What we know about Epstein death announcement dated day before he died

In early February 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that, during the first administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice created a news release about the death of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein on Aug. 9, 2019, the day before his death.

The DOJ publicly announced Epstein's death in a news release dated Aug. 10, 2019. He died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell that day while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

One Reddit user who posted the alleged Aug. 9 news release wrote, "Why would the Trump administration draft a press release saying that Epstein died a day before he actually died?"

Trump administration press release a day before Epstein died
by u/PucktheMagic in Epstein

The alleged news release also circulated on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived) and Bluesky (archived). Snopes readers also wrote in, asking about the date on the claimed release.

The DOJ released two separate versions (archived, archived) of a news release about Epstein's death dated Aug. 9, 2019, among the more than 3 million files the department has released related to its investigation into the deceased sex offender. The versions were almost identical to each other and, aside from the date, were almost identical to the public release (archived) that appeared on the DOJ's website on Aug. 10.

It was unclear at the time of this writing when the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York, which issued the Aug. 10 news release about Epstein's death, created the versions of that release dated Aug. 9. 

The metadata from the files dated Aug. 9 in the DOJ's database showed document creation dates in late 2025 and early 2026. Those dates may reflect when the DOJ prepared copies of the files for release in accordance with a Dec. 19, 2025 deadline set by Congress (the DOJ did not release all relevant files by that deadline and continued to release batches into 2026). It was unclear whether the U.S. attorney's office ever publicly shared the files dated Aug. 9. 

Snopes asked the DOJ to access the metadata on the releases dated Aug. 9 but has not yet been able to do so. Therefore, we leave this claim unrated.

A spokesperson for the DOJ said in an emailed statement about the releases dated Aug. 9:

Official statements regarding the death of Jeffrey Epstein were edited and circulated over several email chains within the Southern District of New York beginning August 10, 2019. While initial drafts of the statement list the previous date, this was merely an unfortunate typo that was later updated to reflect the correct date before being publicized. Any suggestion that the Department drafted a statement in advance of Jeffrey Epstein's death is false.

Releases had minor differences

The DOJ's database included two versions of a news release about Epstein's death dated Aug. 9, 2019, with the document numbers EFTA00013180 and EFTA00040357.

The two files were almost identical. In a section addressing Epstein's victims, the file numbered EFTA00013180 read (emphasis ours):

To those brave young women who have already come forward and to the many others who have yet to do so, let me reiterate that we remain committed to standing for you, and our investigation of the conduct charged in the Indictment — which included a conspiracy count — remains ongoing. 

The other file, numbered EFTA00040357, read (emphasis ours):

To those brave young women who have already come forward and to the many others who may not yet have done so, let me reiterate that we remain proud to stand for you in bringing this case, and our investigation of the conduct charged in the Indictment — which included a conspiracy count — remains ongoing. 

The Aug. 10 news release used the phrasing from EFTA00013180, stating the department "remain[ed] committed" to standing for Epstein's victims.

The published, Aug. 10 news release also made one more addition — in that statement, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said Epstein "had been found unresponsive in his cell and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter of an apparent suicide."

Neither of the news releases dated Aug. 9 included mention of suicide. 

Aug. 9 releases appeared unfinished

An unfinished number sequence reading "19-XXX" at the bottom of the files dated Aug. 9 supported the DOJ's statement that the two documents were drafts for the Aug. 10 release. 

An email from the DOJ's database numbered EFTA00070031 (archived) showed that Nicholas Biase, a press officer also named on the news releases dated Aug. 9, sent the Aug. 10 DOJ's news release about Epstein's death to "USANYS-ALL EMPLOYEES" at around 3:33 p.m. Eastern time Aug. 10, around three minutes after the DOJ published the statement on its website.

That version of the release had a completed number sequence reading, "19-263" at the bottom. The final release the DOJ uploaded to its website on Aug. 10 also listed its "press release number" as 19-263.

Searches of the DOJ's database revealed no versions of the statement dated Aug. 9 with a completed press release number at the bottom. According to the DOJ, any suggestion that the incorrect date on the drafts meant the department wrote a statement on Epstein's death before he died was "false."

Searches for the Aug. 10 news release revealed correspondence between FBI staff on Aug. 10 about what appeared to be the finished news release that Biase sent. Searches of the DOJ's database did not reveal records of DOJ, U.S. attorney's office or FBI staff discussing the versions of the news release dated Aug. 9, suggesting it wasn't circulated internally or externally in the DOJ before Epstein's death.

Investigations and reviews by the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General and the FBI found Epstein died by suicide.