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One 4Chan user broke the news of Jeffrey Epstein’s death before anyone else.
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The Epstein dossier shows how the FBI tried to identify the man.
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Epstein and reclusive 4Chan founder Christopher Poole discussed meeting in 2011.
One of the many mysteries surrounding Jeffrey Epstein is how exactly a website known for pornography and white nationalism obtained information about his death.
At 8:16 a.m. on August 10, 2019, an anonymous 4Chan user posted: “Don’t ask me how I know, Epstein hanged himself from cardiac arrest an hour ago. Please take a screenshot.”
It was the first public indication that Epstein died in Justice Department custody while awaiting trial at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan on sex trafficking charges, BuzzFeed News reported at the time.
It preceded ABC News reporter Aaron Katersky’s post about Epstein’s death on Twitter (now known as X) by 38 minutes. Minutes later, the ABC News website published its first article about Epstein’s apparent suicide in prison.
The newly released Epstein documents reveal that the Justice Department tried to identify the 4Chan user behind the posts but was unable to do so.
Four days after the posts were published, the Justice Department subpoenaed 4Chan for the user’s IP address as part of the FBI’s investigation into Epstein’s death, documents show.
From there, the trail gets colder.
According to 4Chan’s response to the subpoena, the anonymous user made a total of four posts.
Screenshots of the post show other users giving fluent answers using medical terminology in response to questions. His body was intubated, given fluids and transferred to an emergency room in lower Manhattan, they said.
The user also provided some of the earliest unsubstantiated conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein’s death. The user suggested in a post that someone might have replaced Epstein’s body because of a mysterious van sighting the night before, Justice Department records show. The post was later deleted but provided to the FBI under a subpoena.
“You guys, I’m shocked right now, but I thought they replaced him,” the anonymous poster said.
Other records released by the Justice Department include multiple photos of Epstein’s body. His body was identified by a forensic pathologist hired by his brother, Mark Epstein, and he was later buried in a cemetery near his parents.
Using the IP addresses provided by 4Chan, prosecutors subpoenaed AT&T for information identifying the people using those IP addresses when the posts were made.
The company told them it had no such records.
“AT&T is unable to provide any information as required by law because AT&T, in the normal course of business, does not maintain records linking individual accounts or devices to wireless dynamic IP addresses,” a company employee said in response to a subpoena included in the documents.
The Justice Department also subpoenaed T-Mobile for records related to IP addresses. A response from T-Mobile was not included in the filing.
The next year, federal prosecutors in Manhattan confirmed that they had never identified 4Chan users.
The issue arose during the investigation into the criminal case against Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, two prison guards who were supposed to be keeping tabs on Epstein the night he died. Prosecutors accused Noel and Thomas of falsifying records related to their duties, but the charges were later dropped.
In a letter now unsealed in the files, prosecutors told Noel’s attorney, Jason Foy, that they did not know the author’s identity.
“The government has provided all records we obtained regarding the 4Chan posts,” they wrote. “The poster used a dynamic IP, so the records obtained did not reveal the author of the post.”
A 128-page report by the Justice Department’s inspector general into the circumstances of Epstein’s death details widespread dysfunction at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. It addressed some lingering issues — including the lack of functioning cameras on his cell level and the decision to leave him without a cellmate, allowing him to commit suicide without being detected — but did not mention the 4chan post.
Epstein himself appears to have been a 4Chan user, sometimes sending links to 4Chan posts to others.
The Justice Department documents also show that Epstein knew Christopher Poole, the reclusive founder of 4Chan. Poole told The Verge that he had lunch with Epstein once and that he regretted “having ever encountered him and has deep sympathy for all of his victims.” He did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
Justice Department documents show that Epstein discussed the meeting with Poole – also known by his 4Chan username moot – after being introduced by Boris Nikolic, Bill Gates’ former science adviser.
“I love mmot slot machines,” Epstein told Nikolic in an October 2011 email filled with misspellings. “I drove him home and he was so smart.”
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