“If a lawyer brought me this file and asked if it was suitable for court, I’d say no. Go back to the source. Do it right,” a digital forensics professor said.
The US Department of Justice this week released nearly 11 hours of what it called “full raw” surveillance footage from outside Jeffrey Epstein’s cell the night before his 2019 death. Intended to silence conspiracy theories about his apparent suicide, the release may fuel them instead.
WIRED, working with video forensics experts, found metadata indicating the “raw” video was assembled using Adobe Premiere Pro from at least two source clips and saved multiple times before its release. “If a lawyer brought me this file and asked if it was suitable for court, I’d say no. Go back to the source. Do it right,” said Hany Farid, a digital forensics professor at UC Berkeley.
While the DOJ did not explain why professional editing software was used, experts caution there’s no proof of deceptive manipulation; footage might have been processed for public release.
Still, Farid raised concerns about the chain of custody, while author Mike Rothschild warned any ambiguity feeds conspiracy theories: “Whatever your flavor of Epstein conspiracy is, the video will help bolster it.”
The DOJ and FBI did not answer specific questions about the video’s processing. A 2023 DOJ report blamed chronic staffing failures and camera malfunctions at the prison for gaps in surveillance coverage.