The search for Epstein's Missing Computers

Roy Black is dead. The secret of what happened to Epstein's computers may have died with him. But the answers to who thwarted the evidence-gathering may lie with prosecutors.

We have known for more than a decade that Roy Black, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s defense attorneys, ordered the removal of computers from Epstein’s Palm Beach home about 12 days before Palm Beach police searched Epstein’s home on October 20, 2005.

There were many items missing, including videos (the list includes porn videos along with VHS volumes of the TV show South Park, among others); nude photographs, telephone directories and sex toys.

But the most important evidence that was seized was three of Epstein’s computers. The chain of custody of that evidence has also been known for years from the court files. Private investigator Paul Lavery removed the evidence and turned the material over to another private investigator named William Riley. Riley, upon instructions from Black, then stored them, court files show.

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This was in 2005. I’m skeptical that this material is still laying around in a storage unit or in an office somewhere after 20 years, but stranger things have happened in the Epstein case.

Still, the idea that questioning private investigators on what happened to this material seems to be a red herring, much like the “client list” that swept MAGA influencers and other Epstein watchers into a frenzy not long ago.

I may sound like a broken record (as I’ve written stories about these missing computers before), but why aren’t lawmakers focused on who allowed this to happen in the first place? Why didn’t former Palm Beach State Attorney Barry Krischer immediately issue subpoenas for the material? Why didn’t the federal prosecutors go after it too? Marie Villafana, the lead federal prosecutor in the 2007 Epstein criminal case, has said she wanted to obtain the evidence but was, to some degree, prevented from doing so by her supervisors within the Miami U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Here is an excerpt from Villafana’s written statement to the Justice Department that explains how she was frustrated in her evidence-gathering.