Newly released documents reveal why FBI‑released jail footage from the night Jeffrey Epstein died appeared to be missing a minute. After public pressure for transparency, the FBI discovered its original master video had already been destroyed in 2024. When prosecutors later needed the footage, agents had to reconstruct the video from backup files on the jail’s old NiceVision system.

During that process, 62 seconds failed to capture during a screen‑recording, creating the now‑famous gap and fueling conspiracy theories. The FBI has never publicly clarified the technical error — until the documents surfaced.