Newly released images from the US Justice Department show injuries suffered by the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after what officials recorded at the time as a possible suicide attempt in federal custody weeks before his death in August 2019. The photographs, which include close-up views of bruising and redness on parts of Epstein’s body and an item described in accompanying files as a makeshift ligature fashioned from torn clothing, were published as part of a broader release of “Epstein files” made public under a law passed this year requiring the department to disclose large parts of its investigative material, subject to redactions for victims’ privacy and other legal protections.
The images relate to an incident on 23 July 2019, when Epstein, then being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Manhattan while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, was found in circumstances that prompted emergency staff response and his placement on suicide watch, according to documents included in the Justice Department’s release. In incident narratives contained in the newly published material, staff described Epstein as being taken to a housing unit, dressed in a suicide smock and placed on suicide watch after officers responded to what was documented as a suspected self-harm event.
The release has renewed attention on the weeks leading up to Epstein’s death on 10 August 2019, when he was found unresponsive in his cell at the MCC. Authorities have long said Epstein died by suicide, but the case has remained the subject of intense public scrutiny and persistent conspiracy theories, driven in part by documented failures inside the jail and by the prominence of people Epstein socialised with over decades. A Justice Department inspector general report previously detailed staffing shortages, lapses in required checks and failures to follow internal protocols, and concluded that Epstein’s death was a suicide rather than a homicide.
According to the inspector general account cited by ABC News in 2023, Epstein had first attempted suicide in custody on 23 July 2019, a development that should have heightened safeguards, including consistent implementation of housing arrangements designed to reduce risk, such as placement with a cellmate. The report described a sequence of failures in the following weeks, including that Epstein was later left alone after his cellmate was removed.
The newly published Justice Department material includes both documents and photographs tied to the July incident. TMZ, which reported on the images after their appearance in the government release, said the photographs depict injuries on Epstein’s neck and extremities and include a “makeshift ligature” that appears to be constructed from ripped clothing tied in knots. The photographs are presented as part of a departmental file release rather than as evidence introduced in court, and the department has published the material in batches alongside other investigative records, some heavily redacted.
The publication of such images, and the wider release of investigative material, follows the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed into law in November, which set a deadline for the Justice Department to make public its case files on Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, while allowing the department to withhold or redact content that could identify victims, compromise investigations or implicate other protected categories of information. The department has said its review requires substantial redaction work because the files contain sensitive victim information.
In recent days, the government’s releases have prompted renewed political and public disputes over what should be made public and how. A CBS News live update on the document dump said the latest release was among the largest so far, with thousands of files spanning tens of thousands of pages, including court records, emails, photographs and other material from investigative repositories. The same coverage reported that President Donald Trump criticised the publication of certain images of public figures included in the trove, warning that photos could sweep in people who “innocently met” Epstein years earlier and have no connection to his crimes.
Some of the disclosures have included material that became widely shared online but later drew corrections. Time magazine reported that the Justice Department posted and then removed a fake video that purported to show Epstein’s death, after analysis suggested it originated from an unrelated online upload and had been sent to the FBI with a question about authenticity. Time said the department did not immediately explain why it had been posted or why it was later taken down, with the episode cited as an illustration of the difficulties in releasing vast archives that include irrelevant or misleading submissions received during investigations.
The photographs of injuries tied to the July 2019 incident sit within a larger record of what investigators and jail officials documented in the final weeks of Epstein’s life. Epstein had been arrested in July 2019 on federal charges alleging he ran a sex-trafficking operation that exploited underage girls. He pleaded not guilty. His death ended the criminal case against him, though civil litigation and broader investigations continued, and Maxwell was later convicted in connection with Epstein’s abuses. The public’s interest has also been fuelled by Epstein’s long-standing proximity to influential figures across politics, business and entertainment, relationships he cultivated over years while maintaining a private world that prosecutors said was used to facilitate abuse.
The latest file releases have also revealed new detail about investigative searches of Epstein’s properties and the scale of digital material seized. People magazine reported that an email written by a federal prosecutor and released by the Justice Department described the FBI as having seized thousands of nude images and tens of thousands of non-nude images during searches of Epstein’s New York and US Virgin Islands properties, alongside efforts to prepare larger productions of images for legal purposes. The email was dated October 2020, more than a year after Epstein’s death, and appeared in the department’s disclosed materials as part of internal communications about evidence handling.
For survivors of Epstein’s abuse and advocates, the renewed focus on materials from inside the jail and investigative archives has intersected with a broader debate about transparency and privacy. CBS News reported that some survivors and lawmakers criticised the Justice Department for releasing only partial troves and for redactions and handling that, in their view, failed to adequately protect victim identities. The department has faced competing pressures: demands to release more information, and concerns about releasing graphic or identifying details that could retraumatise victims or expose them to harassment.
What the newly released photographs show, in the government’s own presentation, is a snapshot of a critical point in the chronology: a documented episode of apparent self-harm in late July 2019, and the injuries recorded around that time, weeks before Epstein was found dead in his cell. For years, investigators and official reviews have pointed to systemic failures inside the MCC as contributing factors in his death, including staffing shortages and broken procedures, while maintaining that the death itself was a suicide. The new images, presented alongside contemporaneous documents, add visual evidence to the record of that earlier July incident, which oversight investigators have said should have triggered heightened vigilance but did not prevent later lapses in supervision.
