The Justice Department’s long-awaited release of materials tied to Jeffrey Epstein has begun—and while the document dump is still ongoing, it did surface an unsettling artifact: Epstein’s fake Austrian passport.
The document appeared in the DOJ’s latest release of records tied to the disgraced financier’s sex-trafficking case, following mounting pressure on the department after President Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November. The law mandates public disclosure of evidence gathered during the government’s nearly two-decade investigation into Epstein.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News last week that reviewing and releasing the full trove of Epstein-related records could take weeks. Still, thousands of pages have already been released, including materials made public last Friday and an additional 11,034 files released on Monday. Among them was the doctored passport.
The passport—found in Epstein’s Upper East Side townhouse—was issued on May 21, 1982, and bears Epstein’s photograph but lists the name “Marius Fortelni.” The New York Post reported that the name belongs to a real estate developer who once lived in New York before later relocating to Palm Beach, Florida. The document also lists Epstein’s place of residence as Saudi Arabia.
Epstein’s attorneys addressed the fake passport years earlier. In a 2019 court filing cited by NBC News, Epstein’s legal team claimed the document was not intended for routine travel but as a safety measure. They said it was meant to be shown only in extreme circumstances while traveling in dangerous regions.
“The passport was for personal protection in the event of travel to dangerous areas,” Epstein’s lawyers wrote, adding that it would only be presented “to potential kidnappers, hijackers or terrorists should violent episodes occur.”
Prosecutors rejected that explanation at the time.
Photographs included in the DOJ release show the passport contains travel stamps dated between 1982 and 1983 from countries including France, Spain, and the United Kingdom, according to the Post. The document also includes a stamp from the Saudi Arabian consulate in Vienna granting two months of entry.
The fake passport is just one of several revelations emerging from the DOJ’s rolling release. The documents also included formal complaints from victims, as well as photos of Epstein with high-profile associates, including Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger.
CNN reported that transparency advocates and victims’ attorneys remain skeptical that the full scope of the Epstein investigation will ultimately be made public, despite the new law. The Justice Department has said it must balance disclosure with privacy protections and ongoing legal considerations.
The DOJ has already discredited other bombshell documents released in Monday’s document dump, particularly those mentioning President Trump.
The department said in a statement posted to X on Tuesday, “Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”
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