Newly released Justice Department documents reveal a draft statement on Jeffrey Epstein’s death dated August 9, 2019—one day before he was officially found dead in federal custody.
Newly released documents from the US Justice Department’s extensive disclosure of Jeffrey Epstein files have revealed a striking anomaly in the timeline surrounding the convicted sex offender’s death in federal custody — a discovery that has reignited public scrutiny of the circumstances under which he died.
The records include a draft federal statement dated August 9, 2019 — one day before Epstein was found unresponsive in his Manhattan jail cell. This has drawn renewed skepticism about the official narrative and raised questions about what authorities knew and when.
According to the documentation, the draft statement from the Southern District of New York’s US Attorney’s Office appeared among at least 23 similar files, several with inconsistent redactions. The draft bore the August 9 date despite official prison logs placing Epstein’s discovery and death on August 10, 2019, when corrections officers found him unresponsive at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC). The medical examiner later ruled his death a suicide by hanging.
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The day before his death, Epstein was placed in a high-security unit after a previous suicide attempt. Standard protocols — including regular inmate welfare checks and functioning surveillance cameras — were not consistently followed, contributing to long-standing criticism of the facility’s handling of his incarceration.
Newly disclosed DOJ records also reference surveillance footage showing an unidentified orange-coloured figure ascending a staircase toward Epstein’s housing tier late on August 9, hours before he was found dead, though investigators have not definitively linked this to his final moments.
While some officials suggest the pre-dated draft may have resulted from clerical error or the use of a previously created template, others note that its existence fuels lingering doubts about transparency and accountability in one of the most high-profile federal custody deaths in recent history.
Documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law requiring expanded public access to investigative records, have included millions of pages of material — including witness testimony, legal filings, memos, and communications — but this discrepancy highlights the challenges in reconciling conflicting timelines within them.
Epstein’s death abruptly ended federal sex-trafficking charges against him and has since been the subject of widespread speculation, conspiracy theories, and official investigations into security lapses at the MCC. The newly uncovered draft adds another layer to the debate, prompting both legal experts and members of the public to call for further clarification from the Justice Department and prison authorities about the sequence of events leading up to Epstein’s death.
