Epstein Files: FBI Tracked Down Anonymous 4chan Conspiracy Theorist

The Epstein files show that the FBI used subpoenas to track down two 4chan users who claimed to have inside information on the death of powerful sex predator Jeffrey Epstein in prison. The bureau collected phone records and even detailed bank records in the course of the investigation.

One of these investigations has been publicly reported before. On August 10, 2019, a user on the freewheeling social media forum 4chan posted “dont ask me how I know, but Epstein died an hour ago from hanging, cardiac arrest,” around half an hour before the story broke in professional media. The user, identified by the automatically generated pseudonym “rPtND1Si,” went on to post details about Epstein’s medical case.

NBC News reported three days later that “authorities” were trying to track down the identity of rPtND1Si. Indeed, on August 14, 2019, the FBI sent 4chan a grand jury subpoena for information on rPtND1Si, records released by the Department of Justice this month show. But the subpoena also asks for information on a second user, “swam8WlF,” who posted a conspiracy theory about Epstein having a body double.

In what appears to be their only post, swam8WlF claims to have seen Epstein being wheeled out of the prison into a van containing “a guy in a green dress military outfit” the morning before his death was announced. “You guys i am shaking right now but i think they switched him out,” swam8WlF writes. Unlike the posts by rPtND1Si, this post provides no reason to believe that swam8WlF had real insider information.

The post by swam8WlF appears to have come to the FBI’s attention by way of a tip. On August 12, around noon, a woman whose name is redacted called the FBI to report that her friend had sent her “a screenshot of a post on an unknown social media platform” that was “floating around social media.” It was swam8WlF’s post about the body double.

In response to the subpoena, 4chan gave the FBI the IP addresses of the two posters. The same file includes results of a subpoena to AT&T for phone records on a man from Swain, New York, whose name is redacted, and a subpoena to CitiBank for bank records on Roberto Grijalva, whose name was left unredacted and has already been published in multiple media outlets. Other documents in the Epstein files show that Grijalva was one of the guards at the Metropolitan Detention Center when Epstein was held there.

It’s unclear from the files whether the phone user from Swain is also Grijalva, and whether either of them was really responsible for either 4chan post. (Grijalva could have come up in the leak investigation for other reasons.) If Grijalva was the author of either 4chan post, he wasn’t fired over it. The Bureau of Prisons confirmed that he is currently a deputy captain at the Metropolitan Detention Center, and declined to comment further.

The investigation into swam8WlF would not be the first time the feds wanted to unmask an anonymous commenter for idle talk. In 2015, the Department of Justice subpoenaed Reason for the identities of six commenters who posted angry comments, such as “judges like these that should be taken out back and shot” and “wood chippers get the message across clearly,” under an article about the harsh sentence for Ross Ulbricht.

FBI records released last year show that the bureau investigated a post on a forum dedicated to David Icke—the conspiracy theorist who popularized “lizard people“—that was “advocating that the masses kill Sheldon Adelson,” a casino owner and Republican donor. That investigation began because of a tip from the security team at Adelson’s casino; the FBI concluded that the threat was “not credible” after running a cursory search.

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you, the saying goes.

But the 4chan posts did not include anything that could even be construed as a violent threat. The FBI’s investigation was simply an attempt to plug up unauthorized information leaks about a sensitive case. And at face value, the conspiracy theory posted by swam8WlF seems to be unrelated to the real insider information posted by rPtND1Si.

Ironically, though, the investigation ended up breathing new life into swam8WlF’s theory. After the Department of Justice released the subpoenas as part of its Epstein Library, online sleuths noticed Grijalva’s name. They concluded the body double story came from a real prison guard, without realizing that the subpoenas do not explicitly connect Grijalva to the 4chan posts or that rPtND1Si and swam8WlF are two different users.

That is, after all, the consistent story of the Epstein case. Whatever damage leaks or conspiracy theories would have done, the government’s ham-fisted attempts to control the narrative have only compounded it.

The Department of Justice did not respond to Reason‘s request for comment.