Note: This chronicle was first published on 23 December 2025 and has been updated several times. My requests to OCME date back to May 2023. Records I initially obtained in response to that request were reported in “Why (and How) Did the New York City Medical Examiner Process 11,000 Deaths in Three Days?“
The New York City Office of the Medical Examiner (OCME) is once again delaying the release of public records and, as a result, raising further suspicions about the veracity of an audacious death spike, and a three-day, 11,000-death processing event the agency recorded at the end of April 2020 (image below).1
A chronology of the correspondence follows.
On 4 February 2025, I requested two sets of records from OCME:
▪️ The agency’s Biological Incident Fatality Surge Plan for managing In and out of Hospital Deaths [UPDATE 22 January 2026: I located this plan in a Cloud database online and no longer need OCME to provide it.]
▪️ Daily hospital morgue census data entered into a survey activated in spring 2020
The agency replied with acknowledgement in a timely fashion, on 11 Feb 2025, and said the next response would be by 5 May 2025.
I thanked the staffer and said I would be happy to receive any available records sooner.
On 5 May, OCME extended the due date to “by or on” 22 September 2025.
I was “assured” that the agency is “working diligently and actively” on the request “to ensure the best possible outcome”.
As the deadline approached, I requested a status update. The staffer replied on 22 September (the extended due date) and extended the response time again, by three months, to 23 December 2025.
Note that I was also asked for detailed contact information and to provide the purpose of requesting the morgue census. The latter request is unusual. In three-plus years of asking New York City agencies for records, I don’t recall ever being asked to give the purpose for making a request. I’m not sure they’re even allowed to ask or require that information under FOIL laws, let alone to say “if you don’t, we may deny access to the records.”
Nevertheless, I complied. I said I need the morgue census to cross-check it with Body Collection Point records from two other agencies (one city, one federal). I also reminded the staffer that a request I made in December 2023 is still unfulfilled and said OCME has never asked me to explain why I want records.
Yesterday, I sent a reminder about today’s due date:
The reply I received this morning (23 December 2025) said that OCME is “still in the process of reviewing and evaluating” my February request and that I should expect a response on 30 January 2026, which is almost a year after I made the original request.
I thanked the Record Access Officer, noted the length of the delay, and requested that records be sent in partial fulfillment before January 30, if possible.
UPDATE: On 28 January 2026, OCME extended the response due date by a month to 6 March 2026:
In my reply, I asked to records officer to refer me to an individual or agency with whom/which I can file a complaint about the handling of my year-old request.
Jason K. Graham is the current Chief Medical Officer of OCME.
During city’s spring 2020 mass casualty event, Barbara Sampson was at the helm. Before the pandemic declaration, Sampson oversaw the autopsies and controversial cause-of-death determinations of Eric Garner, Joan Rivers, and Jeffrey Epstein.2
My requests are a part of an ongoing effort to substantiate the “wave 1” death toll and curve, which I believe is a fraudulent representation of reality.3
UPDATE, 27 May 2026: On 23 February 2026, OCME provided the morgue survey census records. The staffer said that OCME “collected the information but does not independently verify it.”
After skimming the master spreadsheet, which gives no sense of turnover, I asked about the total number of decedents.
In short, the answer was we sent you what we have: unverified records in our possession. “Statistics reported by all hospitals within the city of New York” via NYC DOHMH would (presumably) be data in the city’s 2020 Vital Statistics report and/or daily I’ve already obtained and reported. Therefore, I did not submit another request to DOHMH.
In a separate email, my request for the Biological Incident Fatality Surge Plan for Managing in and out of Hospital Deaths was denied “because release would endanger the life or safety of the public”.
What makes the denial especially humorous is that I had already told OCME I no longer needed the document because I had obtained it through other means. Whether my “release” of the document would somehow constitute endangering the public is unclear.
Finally, I inquired about fulfillment of the remainder of the request I submitted in December 2023.
Alison Nixon, the staffer handling that request said she would provide an update by 25 February 2026.
I never received an update and sent an inquiry as to when I would receive an update (or the rest of the records I requested in December 2023) on 27 May 2026.
Ms. Nixon replied quickly and said to expect fulfillment by 30 June 2026.
Related articles:
Hockett, J. (2023, November 15).“Why (and how) did the New York City medical examiner process 11,000 deaths in three days?” Wood House 76.
Hockett, J. (2024, March 19). “New York City says it experienced the equivalent of eight World Trade Center disasters in 46 days.” Wood House 76.
Hockett, J. (2025, January 17). “NYC Office of the Medical Examiner says it will delay response to my year-old request five more months.” Wood House 76.
Hockett, J. (2025, May 5). “New York City medical examiner has further delayed a records request until September 2025 and still has not fulfilled a request from December 2023.” Wood House 76.
References
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