This image from the video — zoomed in and highlighted by CBS News – shows a partial view of something orange on the stairs leading to Jeffrey Epstein’s cell tier.
(Credit: U.S. Bureau of Prisons)
Newly released Department of Justice documents show that investigators reviewing surveillance footage from the night of Jeffrey Epstein’s death observed an orange-colored shape moving up a staircase toward the isolated, locked tier where his cell was located at approximately 10:39 p.m. on Aug. 9, 2019.
That entry in an observation log of the video from the Metropolitan Correctional Center appears to suggest something previously unreported by authorities: “A flash of orange looks to be going up the L Tier stairs — could possibly be an inmate escorted up to that Tier.”
It also appears, according to an FBI memorandum, that reviews by investigators led to disparate conclusions by the FBI and those examining the same video from the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General.
The FBI log describes the fuzzy image as “possibly an inmate.”
(…) The new records raise more questions about activity near Epstein’s tier late that evening. Official reviews of Epstein’s death make no mention of the figure in orange, and later pronouncements from authorities including the attorney general at the time, Bill Barr, were that no one entered Epstein’s housing tier the night of his death. Last summer in an interview on “Fox & Friends,” then-deputy FBI director Dan Bongino said, “There’s video clear as day, he’s the only person in there and the only person coming out. You can see it.”
Prison employees interviewed by CBS News said escorting an inmate at that hour would have been highly unusual. The identification of the individual could have been crucial to reconstructing the events, given that the sighting occurred within the estimated window of Epstein’s possible time of death.
The staircase leading to his cell tier was captured by the only camera known to have been recording that night, positioned in a way that partially obscured the approach to Epstein’s tier. Government investigators relied heavily on that footage in reconstructing the timeline of events. But because of the camera angle, it was not possible to rule out whether someone could have climbed the stairs and entered the tier without being clearly visible. CBS News’ analysis of that video found additional contradictions between what the video showed and official statements.
(Read more: CBS News, 2/6/2026) (Archive)
Oh boy. So the noose they found in Epstein’s cell was NOT the noose that strangled him. It’s like the scene in This is Spinal Tap where we learn the drummer choked on vomit but, to quote Nigel, “It was actually, was actually someone else’s vomit.”. https://t.co/RxlPtWu6qe pic.twitter.com/f3TLEvIXN0
— Carlos Mucha (@mucha_carlos) February 5, 2026