[grey-area]

The cctv footage existed, it has now been ‘accidentally deleted’.

The chances of this happening on a high profile case are infinitesimally small. So on the contrary the great claim requiring evidence is that this was a completely normal suicide in prison. Where is the evidence this video was deleted by mistake?

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/01/10/us/09reuters-peop...

[thomasfedb]

What surprises me is that said CCTV system/sever is not currently in the hands of a IT forensics specialist. It's hard enough to wipe data intentionally, it much be even harder to loose it irrevocably by accident. I would be quite surprised if the footage cannot be at least partially recovered given the right resources.

[grey-area]

I don’t know what happened, but do find it very odd cctv was wiped, and is not recoverable.

[gizmo385]

> The chances of this happening on a high profile case are infinitesimally small.

You're claiming that the chances of this are infinitesimally small comes off a bit tautological. It kind of feels like you're /saying/ it's infinitesimally small because /if/ that were in fact true, it /might/ help your claim.

[galangalalgol]

Accidentally deleting video of not one but two separate events along with the backups of that video seems pretty far fetched, but how often are they asked to recover video from hours ealier? Maybe the buffer period is just way too short and it is incompetence?

[grey-area]

I have no claim, I have no idea what happened, but I do know that video footage of prison cells where prisoners killed themselves does does not disappear by accident, saying it dies in such a high profile case alone requires quite a high burden of proof (I.e, the prison burned down, there was an unexpected solar storm). If there is no obvious explanation, the most likely one is it was deleted deliberately.

[jcranmer]

> I do know that video footage of prison cells where prisoners killed themselves does does not disappear by accident

How do you know that?

To me, this is like saying "backups of important data do not become unrecoverable by accident." Except backups (and CCTV footage) is routine, high data volume, and very usually uninteresting, so something going wrong can very easily be missed. And things can go wrong with relatively high frequency--I would not be surprised if most attempts to restore from backups failed.

[azinman2]

Yes grey-area is begging the question.

[nrdvana]

I’ve seen numerous accounts that the prison is understaffed and under budgeted. I’m not surprised at all that they would lose footage if they’re out of drive space and don’t have enough eyes to keep up with the error logs.

Also if you missed the latest news stories, they did save the footage for one of them but were given the wrong cell number so they had footage for the wrong floor.

This is just the general level of disorder and incompetence you can expect when you decide not to give a thing the level of funding it needs.

[shadowgovt]

> The chances of this happening on a high profile case are infinitesimally small

Even if they are ([citation needed] on the claim that the high profile nature of the case decreases the odds of mechanical accident), infinitesimally small events can still happen once. The fact they happened at a time most inconvenient for holding a wealthy man accountable doesn't change the nature of probability.

[grey-area]

Sure it’s perfectly possible, just really improbable, that he happened to kill himself when the video happened to be deleted.

[shadowgovt]

I've heard it happens far more often in the US prison system than it should, regardless of profile.

[Waterluvian]

I hear you. But the absence of evidence is not evidence of a crime. You've got your reasoning inverted. "Show me the evidence that there isn't a giant space walrus on the far side of Neptune. Otherwise we must conclude there is one. "

I'd like links to sensible aggregate sources and discussion. I don't want to have the discussion here.

[ehsankia]

So if, for example, a crime happens with 10 witness, and all 10 witness start dying one by one, will you simply say that there is no evidence the crime and forget about it?

In this case, there may not be any bulletproof evidence, but everything around the case that could've gone wrong has gone wrong, to the point where it's no longer statistically plausible to be a mistake. Everything in the system had redundancy yet every part of the system "failed".

There were two guards, yet they were both "asleep". They were supposed to check him every 30m yet they didn't check him for hours exactly when he killed himself. He had attempted suicide yet he wasn't on suicide watch. His cell mate was taken away. All the footage and backup were lost.

I guess the closest evidence so far is that the autopsy shows more homicide than suicide, but that isn't much.

Yes, it is indeed a conspiracy theory at this point, but unlike what the internet will have you believe, "conspiracy" != "crackpot theory".

[shadowgovt]

I'd be more convinced if there weren't reasonable explanations for every one of these facts already in the public record. At this point, were this an actual criminal trial, proof of homicide is way far out there.

Further, if someone powerful was worried he'd implicate them, killing him is a terrible way to keep the secret. With him dead, his effects and possessions are now no longer subject to Constitutional privacy protections and the FBI can go over them at its leisure to string together a case against his accomplices or any who used his "services" to arrange illegal sexual encounters.

(... civil trial burden of proof is mere "preponderance of evidence," and IIUC his estate is seeking civil trial, so they may win that case, make of that what one will).

[ehsankia]

That's assuming someone hasn't already gone and taken out whatever proof there was from his island. There have been drone footage taken by people showing how things were taken from his mansion.

https://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2019/08/13/computer-r...

[shadowgovt]

The FBI took evidence into custody. Beyond that, I wouldn't trust RedState's analysis without independent confirmation items are missing.

[ehsankia]

I wouldn't trust it as proof, I'm just saying, there wasn't anything stopping people from taking away incriminating evidence before the FBI had a chance to get a warrant.

[jancsika]

> They were supposed to check him every 30m yet they didn't check him for hours exactly when he killed himself.

"Hours" means at least 4x longer than the normal period Epstein would have waited for the guards check in on him. Even at the 45 minute point it would be clear to Epstein that the guards were late.

Basic logic would dictate that a guy desiring to commit suicide would make an attempt exactly when it seemed likely to him the guards weren't going to show up for awhile.

So we have two options-- either Epstein was intent on committing suicide (in which case the timing is unremarkable) or he wasn't (in which case the timing is highly suspect). Given that we don't know Epstein's state of mind, and as you point out we don't have much of anything as corroborating evidence, we cannot make heads or tails of the timing. And this is the problem with conspiracy theories. It's simply too tempting to overlook that and jump to the branch that adds more intrigue to the conspiracy.

I find it useful to build a simple gate before jumping to unlock further contemplation. For example, perhaps I read about a statement from a guard claiming they were told not to check on Epstein during that time. Or even a report of some suspicious activity or event at the location that happened around the same time the regular checking procedure got interrupted. Having that gate there ensures that I don't accidentally let unrelated yet intriguing facts fill in for the corroborating evidence I desire.

[travmatt]

You greatly overestimate the competency of the modern bureaucracy if your best evidence is presenting a series of lapses as a well executed conspiracy. You cannot honestly use the phrase ‘statistically implausible’ because you most likely have no statistics nor idea how often such lapses occur. You’re trying to dress up a weak theory with much more rigor than is actually present.

[rdiddly]

Just for the record, absence of evidence can be evidence of a crime: evidence-tampering. And anyway, an absence of evidence isn't exactly exonerative either, especially if a plausible narrative exists to explain the absence. And there are several here.

It's a matter of probabilities. Surveillance video was prematurely destroyed, twice in a month, in separate incidents and in different ways. Oh and both of those incidents involved the same subject. That is statistically improbable, similar in category if not in actual magnitude, to getting struck by lightning twice. At the very least that should justify and support an investigation kicking into overdrive mode to find direct evidence. And if no such evidence is found, it may nonetheless end up being used as part of a prosecution. Interesting coincidences are always pretty persuasive.

[Supermancho]

Debating that there wasn't a conspiracy is different than debating if he killed himself (which can't be proven). So far, there has been a coordinated effort to obscure accountability and records. This is SOP for the US Federal Government, when trying to hide misdeeds from the US population. Typically, we only get windows into what happened later when political opponents need ammunition or decades later when there are deathbed admissions.

[Waterluvian]

Again, _any_ solid links about this discussion? The main tell tale sign of crackpots is that they'll tell you a big earful of conspiracy. If they had a solid case they'd just share a link to a solid case. A link with analysis filled with references all the way down to primary sources.

I'm always so dissatisfied when I ask for evidence for these things.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Of course there's no solid evidence.

But there are also serious questions that need to be answered - a very, very long list of serious questions about very important and influential people involved in some very suspicious events that culminated in some very rare and unusual security lapses.

Linking anyone asking those questions to "crackpots" is simply disingenuous.

[Supermancho]

There is no scientific way to organize a "solid case" and there is no legal avenue with the federal handwashing that has already been stated (ie it was the guards who simply failed to check up, and criminally falsified records).

A classic denialist position is to require a social process and specific outcome in order to challenge their beliefs, in the face of context. Not that it will change our society, in either case.

[ben509]

His name is Bert, and he's just visiting Neptune, it's not like he lives there.

[dctoedt]

> Show me the evidence that there isn't a giant space walrus on the far side of Neptune. Otherwise we must conclude there is one.

That's a nice, more-memorable riff on Russell's Teapot [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

[Waterluvian]

Thanks for sharing! I knew this was "a thing" but I don't usually know the names of all these logic and philosophy things.

[dctoedt]

We could call it Blakey's Walrus?

[grey-area]

A giant space walrus is not in question. What is in question is why video showing a suicide was deleted.

Do you have any explanation for that?