Among the many mysteries surrounding Jeffrey Epstein is how, exactly, a website famous for pornography and white nationalism got the scoop on his death.
At 8:16 a.m. on August 10, 2019, an anonymous 4Chan user posted, “don’t ask me how I know, but Epstein died an hour ago from hanging, cardiac arrest. Screencap this.”
It was the first public indication that Epstein, awaiting trial for sex-trafficking charges in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, died while in the custody of the Department of Justice, BuzzFeed News reported at the time.
It beat ABC News journalist Aaron Katersky’s post about Epstein’s death on Twitter, now known as X, by 38 minutes. A few minutes later, the ABC News website published the first article about Epstein’s apparent suicide in jail.
The newly released Epstein files show that the Justice Department tried to identify the 4Chan user behind the posts — but couldn’t figure it out.
The documents show the Justice Department subpoenaed 4Chan for the user’s IP addresses four days after the posts were made as part of the FBI’s investigation into Epstein’s death.
From there, the trail went cold.
The anonymous user made a total of four posts, according to 4Chan’s response to the subpoena.
Fielding questions from other users, they gave responses that appeared fluent in medical jargon, screenshots of the posts show. They said his body was intubated, had fluid infused, and was moved to an emergency room in lower Manhattan.
The user also provided some of the earliest unproven conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death. In one post, which was later deleted but provided to the FBI in response to the subpoena, the user said someone may have swapped out Epstein’s body because of a mysterious van seen the previous night, DOJ records show.
“You guys i am shaking right now but i think they switched him out,” the anonymous poster said.
Other records made public by the Justice Department include multiple photos of Epstein’s corpse. His body was identified by a forensic pathologist hired by his brother, Mark Epstein, who later interred it in a cemetery near their parents.
Using the IP addresses 4Chan provided, prosecutors subpoenaed AT&T for information that could identify people who used them at the time the posts were made.
The company told them it didn’t have the records.
“AT&T is unable to provide any information in response to the Legal Demand because AT&T does not maintain records in the normal course of business that associate individual accounts or devices with wireless dynamic IP addresses,” a company employee said in a response to the subpoena included in the files.
The Justice Department also subpoenaed T-Mobile for records related to the IP addresses. T-Mobile’s response isn’t included in the files.
The following year, federal prosecutors in Manhattan confirmed they never identified the 4Chan user.
The issue arose in the discovery process for the criminal case against Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, the two jail guards who were supposed to be keeping an eye on Epstein the night he died. Prosecutors had accused Noel and Thomas of falsifying records related to their duties, charges that were later dropped.
In a letter now made public in the files, prosecutors told Noel’s attorney, Jason Foy, that they didn’t know the author’s identity.
“The Government has produced all records we have obtained regarding the 4Chan post,” they wrote. “The poster used a dynamic IP, and therefore the records obtained did not disclose the author of the post.”
A 128-page Justice Department inspector general report on the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death detailed widespread dysfunction at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. It addressed some lingering questions — including the lack of functioning cameras on his cell tier and the decision to leave him without a cellmate, allowing him to kill himself unobserved — but made no mention of the 4chan posts.
Epstein appeared to be a 4Chan user himself, sometimes sending links of 4Chan posts to other people.
The Justice Department’s files also show Epstein was acquainted with Christopher Poole, the reclusive founder of 4Chan. Poole told The Verge that he and Epstein met once for lunch, and that he regrets “having ever encountered him at all, and have deep sympathy for all of his victims.” He didn’t respond to Business Insider’s requests for comment.
The DOJ’s files show Epstein discussed having met with Poole — who is also known by his 4Chan username, moot — following an introduction by Boris Nikolic, a former science advisor to Bill Gates.
“i liked mmot slot,” Epstein told Nikolic in a typo-filled October 2011 email. “i drove him home, he is very bright.”
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