What the "missing minute" in the Jeffrey Epstein jail video shows Dan Ruetenik September 4, 2025 at 1:39 AM 0 The socalled "missing minute" from the security camera video of the jail tier where the infamous sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein died is no longer missing.
- - What the "missing minute" in the Jeffrey Epstein jail video shows
Dan Ruetenik September 4, 2025 at 1:39 AM
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The so-called "missing minute" from the security camera video of the jail tier where the infamous sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein died is no longer missing.
The gap in the footage captivated online conspiracy theorists and amateur sleuths when the FBI first made public the jail footage earlier this year. At the time, Attorney General Pam Bondi attributed this gap to a nightly DVR reset at the prison.
"There was a minute that was off that counter, and what we learned from Bureau of Prisons was every year, every night, they redo that video," Bondi told reporters. "Every night is reset, so every night should have that same missing minute."
But a more complete version of the video made public by Congress Tuesday includes that missing minute of footage, contradicting Bondi's explanation and pouring cold water on wild theories about what occurred during that short stretch inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where Epstein was held. CBS News has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
What is clear now from the newly released version of footage is that nothing apparently unusual occurs during that interval.
The Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General reported in 2023 that between 4 p.m. and midnight the night of Aug. 9, 2019, responsibility for rounds and inmate counts in the Special Housing Unit mostly fell to two staff members: Tova Noel, a corrections officer, and another employee identified only by the title "Material Handler."
The material handler was working his third consecutive 8-hour shift. Just after 11:59 p.m., a man, believed to be that material handler, walks away from the guard desk and walks off screen in the direction of the main entrance to the Special Housing Unit or SHU. That figure is likely finishing his shift and heading home. While he does pass in front of the stairs leading to Epstein's tier, he does not appear to be approaching the cells where Epstein resided, but instead seemed to be heading out of the SHU.
A screen shot from surveillance video inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center from just before midnight on Aug. 9, 2019, as a worker identified as the
Epstein is believed to have died soon afterwards, sometime in the early morning hours. His death was officially ruled a suicide by the New York Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, based on forensic analysis of his body.
The new version of the video does answer some questions, and raises new ones. It captures a period from 6 p.m. on Aug. 9, 2019, to 7 a.m. Aug. 10, covering the stretch when Epstein returned to the SHU the evening before his death and the next morning, when his body was discovered by a corrections officer delivering breakfast.
An earlier version of the video released by the FBI had covered a narrower stretch, from 7:40 p.m. to 6:40 a.m.
In the new video, Epstein is seen just before 7 p.m. being escorted to the G tier, where, according to the inspector general's report, he was brought to a shower stall to make an unmonitored phone call, in violation of prison policy, allegedly to speak with his girlfriend. At 7:49 p.m., as seen in previously released video, he is visible being escorted from the G tier to his cell in L tier, although the limited camera view doesn't actually capture his entrance to the tier.
This video had previously been cited by officials — including former Attorney General Bill Barr, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Bongino, and Geoffrey Berman, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York — as offering proof that no one entered Epstein's cell tier during the night. When the FBI released the footage in July, Bongino described it as "raw" video that confirmed no one had entered or exited.
However, forensic experts told CBS News the video did not appear to be raw footage, but instead, possibly a screen recording. They also noted the camera's limited field of view left open the possibility that someone could have entered the tier unnoticed.
The newly released version does raise questions. The files made public by Congress are missing metadata — underlying coding that would help confirm they are in fact raw exports. Video experts note that the quality in this new version is far lower than the version previously released by the FBI.
The newer footage exhibits a ghosting effect from movement, a reduced frame rate (from 29.97 frames per second to 4 frames), and a downgraded resolution (352x240), compared with the FBI's earlier high-definition release (1920x1080). Experts consulted by CBS News say this could have been a result of how the video was exported from the DVR system.
Additionally, the on-screen text formats are substantially different.
Different styles of text on-screen can be seen in these images from the Metropolitan Correctional Center video released by the FBI in July, at left, and the version released by the House Oversight Committee on Sept. 2, at right.
According to FBI records the original video was recorded on a system manufactured by a company called NICE Systems, the model was a NiceVision Pro NP 2000. The company has since been sold and is no longer manufacturing surveillance video equipment. Company representatives reached by CBS declined to comment. As of 2009 the company had deployed systems in 56 prisons in the U.S.
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