Epstein Data Wiki

Epstein Video Evidence

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tagstopic, evidence, fbi, surveillance, bureau-of-prisons, chain-of-custody, document-release

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What this page coversThe administrative record of video: what was searched for, seized, logged, examined, archived and produced. It does not describe the content of any recording
Two bodies, two custodiansVideo sought and reviewed by the FBI and the Southern District of New York in the investigations into Epstein and the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell; and the Bureau of Prisons surveillance recording at the Metropolitan Correctional Center12
What the 2019 searches foundThe Southern District’s 2025 account: agents searched for videos and surveillance cameras; cameras were located near the entrances of the New York and USVI residences and none inside bedrooms or living areas; the systems retained video for a limited period of days1
Why 2019 surveillance was not seizedThose recordings “would thus not have depicted anything relevant to our investigation, which focused on the 1990s and early 2000s. Accordingly, those surveillance videos were not seized because they were not responsive to the warrants allowing the FBI to seize only certain evidence from those premises”; further, “the FBI had no legal authority to seize recent surveillance videos from 2019 under the warrants issued by SDNY and USVI courts”1
Scale of the device review”over one million images and videos that FBI CART extracted from Epstein’s devices”, each reviewed by at least one member of the review team1
What the Southern District said it did not find”We did not, however, locate any such videos”, answering the theory that Epstein recorded the abuse of victims1
MCC video seizedTwo DVR systems and their disk arrays, taken into FBI custody in August 2019 and archived to tape and to hard drives32
Video requested and not producedFootage from outside a cell for July 22 to 23, 2019, preserved in the wrong tier and no longer held on the backup system, per the Government’s letter of January 9, 20204

Video in this record falls into two bodies with different custodians, different case files and different fates. One is video sought, seized and reviewed by the FBI and the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in the trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, in the searches of his residences in 2019 and in the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell. The other is the surveillance recording of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, which belonged to the Bureau of Prisons and became evidence in the investigation into Epstein’s death in custody and in an unrelated criminal case in the same district.154

The documents cited here are administrative: search reports, case-file listings, evidence reports, an extraction plan, letters to a court and a declaration in a freedom of information suit. They record handling rather than content. Where a document describes what a recording contains, this page reports that the document does so and stops.

The Southern District’s account, March 2025

On March 11, 2025 the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York answered a set of questions forwarded from the Director of the FBI earlier that afternoon. The request asked that all items of evidence be photographed and that it be determined “if there are any images of individuals on any videos which should be considered for prosecution”, noting that all videos would have to be reviewed to make that determination and asking for documentation of any review already carried out. A question about the description of child sexual abuse material on any videos was added seven minutes later, at 4:31 p.m., and folded into the list consolidated at 4:36 p.m. The reply was forwarded again within the Bureau on March 24 with an index of responsive materials attached.61

The reply states that the case agents and Assistant United States Attorneys “ensured that all videos and images from the case file and from Epstein’s residences and devices were reviewed for evidence of a crime”, and that those reviews “revealed no evidence from any of the searches we conducted or any of the files we reviewed that any videos or other images exist of any victims in this case being sexually abused”, nor any evidence that anyone other than Epstein and Maxwell participated in the abuse. It addresses the point directly: “We are aware of the theories circulated in the media and online that Epstein video recorded the abuse of his victims, including by other men, but we have found no evidence to support that theory.” It then states: “We did not, however, locate any such videos. Below please find more details about the video evidence gathered during this investigation.”1

The details that follow set out where the office says the FBI looked.

On the properties, the letter records that during the 2019 searches of the New York and Virgin Islands residences the FBI “searched for videos and surveillance cameras”; that the writer’s understanding, taken from the case agent, was that no cameras were found inside any bedroom or living area of either residence; that surveillance cameras “were located near the entrances of the residences”; and that the systems “only retained video for a limited period of days, and that the only recordings available were very recent surveillance from 2019 and would thus not have depicted anything relevant to our investigation, which focused on the 1990s and early 2000s”. Those recordings were not seized, the letter says, because they were not responsive to the warrants, and “[t]he FBI had no legal authority to seize recent surveillance videos from 2019 under the warrants issued by SDNY and USVI courts.”1

On physical media, the letter itemises what was seized from the residences in 2019 and describes what those items contained. Nothing of that description is reported here.1

On devices, it records that the FBI and the Southern District undertook a full review of every electronic device seized from the residences and on Epstein’s arrest, and that a team of FBI agents, FBI analysts, Assistant United States Attorneys and paralegals divided up “the review of over one million images and videos that FBI CART extracted from Epstein’s devices”. The protocol required at least one member of the team to view each image and video personally and decide whether it was responsive to the warrants, and directed reviewers to treat as responsive any image or video depicting any female who appeared to be under thirty. A copy of everything identified as responsive was collected and maintained by the case agent, and an index of how many items were identified and what designation each received under the protective order in the Maxwell case was attached to the email. The letter adds that the index does not cover Epstein’s iPhone and six iPads, which were reviewed separately under the same protocol; the date of that review is blacked out in the copy cited.1

On Palm Beach, it records that the Palm Beach Police Department video recorded interviews of victims at its station, video recorded parts of its own search of the Palm Beach residence and seized a small number of videos there; that all of those recordings were transferred into FBI custody and became part of the case file; and that the Southern District introduced the recording of that search as an exhibit at the Maxwell trial.1

The letter answers the question about child sexual abuse material separately, and describes what was found. That passage is not reproduced here.1

This is an account given by prosecutors of reviews they and the case agents carried out, not the underlying reviews; the index it attached is not among the documents cited on this page.

The 2019 search of 9 East 71st Street

The FD-302 recording the search of the New York residence, filed to case 31E-NY-3027571, sets out what the warrant permitted. Issued in the Southern District of New York on July 6, 2019 and signed by Judge Barbara Moses, it authorised agents to search for evidence of sex trafficking of minors and sex trafficking conspiracy “described as evidence concerning occupancy or ownership of the subject premises and evidence concerning the layout, furnishing, decorations, and floor pattern of the subject premises including photographs and blueprints”. Search operations were halted when items of evidentiary value outside that scope were found in plain view, and an amended warrant was executed at about 2:05 a.m. on July 7.7 The 2025 letter gives non-responsiveness to the warrants as the reason the 2019 surveillance recordings were not seized; the FD-302 is the record of what the New York warrant authorised.71

Among the descriptions in the evidence report for the trafficking case is a seized item recorded as “Unifi video”, with the model number UVC-NVR-2TB. The report gives the make, model and device identifier and nothing else; it does not say where in the premises the item was found or whether anything was recovered from it.8

The search was photographed. The photograph run in the release opens with an image of an FBI placard filled in by hand with the date 07/06/19, the case number 31E-NY-3027571 and the location “9 East 71st St, New York, NY”; the photographer’s name is blacked out. A second placard later in the same run, printed on form FD-674a, carries the same case number and location and the date 07/11/2019.9 One image between the two shows a sign, posted on a door, reading “24 HOUR VIDEO SURVEILLANCE”. No person appears in it. It carries no caption of its own, and nothing cited here says which room it is, when the sign was posted, or what system it referred to.10

Video in the death and contraband case files

An FBI case-file export in the release concerns two case files at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. Case 90A-NY-3151227 is captioned on its own page in the export as the death investigation opened by FBI New York after Epstein was found unresponsive at the centre on August 10, 2019, in which two correctional officers were indicted and later entered a deferred prosecution agreement. Case 90C-NY-3154599 is described there as an investigation, opened on August 17, 2019, into contraband being brought into the centre.5

The serial report for the death investigation lists every communication filed to the case by number, date and title. The video work shows up in the title column as a class of entries: “Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) Special Housing Unit (SHU) Video Review”; “(U//FOUO) Laser Scans conducted of Metropolitan Correctional Center”; “Photo Log for Photos 41-67 of METROPOLITAN CORRECTIONAL CENTER”; “Submission of Video Evidence from Metropolitan Correctional Center, NY NY”; and three consecutive rows reading “Seizure of DVR Controller and DVR System #1”, “Seizure of hard Drives Associated with DVR #2” and “Seizure of DVR System #2”. Every personal name in the rows on those pages is replaced by a bracketed marker, and none is supplied here.11 The contraband case carries the same three seizure entries and the same submission of video evidence in its own title column, alongside a row reading “Canvass for Surveillance Cameras in the Vicinity of MCC”.12

The evidence report for the death investigation records the physical result. DVR System #1 appears as one large box containing a disk array chassis holding sixteen hard drives; DVR System #2 as two boxes containing a disk array chassis and a disk array controller; a Dell DVR controller is listed as a further item. Later rows record the archives made from them: a hard drive “containing video downloaded from DVR1 at MCC contained in 4 folders”, two LTO-6 tape cartridges “containing the CART network archive of video”, a package holding “Archive of DVR 2 Controller images, DVR 2 repaired drive images, and Video”, a 10 TB drive “CONTAINING ARCHIVE OF DVR 1 IMAGES”, a 2.0 TB drive “CONTAINING ARCHIVE OF DVR MAIN CONTROLLER”, and two further LTO-6 tapes “containing the archive of MCC video images and work”. The description column is cut off at the column width on that page, so several of these rows stop mid-sentence.3

The plan behind that seizure survives as an FBI technical update written on August 14, 2019, four days after the death. It records that the centre had two DVR surveillance systems “which provide coverage for the entirety of the facility”, each containing sixteen hard drives; that, according to MCC staff, on July 29, 2019 DVR system #2 “had two to three hard drives fail causing most of that system to stop recording”; and that two of the three camera feeds “of obvious interest” were on that system, “meaning they were not recording at the time of the suicide on 08/10/19”. It records that the centre had contracted with the vendor NiceVision, before those failures, to replace what the memo calls the antiquated system in use; that the vendor arrived on August 12 to begin the installation; and that it had not been able to finish because an FBI unit arrived later the same day to export video from a camera on the working DVR system #1 and the vendor had had no access to the equipment room since.2

The plan itself was to remove DVR system #2 immediately and take it to the division the memo calls OTD, where a team would “attempt a rebuild of the failed hard drives”; to export video from the third camera of interest on the still-working DVR system #1 “back through at least 07/23/19”; to keep a round-the-clock FBI presence in the equipment room while the vendor completed the new installation; and then to reconstitute both systems and “review the entirety of the recorded video surveillance for evidentiary purposes”. Two sentences record the limits the writer saw at the time. The thirty-day overwrite on the two systems was suspended on August 12 and August 10 respectively: two days after the death for DVR system #1, and on the day of it for DVR system #2. And “there is a significant chance the hard drives pulled from DVR #2 on 08/10/19, are corrupted and/or encrypted since they were extracted while the system was running”, so that “the possibility exists the rebuild of the hard drives and reconstitution of the systems may ultimately fail to produce the desired outcome”.2

What the camera system did and did not record, and what the Department of Justice Inspector General found about it, are set out at Death of Jeffrey Epstein.

The preserved video in United States v. Tartaglione

The one episode in the documents cited here in which a court was asked what had become of a specific recording arose in a separate prosecution. Nicholas Tartaglione shared a cell with Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, and corrections officers responded to that cell at about 1:27 a.m. on July 23, 2019.4 His counsel’s later filing records that he “has firmly and consistently maintained that he acted appropriately in all respects” that night.13

On July 25, 2019, at 11:54 a.m., his counsel, Aida Ferrer Leisenring, emailed the centre asking for “the preservation of all video surveillance that captures the hallway outside of Tartaglione’s cell on the date and time of the Epstein incident”, specifying July 22 at 11 p.m. to July 23 at 4 a.m., and asking that any body-camera footage be preserved as well. A Supervisory Staff Attorney at the centre’s Consolidated Legal Center passed the request on at 12:18 p.m., asking that the footage be preserved and a copy provided for the investigation and another kept in case of a court order. A Special Investigative Technician replied at 1:03 p.m. Eastern: “Done.” The names of both members of staff are blacked out.14

On December 19, 2019 the Government wrote to Judge Kenneth M. Karas that it had “confirmed with MCC staff that the Video was preserved by MCC staff upon defense counsel’s request in July 2019”, and that it was obtaining a copy which it would make available for the defence to review.15

On January 9, 2020 it corrected that. “[T]he MCC inadvertently preserved video from the wrong tier within the MCC, and, as a result, video from outside the defendant’s cell on July 22 – 23, 2019 (i.e. the requested video) no longer exists.” The letter explains how: staff had looked the defendant’s cell number up in the centre’s computer system, which listed a different cell, and had preserved the video outside that cell instead. The error emerged when the centre provided the copy on about January 3, 2020 and the Government reviewed it and found it was for the right date and time but the wrong tier. The letter states further that a backup system held all Special Housing Unit video, that the FBI had reviewed that backup system “as part of an unrelated investigation”, and that the requested video “no longer exists on the backup system and has not since at least August 2019 as a result of technical errors”. The Government said it would make the other tier’s video available to the defence.4

On January 13, 2020 defence counsel asked the court to hold an evidentiary hearing into “the Government’s failure to preserve the video surveillance footage at the Metropolitan Correctional Center”, arguing that footage of the incident would have been exculpatory. The letter calls the explanation given in the Government’s two letters inadequate because it is “non-specific, unsworn, and untested” and names no individual responsible, and asks the court to determine “how the video was destroyed, who was responsible for its destruction, and why it was not preserved”, whether any witness had reviewed the footage before it was lost, and “whether and to what extent the destruction of the video was deliberate or reckless”.13 No ruling on that application appears among the documents cited on this page.

The Bureau of Prisons gave the same account under oath seven months later, in a freedom of information suit brought by The New York Times Company. A Bureau Government Information Specialist, Kara Christenson, declared on August 5, 2020 that a request for “[a]ll video camera footage at MCC pertinent to the Jeffrey Epstein suicide and the first suicide attempt” produced nothing “because all video/NICE vision equipment was handed over to the FBI on or about August 10, 2019”, and that the Bureau “inadvertently preserved footage showing a different area within MCC”, the Special Housing Unit footage no longer existing on the backup system “because of a technical error”. Her declaration cites the Government’s January 9, 2020 letter for that account.16

The Bureau’s own contemporaneous account of the same equipment carries a different date. The FBI technical update of August 14, 2019 describes DVR system #2 as “currently being extracted” that day and DVR system #1 as “currently operational and being utilized by the MCC”, with the vendor NiceVision still without access to the equipment room.2

A camera installation, February 2010

One exchange in the released files records Epstein dealing with camera installation himself. On 16 February 2010 at 4:19 p.m. Story Cowles asked him, “Can Nick begin work again tomorrow at 10am?” and Epstein replied at 6:43 p.m., “Yes.”17 At 6:45 p.m. Cowles wrote again: “Can [N]ick and I have 5 minutes of your time to discuss placement of dock [c]amera and front door camera at your convenience tomorrow around [1]0:15-10:30 before you leave?” Epstein answered at 11:55 p.m., “Yes.”17

What the exchange establishes is that Epstein authorised the work to resume and agreed to meet about where two cameras would go. It does not record where they went, or that he chose the positions. The messages name no property. A dock is mentioned, which narrows nothing on its own, and no document cited here places this exchange at any of the addresses this wiki covers.17 The third person in it is given only a forename and is not identified further here.

What these records do not show

A case-file serial listing is a table of contents. A row reading “Submission of Video Evidence from Metropolitan Correctional Center, NY NY” establishes that a submission was documented and says nothing about what was submitted, by whom or when; the export does not carry the communications it enumerates.11 An evidence report describes containers and media rather than their contents, and on the page cited its description column is cut off at the column width, so several entries end mid-sentence.3 The item-number and description columns of these reports are printed on separate pages, so an item number cannot be matched to a description from the pages cited here.8

The Southern District’s letter of March 2025 is the fullest account in the documents cited of what was searched for and reviewed, and it is an account rather than the record of the reviews themselves. Its attached index is not among the documents cited here, and neither are the review protocols it describes.1

The two bodies of video are not interchangeable. The property surveillance belonged to Epstein’s own systems and was governed by the terms of the 2019 warrants; the centre’s surveillance belonged to the Bureau of Prisons, and the record of what happened to it is a record of a federal agency’s own equipment, its failure and its custody.1216

This page does not describe, reproduce or characterise the content of any recording, and carries no detail about any person appearing in one.

Death of Jeffrey Epstein; FBI intake records; FBI evidence inventory; Epstein evidence inventory; Document redaction integrity; Redacted government images; Photographic evidence sets; Epstein interior photographs; Maxwell trial exhibits; FOIA responses across agencies; 9 East 71st Street; Ghislaine Maxwell.

Footnotes

  1. Email of Tuesday, March 11, 2025, from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, subject “[EXTERNAL EMAIL] - RE: Request from Director”, as forwarded within the FBI on March 24, 2025 with the attachment “Responsive_Materials_Index_for_AY_2021.01.11.xlsx”. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01649081 pp.1-2. Every sender and recipient in the header blocks on those pages is blacked out and no correspondent is named here. The attached index is not among the pages cited. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13 ↩14 ↩15 ↩16

  2. FBI email, “MCC Video Extraction”, technical update timed 3:14 p.m. on August 14, 2019 and forwarded the same afternoon. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01649187 pp.1-2. Every correspondent’s name is blacked out, as is the name of the Acting Warden referred to in the first paragraph. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  3. The same export, evidence report for case 90A-NY-3151227, types 1B, 1D and 1E, description column. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01684602 pp.178-179. Nothing else on those pages is reproduced here. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. Letter from the United States Attorney’s Office, S.D.N.Y., to Judge Kenneth M. Karas, January 9, 2020, same case, pp.1-2. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00017953 The cells are designated “Cell-1” and “Cell-2” in the letter and are not identified further here. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  5. FBI case-file export, case summary pages. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01684602 p.2 for the child sex trafficking investigation opened 12/08/2018, p.150 for case 90A-NY-3151227 and p.181 for case 90C-NY-3154599. Each footnote here names the specific case file its page sits in. ↩ ↩2

  6. The same thread, the Director’s request as consolidated and forwarded at 4:36 p.m. on March 11, 2025, with the further question added at 4:31 p.m. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01649081 p.4. Every header on that page is blacked out. ↩

  7. FD-302 and FD-302a continuation, case 31E-NY-3027571, “Search Warrant Executed- 9 East 71st Street, New York, New York 10021”, investigation on 07/06/2019, drafted 07/08/2019. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01301568 pp.1-2. The participant list on p.1 is redacted in part; no participant is named here. ↩ ↩2

  8. FBI case-file export, evidence report for case 50D-NY-3027571, types 1B, description column. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01684602 p.97; the report’s own header, giving the case number and the filter, is at p.93, and the item-number column is at pp.93-96. Nothing else on p.97 is cited here. ↩ ↩2

  9. FBI photograph placards, photographed at the head of the search photograph run and again later in the same run; the second is printed on form FD-674a. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00000001 and https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00000837. Each records case 31E-NY-3027571 and the location 9 East 71st Street, New York, NY, dated 07/06/19 and 07/11/2019 respectively; the photographer’s name is blacked out on both. ↩

  10. FBI search photograph, uncaptioned, showing a sign posted on a door, reading “24 HOUR VIDEO SURVEILLANCE”. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00000345 ↩

  11. The same export, title column of the serial report for case 90A-NY-3151227. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01684602 pp.157-160. Every personal name in the rows quoted is redacted in the document and none is supplied here; nothing else on those pages is cited. ↩ ↩2

  12. The same export, title column of the serial report for case 90C-NY-3154599. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01684602 p.184. Names in the rows on that page are redacted and none is supplied here. ↩

  13. Letter motion of defence counsel, United States v. Nicholas Tartaglione, No. 7:16-cr-00832-KMK (S.D.N.Y.), Dkt. 186, filed January 13, 2020, pp.1-2. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00016736 The letterhead address block is blacked out. The filing’s own text reads “no longer insists” where “exists” is meant; the phrase is paraphrased rather than quoted for that reason. ↩ ↩2

  14. Email chain, “Re: Fwd: Preservation request”, July 25, 2019, ending with a reply timed 1:03 p.m. Eastern (the header prints 17:03:28 UTC). https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00034725 pp.1-2. The names of the two Bureau of Prisons staff are blacked out and they are described here by title only. Nothing else on those pages is reproduced here. ↩

  15. Letter from the United States Attorney’s Office, S.D.N.Y., to Judge Kenneth M. Karas, December 19, 2019, in United States v. Nicholas Tartaglione, S4 16 Cr. 832 (KMK) (S.D.N.Y.). https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00017955 The signature line beneath the United States Attorney’s name is blacked out. ↩

  16. Declaration of Kara Christenson, Government Information Specialist, Federal Bureau of Prisons, The New York Times Company v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 1:20-cv-00833 (PAE) (S.D.N.Y.), Dkt. 24, filed August 5, 2020, paragraphs 28 and 29, at pp.12-13 of the declaration. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00015361 Nothing else in that declaration is cited here. ↩ ↩2

  17. Story Cowles and Jeffrey Epstein, “Re: Camera Installment,” 16 February 2010, the whole chain of four messages at 4:19 p.m., 6:43 p.m., 6:45 p.m. and 11:55 p.m. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01780294 p.1. A second export of the same thread carrying only the first two messages is at https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01780259 p.1. The print carries quoted-printable transmission damage, so “Nick”, “camera” and “10:15” lose their first characters; the supplied letters are bracketed above and nothing else is repaired. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

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