BOP Shredded "Huge Amounts" of Epstein Jail Documents Days After His Death

FBI documents released in March 2026 revealed that a Bureau of Prisons "After-Actions team" shredded large volumes of documents at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan on August 15-16, 2019 — just five and six days after Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell on August 10.

Corrections officer Michael Kearins contacted the FBI on August 16 to report the shredding as suspicious, noting it was extraordinary that "an after-action team charged with investigating would be shredding huge amounts of paperwork" while multiple agencies (the Attorney General's Inspector General, FBI, and BOP) were present at MCC conducting active investigations.

The aftermath raised more questions than answers:

• An inmate was recruited to help move "bags of shredded papers" to a dumpster at the rear gate
• Prosecutors urgently asked someone to check the dumpster "ASAP" before the Monday 8 AM trash pickup — but it was apparently never checked
• Prosecutors researched 18 U.S.C. Section 1519, the federal obstruction statute covering destruction of records
• Institutional count slips — basic records documenting whether guards actually checked on Epstein — were found to be "missing" when requested two days after his death
• No obstruction charges were ever filed over the shredding

This occurred under Attorney General William Barr's Justice Department. Separately, in February 2026, NPR reported that the current DOJ under Bondi had withheld and removed specific Epstein files containing accusations about Trump from public release — including an allegation from a woman who claimed Epstein introduced her to Trump when she was approximately 13. The DOJ claimed these documents were "duplicates" or "privileged," but could not explain why only the files mentioning Trump were excluded.

Reps. Thomas Massie (R) and Ro Khanna (D), after viewing unredacted Epstein files, stated that powerful men are being "protected by redactions."