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CBS News analysis of the newly released Jeffrey Epstein jail video finds inconsistencies with the government’s claims about what the footage shows, raising questions about the credibility of the federal investigation. CBS News Justice correspondent Scott MacFarlane breaks down the findings. The FBI declined to comment on the CBS News report.

The  Federal Bureau of Investigation released the primary video used in the investigation of the death of convicted sex offender Jeffrey  Epsten.

Deputy Director of the FBI Dan Bongino ,described that video on Fox & Friends just weeks before it’s released.

There’s no one there but him ,there’s video clear as day,he’s the only person in there and the only person coming out , you can see it”

We showed the video to multiple video forensics experts who agreed what the FBI and others have said is simply not  true ,that video  and other evidence led to the conclusion by the government that Epstein’s on August 10th ,2019 w as suicide.

An analysis  in consultation with video forensic expert suggests multiple inconsistencies between statements  from government officials, including Bongino, a report  from the Departement of Justice’s office of the Inspector General into Epstein’s death released in 2023, and  the tape itself.

These  inconsistencies, while not contradicting the conclusion Epstein died by suicide, do introduce questions  that the Government so far has declined to answer.

We’ll show you those in a moment, first let’s break this all down.

Epstein was held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan in a unit separate from the general population known as the special housing unit  or SHU.

The unit has three wings, each with two levels,Epstein was held in the upstairs L tier of his wing, that tier was accessed by a set of stairs from the central common area, directly adjacent to those stairs is the officer station where onduty corrections officers spend most of their time.

The inspector general report says several cameras in the unit were streaming a live feed to a remote  location in the prison.but no one was watching them .

Malfunctioning equipment meant  only one camera recorded  to the general area, that camera  captured part of the common area ,including  the officer station and a sliver of the staircaise leading to Epstein cell .

The footage begins at 7 : 40 p.m.the night before Epstein’s death.

You can see staff and inmates moving about preparing for the nightly lockdown. that’s the officer station in the background.

Only two employees have been publicly identified,Tova Noel, a corrections officer pulling a double shift that began at 4 :00 pm and Michael Thomas, a materials  handler who won’t arrive until midnight.

Epstein is seen for the first and only time on  camera at 7 :49 pm  when the apartment of justice said he was escorted  to his cell from another wing of the unit,it’s important to note here ,you don’t actually see Epstein ascend the stairwell to his cell block .

remember ,what  Bongino said;”there’s video clear as day,he’s the only person in there and the only person coming out , you can see it”

Here’s the sliver of stairs, Epstein is here with his escort and they walk off screen.

When the FBI released the video, they said anyone entering or atempting to enter the tier where Epstein’s cell was located from the common area would have been captured by this footage.

But with the primary entrance here, the pathway from the entrance to the stairs is completely out of you of the camera.

For the next hour or so ,corrections officers and inmates are seen moving about preparing for all prisoners to be locked down.

At 8:21 , another inmate is seen being escorted toward the stairs ,leading to Epstein’s cell area,no movement is detected on the stairs again.

By 8:24, all  of the inmates appear to have been taken to their cells. 

Noel told  the inspector general she visited Epstein’s cell at about  1o pm.

You can see her head in that direction here.albeit closer to 10 :30,

But not climed the stairs.

The rules  require rounds to be made every 30 minutes,but according to the report, this was the only time anyone checked  on the inmates that night.

There was even a sign  printed on orange paper posted on the guard station saying mandatory rounds must be conducted every 30 minutes on Epstein as per god.

This was because of  concerns about his risk for suicide.

At 10:38 The report says someone probably Noel carries a bundle of bedding or clothing up the stairs,it’s a rare instance the video does catch movement on the stairs , but barely.

Again , several of the video forenisc experts we spoke with were skeptical about the report’s  conclusion and thought that the video could be showing an  inmate walking up the stairs .

Authorities says this was the last time anyone approched his cell block until his body was discovered the next morning.

Again , while the video does not contradict that,experts who viewed the video say the limited field of view makes it impossible to definitively conclude that no one used those stairs in that time perion.

Beyond this ,thhere are other issues our investigation and others have uncovered.

At 11:21 pm. and 34 seconds , a cursor appears briefly on screen,indicating the video may have been recorded with the camera or a screen  recording and was not  an export of the raw file.

The FBI said it had seized the prison’s hard drive 5 days after his death and had released the full raw footage 

Two experts told CBS News the video’s metadata,which tracks how a file is created and changed, shows its made from two clips  stitched together in editing software.

Those  experts also say the video was edited and saved multiple times.

Next up ,the now famous missing minute….

At 11:57 and 35 seconds,an individual appears on screen  from the direction of the main door.

It’s likely this is Michael Thomas arriving for his midnight shift and replacing the other staff member on duty who’d been working from 4:00 to midnight,Noel was starting a second  shift, of 8 hours,from that point on, only Noel and Thomas were on duty during the critical vindow when Epstein is believed to have died.

At 11: 58 and 58 seconds , the video jumps to midnight and the  aspect ratio of the video changes slightly,another indication, it may have been edited.

Attorney General Pam Bondi attributed the missing minute to a nightly reset of the  security camera system .

“There was a minute that was off the counter and what we learned from Bureau of prisons was every year , every, night they  redo that video, it’s old from like 1999,so every night the video is reset and every night should have the same minute missing , so , we’re looking for that video to release that as well showing that a minute is mising every night.”

That additional video has not been released and a government source is alleged to CBS News the FBI and other agencies are in possession of the full unedited footage.

Why FBI  did not  release that is unclear and the agency offered ‘ no comment’.

Importantly ,the inspector general gives no indication there was a minute missing when their team reviewed the video.

We can surmise the male staffer working the 4 to 12 shift  would have left during the missing minute based on the report, leaving just Noel  and Thomas.

But that  is not seen on camera, serious problems with the government invetigation and witness statements don’t end  there.

The report says the unit was secured by two doors ,one  requiring a key held only by Noel and Thomas.

Noel told investigators, no one could enter without her physically opening that door,but here’s where it gets tricky…

Example.4:00 a.m  Noel remains in full view of the camera , yet seconds later someone walks in and it appears neither Noel or Thomas let the individual in.

The report  is silent on this apparent contradiction, and even if there was no other key,both Noel and Thomas had  ample opportunities to let someone in.

At lwast a half dozen times,one or the other of them exits the camera frame in the direction of the door, all without explanation.

We share this with our forensic experts, who agreed there was no way to conlusively determine from the video wheter an unseen visitor was or was not let into  the Epstein unit.

Allthough both Noel and Thomas have said ” no one else entered”

At 6: 22,neither Thoms or Noel walk off screen again  and reapear carrying food trays, breakfirst for the prisoners, at this point, based on the autopsy results Epstein is believed  to already be dead.

According to Thoma’s account,he arrived at Epstein’s cell to delivered his breakfirst and found him in a seated position , his buttocks  an inch from the ground , held up by a torn sheet tied to the bunk bed in his room.

At 6:30 , someone, rushes in from off camera, according to the report,this was Noel returning to the desk to call for help after Thomas discovered Epstein.

Epstein’s body was quickly removed from the cell,only Noel and Thomas witnessed him hanging .

At 6:40 a.m, the video ends. Epstein’s body is not seeing being  removed.

Both Thomas and Noel have said they played no role in Epstein’s death.

They were charged with falsifying documents ,but those charges were dropped as a part of a plea deal.

Additional clarification  could come from a second camera mentioned in the report

It recorded an elevator bank in the same unit, althoug the report stated that it did not cover areas that would have included acces to Epstein’s  cell, it would at least show a missing minute.

CBS  reached out  to the Departement of Jutstice to see about obtaining that footage,they reffered  CBS to the FBI who reffered us  back to the Departement of justice.

Neither Thomas nor Noel responded to CBS  inquiries through their legal representatives .

For a case that demanded transparency,it’s yet another  muddled chapter, raising more questions than it answers….

Cell where Jeffrey Epstein died never underwent proper inspection

On the morning of August  10th,2019,convictec sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was discovered dead in  his cell at the Metropolitan Correction Center in lower Manthattan.

Then US attorney General Bill Barr ordered an immediate investigation.

We will get to the bottom of what happened , and there will be accountability”

Several days later, the chief medical examiner of New York City ruled his death

A suicide.

but Major Questions remain, including how and  even with what he may have killed himself, our review of the evidence uncovered troubling inconsistencies and points to major problems in the government’s handling of that case.

More than 6 years later, key details of Jeffrey Epstein’s death remain unresolved and unknown.

CBS News’s 60 minutes first obtained 90  crime scene photos tied to the US Justice Departement’s 2023 final report, those photos taken by New york  office of the Chief Medical Examiner raise more questions than they answer.

Some of these images are being released here for the first time.

Crime scene experts who reviewed them were sharply critical ,saying Epstein’s cell should have been treated like a crime scene.

By all appearances , it wasn’t, here’s what we know….

Epstein’s body was discovered  at 6:30 a.m.  when  corrections officers arrived at his cell to deliver breakfast.

According to the only witness who saw him hanging ,a corrections officer named Michael Thomas.

Epstein was allegedly found suspended from the top of the bunk in a near-seated  position with his legs straight out  and his buttocks approximately 1 inch to 1 inch and a half off the floor.

Internal memos obtained by CBS News describe him as cold and no palpable pulses were felt.

CBS reviewed  9 photos of the scene and the evidence , allegedly found there.

Here’s what those photos show,the sequenc of photos starts with a picture of the stairs leading up to Epstein’s tier, tier L.

Underlying data from the photo shows  it taken at 9:34 a.m three hours after his body was discovered.

And four hours before the arrival of the FBI on scene.

Next in the sequence is a picture of the tier.

According to the official FBI handbook of crime scene investigation.

Investigators should establish a progresion of overall medium and close-up views of the crime scene.

This is the only photo of the tier from that  morning.

In Epstein cell locacted to the right is not pictured.

” Some really shoddy work here , if you can  even call it that , i mean ,there’s an absence of work here”

Nick  Barrero is a former law enforcement officer and digital forensic expert.

“You  always start with the big picture, for example, the socks on the floor in that hallway right there, if you documenting that piece of evidence,well, one, you would put a little tepee , a little evidence marker on it , you know, a yellow number one or whatever next to it, and you would photograph it from as far away as you can , and then you go in and…and take one maybe, a couple  steps away from the socks, getting it more in context.

And you get  right up, as close as reasonable , so, you see as much detail as possible and you take that shot, that’s like evidence photography 101.”

You can also see on the back wall one of the prison cameras , it was streaming but not recording due to a hard drive malfanction that had been identified but not fixed according to the Departement of Justice report.

Next is a blurry image of the door to Epstein’s cell number 220.

Running underneath the door is a cable that provided power  to a device meant help him sleep, a CPAP machinge.

According to prison records, Epstein had initially  been assigned to a cell in a different tier, but he was moved here for easier access to an outlet.

Prison computer systems were never updated to note that move, according to investigators,on the door you can see a piece of paper.

Later, photos show this up close, it’s print a print out with Epstein’s personal details and a black and white picture,this  was how prison employees knew hwo was in the cell.

Above  that ,in a similar plastic slip is the ID card for Epstein’s former roommate,Ephraine Reyes.

Cells typically hold two inmates

And following a suspected suicide attempt,Epstein was mandated to have one.

The day before Epstein’s death,  Reyes had been transferred out of the prison and brought to another facility.

Former Bureau of Prisons officials were surprised to see Reyes’s card’s still on the door,they’re meant to confirm the identity of inmates as they’re transferred and should have stayed with Reyes or the officers processing his transfer.

Investigtors said Reyes’s transfer was key because it left Epstein alone in his cell giving him the opportunity to hang himself.

The department of Justice determined the failure to assigne Epstein a new roommate was potentially a fatal mistake.

Next, we see the inside of Epstein’s cell.there’s a bunk bed , toilet, and a small table attached to the floor

On the floor is the CPAP machine.

There are at least six blankets or sheets strewn about and prison policy should have allowed only one blanket and one sheet per inmate.

On the table is a pen , a violation of prison policy, and an MP3  player and headphones, a bag for a CPAP mask , as well as several other  items.

Under the bunk bed is an unidentified object that could be a suitcase, along is a pipe similar to the one attached to the CPAP machine.

Neither of those items are noted or documented in publicly available reports.

Numerous items appear to be moved before all the photos  have been taken.

Case in point, these socks.

We saw them down the hall.

Yet now a pair appears in front of  his door,experts say this is relfective of poor crime scene control.

Next is a photo of the bunk bed again from a  different angle, you can see an orange string hanging.

This is one of several orange fabric pieces that appear throughout the room, as well as an additional evidence collected by the medical examiner.

None of those are confirmed to be the noose that he hang himself with.

In the Department of Justice Inspector General report, that picture is featured alongside the description of how he was found,suggesting investigators believe that was the string he used to hang himself.

But if that was the case and the room wasn’t disturbed before the photographer  arrived, he would have been sitting on mattresses , not the floor.

you can see that there two  mattresses on the floor, as additional blankets, slepping on the floor and having two mattresses were both violation of policy.

You can see additional orange fabric ,perhaps clothing or ripped sheets wedged between the wall and the mattress.

But there was no documentation of those items.

A several photos showing a closeup of  a note, on one side of the folded paper  it said ” Davis kept me in a locked shower for 1 hour “.” Noel sent me burnt food”. “giant bugs crawling over my hands , no fun!!”

It’s not clear who Davis is ,Noel  likely refers to Tova Noel , one of the correction officers on duty.

The next  photo is the other side of the folded piece of paper,there’s some indecipherable writing and underneath that the name Reyes , Epstein’s roomate and Reye’s prisoner identification number.

Next to that is a name and number,CBS News has determined this is Reye’s uncle who declined to comment,Epstein’s brother confirmed this was his handwriting.

According to a Bureau of Prisons investigation ,Epstein had been making payments to Reyes’s prison commissary account through one of his Lawyers.

It’s  common in prison for inmates to pay bribes to individuals outside of prison for protection.

Reyes died of  cardiac arrest in 2020, soon after being released from prison,Court documents indicate he had been cooperating with authorities in a federal case  agains a drug ring.

There appears  to be writing on the other side of the paper but that wasn’t photographed.

The next series of photos are  additiona  pictures of the bunk bed.

Showing the rope in detail and blankets strewn  about.

A closeup of a different cloth that appears  to be  tied  in a loop.

Next, we jump to an entirely different room, although it’s not clear where.we can see a defibrillator and an orange cloth tied to a noose like shape.

Comparing the floor , you can see that this is not Epstein’s cell, A defibrillator had been brought out to be used on Epstein in his cell and again in a medical station at the prison where employees had transported his body.

This cloth did not appear in earlier photos in his room.

According to the Departement of Justice investigators, when the officer discovered Epstein , he said he immediately ripped the orange sheet or shirt away from the  bunkbed.

The other officer on the scene told investigators she heard Thomas call out for her to retrieve the cutter and then she  heard Thomas rip something.”

Going back to the photo  of the noose , you can see the  end of the noose is hemmed,which suggests it wasn’t ripped down and was not the noose that Thomas discovered Epstein hanging from.

There is no indication of where the noose was found in the reports.

A diagram of this noose was included in the official autopsy,however, the Department of Justice acknowledged in their report .

The noose depicted is not the ligature Epstein used to kill himself.

The next photo appeareds to be back in Epstein’s cell, Now we see a CPAP mask, this was not  visible in earlier photos,nor was this card or photo or these boxes.

Most of those items are not seen again in the medical examiner’s photographs.

“This is essential a useless evidence photograph cuz it’s like,okay ,this was there  somewhere at sometime,but we have no idea how or why it ended up in the position that it’s in, you would fail your police academy scenario if you did this .like there’s no investigation here.”//nick barrero-former-law-enforcement-officer digital forensic-expert.

Is this the mattress now on its end and these items were underneath? not clear.

Look at the metadata , the photo appears to have been taken at 10 :54. a.m.

If that’s accurate , that means the entire crime scene had been disturbed several hours before FBI investigators even arrived.

Next ,there are some additional details of the room , including a small piece of cloth attached to the window.

Following that , we see a series of photos of medication being held by an investigator.

One item appears to be the same packaging seen on the floor in the earlier photo.

We can also note there are two mattresses stacked on top of the bed,suggesting that the entire room has been reoganized with no documentation of that progress or where things were removed from .

Remember ,the FBI still has not arrived on scene.

It appears the items that have been photographed in detail are now placed on top of the bunk bed, where they came from is not clear.

In a second sequence of photos labeled path evidence, we see  evidence bags and evidence bag,the metadata , indicates these were taken 5 days later.

The first photo is a bag of evidence that says it contained ligature;

Bed sheet material,strip collected from the Metropolitan Correction Center cell number 220.

There are also two additiona bags market ,Epstein clothing and Epstein bedding.

The ligature previously seen on the ground in a room that ws not Epstein’s cell is now photograped alongside the bag.

Again, you can see the end of the cloth has now been torn or  cut.

The medical examiner also collected this blanket, you can see it was ripped along the edge.

The final evidence photos are Epstein’s clothing that had been returned from the hospital.

Included in that are plastic zip tie handcuffs.

This photo taken that morning shows his hands are cuffed , while it may have made sense to restrain Epstein given he had not been officially declared dead.

The Department of Justice report makes no mention of it, according to prison sources, staff had access to handcuffs, which were the standards tool for inmates transports, not zip ties.

Departement of Justice investigators interviewed three inmate on the tier.

Two of them were in the cell across  from Epstein’s, but  one unusual thing to note from the earlier ,that cell had its windows papered over.

That photograph was timestamped 9:34 a.m , 3 hours after  Epstein’s body was discovered,allthough it’s unknown when th paper was put up.

In the government’s report, those inmates were key witnesses in affirming the corrections officer accounts .

One of those inmates  in that cell  said he observed a male CO or a corrections officer, entering the cell and begin performing CPR ,he said he saw Epstein on the floor and saw the guard emerge holding a rope and a defibrillator.

He said he saw bruising on Epstein’s face and earphones on his ears ,experts noted that removing a noose while the headphones remained in Epstein’s ears would have been a particular  challenge.

A second inmate in that same cell said  he saw the officer enter and shake Epstein then try to pick him up and fall over, then begin giving chest compressions.

That prisoner  also said they saw staff put Epstein on a stretcher still wearing headphones, he also said he saw a male  corrections officer emerge from Epstein’s cell holding a sheet  wit a loop and a knot.

So ,what did the FBI do? the Inspector General  reports says the FBI inspected the cell and retrieve what  it believed to be relevant to its investigation into the cause of Epstein’s death,which included one torn sheet , miscellaneous papers , and an MP3  player.

The Inspector General report dosen’t include documention of those  items or what analysis was done on them.

It does say the linens were recycled and the remaining personal articles in the room were collected by the Bureau of Prisons.

It’s  not clear what  happened to those items  and lawyers who control Epstein’s estate did not respond to inquiries.

From the report , it doesn’t appear that an official FBI crime scene investigator ever visited the scene,documented any items , or ran fingerprint or DNA tests on anything in the room.

Again , the Departement of Justice declined to comment.

“ The FBI literally has all of the best tools, spared no expense.they have every tool you can imagine and they used none of it as far we can tell”

// Nick Barrero former law enforcement officer digital forensic.

It’s absolutely true that suicides by hanging in prisons  do happen.

CBS  reached out to the officer of the chief medical examiner as well as former and current staff involved in the investigation, the doctor who pronounced Epstein dead.

All of the guards working that night, the EMTs who transported him, the Bureau of Prisons,the FBI,the Departement of Justice and others, all declined to comment or did not respond.