individual identified only as a “material handler” was replaced by Thomas around 12.
Last May, FBI’s then-deputy director Dan Bongino told Fox News that “anyone entering or attempting to enter the tier where Epstein’s cell [August 9 night] was located from the SHU common area would have been captured by this footage”.
However, a CBS News
analysis of the footage last July contradicts Bongino.
After 10 pm, none of the officers made the mandatory rounds in 30-minute intervals on Epstein’s cell.
Around 10.39 pm, the camera shows someone apparently carrying an orange bundle of clothing up the stairs—only the orange clothes are visible.
Due to the limited view of the stairs, experts were sceptical that it could have been an inmate in the orange uniform.
The FBI claimed that it was the last time someone climbed the stairs.
Surprisingly, a cursor appears around 11.21, indicating that the video may have been recorded with a camera or a screen recording—and wasn’t an export of the raw file.
The FBI claimed to have seized the prison’s hard drive five days after Epstein’s death and had released the full raw footage.
However, forensic experts told CBS News that the file had two clips stitched together in editing software and the video was saved multiple times.
At 11.57 pm, Thomas enters to replace the material handler.
Suddenly, at 11.58.58 pm, the video jumps to midnight—and the aspect ratio of the video changes, indicating it may have been edited. A video’s aspect ratio is the proportional relationship between its width and height.
A slight change in the shape of the figure sitting or standing at the guard station is noticed.
The missing minute was never released till last September.
Per the OIG report, the SHU was secured by two doors, of which one had a key held only by Thomas or Noel. She told the OIG that no one could enter that door without her unlocking it.
However, an individual is seen walking in around 4 am—neither Thomas nor Noel let him in.
Who was the third individual?
The
missing one minute released as part of the 11-hour footage raised more doubts. The new footage is of lower quality, has missing metadata (underlying coding) and the text format on the screen is different from that of the first footage.
After 11.59 pm, the material handler walks towards the SHU’s main entrance, meaning his third consecutive eight-hour shift was over.
Therefore, the individual walking in around 4 am couldn’t have been the material handler.
The individual’s identity remains a mystery.
The identity of the individual carrying orange clothing or a purported inmate in the orange uniform also remains a mystery.
It means there was a fourth individual on that floor while Thomas, Noel and the material handler were there because he was seen climbing the stairs at 10.39 pm.
The latest Epstein files dump proves the presence of a fourth individual on that floor.
First, the files show that the material handler was Ghitto Bonhomme, interviewed twice in September 2019 in sessions conducted after a grand jury subpoena (file No. EFTA00077543)
Why Bonhomme wasn’t identified earlier is suspicious because he told investigators that he couldn’t recollect anyone climbing the stairs towards Epstein’s tier. An MCC employee entering a tier alone would have been a violation, he said.
Second, file No.
EFTA00117743 reveals that Noel was not the person walking up the stairs.
Noel told OIG investigators, “I never gave out (inmate) linen. Ever. Because that’s done on the shift prior.”
It was her second consecutive eight-hour shift, meaning the linen was provided on her first shift, which was before 10.39 pm, when the individual on the stairs was seen.
Third, the OIG report stated: “At approximately 8 pm on August 9, SHU inmates were locked in their cells for the night, including Epstein, who was without a cellmate.”
If the individual on the stairs wasn’t an inmate and Noel wasn’t distributing linen, was he an outsider in the orange uniform walking towards Epstein’s cell?
Fourth, the most important file,
EFTA00141687, containing separate analyses of the footage by the OIG and the FBI are diametrically opposite about the identity of the individual climbing the stairs.
The OIG analysis states: “A flash of orange can be seen going up the stairs of L (upper) tier. Inmates are currently on lockdown. It is possible someone is carrying inmate linen or bedding up the stairs.”
However, Noel denied carrying linen.
According to the FBI analysis, “A flash or orange looks to be going up the L Tier stairs—could possibly be an inmate escorted up to that Tier.”
However, the footage clearly shows there was only one person on the stairs. Moreover, all inmates were locked in, per the OIG report.
In November 2019, the Berman
charged Thomas and Noel for signing “false certifications attesting to having conducted multiple counts of inmates that they did not do”.
However, in May 2021, Thomas and Noel entered into a
deferred prosecution agreement contingent on performing 100 hours of community service, being monitored by pretrial supervision officials for six months and cooperating with a pending DoJ probe of Epstein’s death. In December that year, the
charges were dropped.
(The writer is a freelance journalist with more than two decades of experience and comments primarily on foreign affairs. He tweets as @FightTheBigots. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)
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