United States | News & Politics

When FBI agents raided Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan mansion upon his July 2019 arrest, they used a chainsaw to open a metal safe.

Inside, they found a pile of loose diamonds, cash, passports with the disgraced financier's photo under different names, and several hard drives and CDs.

Because the agents didn't have a warrant to seize the safe's contents, they left them in the middle of the floor with the hard drives and binders piled on top, agent Kelly Maguire testified at the criminal trial of Epstein's co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.

4 people who have seen the Epstein files say nothing suggests he was a spy

Five days later, when the FBI returned to the mansion with a new warrant in hand, the safe's contents were gone.

Later that day, the items were handed over to the FBI in the form of two suitcases by Richard Kahn, Epstein's longtime accountant.

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"When the FBI broke into Epstein's home, they broke down his door, so his door could not lock and the alarm could not set properly," Kahn told the committee. "When Merwin, the house manager, was at the house, he realized that these items were not safe to be left alone."

Kahn, who wasn't in New York City at the time of the raid, said he took possession of the items "three or four days later." He testified that he brought the two bags into his apartment and didn't look inside them.

"I never touched them. I never opened them," Kahn said. "I left them in my dining room."

A day or two later, Dela Cruz called Kahn again to say the FBI was looking for the stuff they had left behind, Kahn told the committee.

That's when he grabbed the bags from his home and brought them to the FBI agents at Epstein's house, Kahn said.

So, days of unguarded hanging out on floors and in dining rooms unsupervised. Even if they really didn't tamper with them, this feels like a means to deliberately create the option to claim they had been plausibly tampered with due to pants on head custody chain.