Epstein Data Wiki

FBI Intake Records in the Epstein Investigation

Properties1
tagstopic, fbi, evidence, chain-of-custody, document-release

9 min read

What these records areFBI administrative records of the receipt, logging, storage and movement of evidence: search logs, a receipt for property, chain-of-custody entries, case-file serial listings and evidence reports123
Case files identified on the records cited here31E-NY-3027571, the July 2019 search of 9 East 71st Street; and 90A-NY-3151227, captioned “UNSUB(S); JEFFREY EPSTEIN - VICTIM; DEATH INVESTIGATION”14
Logs completed at the July 2019 search”a Crime Scene Sign-in Log, Search Warrant Execution Log, Diagram/Sketch, Evidence Recovery Log, and Photo Log”1
Also completed at that searchOne FD-597, Receipt for Property, completed and reviewed, a copy of which was provided to legal counsel; a DVD created from the entry and exit photographs1
Where the originals were kept”within a 1A envelope attached to this communication”1
Digital-evidence master copyA serial titled “CART Master Copy designated as NYC025654”; the same case’s evidence report lists NYC025654 as a Western Digital 250 GB hard drive23
External recipient recordedThe Office of the Inspector General, in entries for release of evidence, an item returned, and chain of custody restarted5

FBI intake records are the administrative layer of the investigation: the forms, logs and case-file entries that record what was seized, when it was booked in, where it was kept, who it went to and when it came back. They are not investigative findings. Several kinds survive in the released files, and the case-file records cited on this page come from two different FBI case files, one for the July 2019 search of the New York residence and one for the investigation into Epstein’s death in custody.15

An FD-302 recording the search of 9 East 71st Street, New York, filed under case number 31E-NY-3027571, sets out the intake paperwork of a single search. It records that a warrant issued in the Southern District of New York on 6 July 2019 was executed at the residence from 6:15 p.m. that evening, that search operations were halted when items of evidentiary value outside the scope of the warrant were found in plain view, and that an amended warrant was executed at about 2:05 a.m. on 7 July.61

On the intake itself it is specific: “During the search, agents completed a Crime Scene Sign-in Log, Search Warrant Execution Log, Diagram/Sketch, Evidence Recovery Log, and Photo Log.” Entry and exit photographs were taken, from which a DVD was created; one FD-597, Receipt for Property, was completed and reviewed, and a copy of the warrant and the receipt was provided to legal counsel. The record closes by stating where the paperwork went: “All original logs; one (1) signed FD-597, and one (1) DVD containing the search photos are maintained within a 1A envelope attached to this communication.”1

The logs are therefore not free-standing files. They are attachments to a numbered communication filed to a case, which is the unit the case-file listings described below enumerate.

How a case file records intake

The FBI case-file exports in the release print, for a given case, a serial report and an evidence report. The serial report is a numbered, time-stamped list of every communication filed to the case: a serial number, a date and time, and a title. In the export cited here, the serial report for case 90A-NY-3151227 is headed by serial 211, stamped 6:02 p.m. on 28 February 2025, and numbers downward from there across the following pages, with the serial numbers and time stamps in one run of pages and the corresponding titles in the next.75

The title column shows the intake work as a class of entries. Recurring titles include “Evidence Control Unit (ECU) Policy Note”, “Restart chain of custody”, “Evidence Chain of Custody for Items 1B37 and 1B38”, “FD-1004”, “1A Import”, “FW: Charged Out Evidence Coming Due” and “FW: Evidence Recharge”, alongside repeated rows reading “Submission of CART Derivative Evidence” followed by an item number.52 One row reads “CART Master Copy designated as NYC025654”; the evidence report for the same case lists NYC025654 as a Western Digital 250 GB hard drive.23 The export does not say what was on it, and nothing cited here supports a description of its contents.

Other rows on the same page record the paperwork that follows evidence out of the file rather than into it: “Return of Property belonging to {REDACTED}”, “Proffer of {REDACTED}” and “Office of Inspector General (OIG) Forms Provided by {REDACTED}”. A row on the same page reading “Photo Log for Photos 41-67 of METROPOLITAN CORRECTIONAL CENTER” is the same kind of log the July 2019 search produced, filed here to the death-investigation case.2 On that page every personal name in the serial titles is replaced by a brace marker, so the listing shows the act without the person. This page names nobody from it.

The Office of the Inspector General appears in the title column as a recipient and returner of evidence rather than as an observer: separate rows read “Release of Evidence to the Office of the Inspector General (OIG)”, “Item returned from OIG”, “OIG return of evidence” and “Restart chain of custody”, and a further row records documentation of a FedEx shipment for an original OIG waiver.52 What the entries establish is that physical evidence moved out of FBI custody to the Inspector General and back, and that the chain of custody was restarted when it did. They do not establish why.

Movement between offices and between systems

Intake records also show evidence and case material crossing organisational lines. On 18 February 2025 a special agent of the FBI’s Baltimore/Delaware division, on the Violent Crime Safe Streets Task Force, emailed a New York colleague under the subject “Masseuse List, black book, flight logs”, attaching a document and explaining its provenance: the attached item “was located on one of Epstein’s digital devices seized from his Manhattan residence” and had been intended as a trial exhibit but not used at the Maxwell trial. The same message records that the address book had been seized by Miami-Palm Beach in the earlier investigation and that the flight logs had been provided by Epstein’s pilot. Both sender and recipient are blacked out.8

A New York thread of 14 and 15 July 2025 about passports seized from the apartment shows the same material sitting behind more than one access system. At 11:17 a.m. on 15 July one participant replied that he could not reach a file himself, writing “Unfortunately, I do no have red side access”, and directed the request to a colleague, whose name is blacked out, “in CACHTU for the CID case file”. Sixteen minutes earlier another participant had written that he had advised a supervisory special agent not to add any serial to the 50D case file, and had asked for a headquarters file number so that an FD-302 documenting the request could be filed there instead, subject to approval.9 The exchange is a record of case-file discipline rather than of evidence handling: where a document is filed determines who can later find it.

What these records do not show

An intake record establishes that an item was received, logged, moved or returned. It does not establish what the item was, what was found in it, or what any interview or proffer produced. The FD-302 for the July 2019 search names the logs that were completed; it does not list what was seized, which is the function of the receipt for property attached to it. The serial and evidence reports name the acts filed to a case; they do not carry the communications themselves.12

Two further limits follow from the form of these documents. A serial listing is a table of contents rather than a narrative: the appearance of “Return of Property belonging to {REDACTED}” records that a return was documented, and says nothing about what was returned, to whom, or on what basis.2 And the export cited here is a long compound production that contains several distinct case files under different case numbers; a description of one part of it is not a description of the whole, and the pages cited on this page are identified by their own case file in each footnote.573

FBI evidence inventory; Epstein evidence inventory; Discovery materials; Exhibits and attachments; Document redaction integrity; Epstein video evidence; 9 East 71st Street; Epstein investigations overview.

Footnotes

  1. FD-302a continuation page, 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/EFTA00171979 p.2. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

  2. The same export, title column of the serial report for case 90A-NY-3151227. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01684602 p.159. Every personal name in the rows quoted is redacted in the document and none is supplied here. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8

  3. The same export, evidence report for case 90A-NY-3151227, types 1B, 1D and 1E, description column. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01684602 p.179. The row for NYC025654 is cut off by the column width and the drive’s serial number is not legible; nothing else on that page is cited here. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  4. FD-1087 Collected Item Log, serial 65 of case 90A-NY-3151227, case-title field: “Case ID #: 90A-NY-3151227” beside “(U) UNSUB(S); JEFFREY EPSTEIN - VICTIM; DEATH INVESTIGATION”. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00132208 p.3. Every name on the form is redacted; none is supplied here. ↩

  5. FBI case-file export, serial report for case 90A-NY-3151227, described on the export’s own summary page as a death investigation opened after Epstein was found unresponsive at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on 08/10/2019. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01684602 pp.150, 156. This export contains several case files under different case numbers; nothing outside these pages is cited here. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  6. The same FD-302, p.1, for the warrant’s issue on 07/06/2019 at 10:14 a.m., the 6:15 p.m. execution, the halt on discovery of items in plain view beyond the warrant’s scope, and the amended warrant. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00171979 p.1. ↩

  7. The same export, serial report for case 90A-NY-3151227, serial-number and date columns. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01684602 p.151. Nothing else on that page is cited here. ↩ ↩2

  8. Email from a special agent, FBI Baltimore/Delaware, Violent Crime Safe Streets Task Force, to an FBI New York recipient, Tue, 18 Feb 2025, subject “Masseuse List, black book, flight logs”. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00038620 p.1. Sender, recipient and the pilot’s name are blacked out; the attachment itself is not cited and nothing in it is reproduced. ↩

  9. FBI New York email thread of 14 and 15 July 2025, subject “Epstein having different passports seized in apt”, messages timed 11:01:01 a.m. and 11:17:23 a.m. on 15 July 2025 in the local stamps carried by the messages themselves. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01656307 pp.1-2. Every correspondent’s name is blacked out. Nothing else in that document is cited here. ↩

Backlinks