Video of Epstein's Suicide Attempt Is Gone for Good

Surveillance video taken from outside Jeffrey Epstein's jail cell on July 23, the day of his first suicide attempt, was mistakenly deleted with no chance of recovery, federal prosecutors said Thursday. Days after prosecutors described the video as missing in December, a lawyer for Epstein's former cellmate said it had been found. The footage reviewed by the FBI last week, however, showed "the correct date and time, but captured a different tier" of Metropolitan Correctional Center than where Epstein and Nicholas Tartaglione were housed, according to court filings in Tartaglione's murder trial, per NBC News.

Officials had "inadvertently preserved video from the wrong tier" as "the MCC computer system listed a different, incorrect cell for Tartaglione," prosecutors wrote. "As a result, video from outside the defendant's cell on July 22-23, 2019 no longer exists." The filing also noted that the video doesn't exist in a backup system due to "technical errors," per CNN. Tartaglione, who reportedly helped save Epstein, had hoped the video could be used as evidence of moral character. The former police officer charged with four murders as part of an alleged cocaine distribution conspiracy is facing the death penalty. (More Jeffrey Epstein stories.)