19/07/2023

Jail officials apparently preserved a video from that day and time, but from the wrong cell block entirely, according to prosecutors.

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Any surveillance video from Jeffrey Epsteins first apparent suicide attempt in a Manhattan jail cell has been deleted, prosecutors said Thursday, further fanning the flames of conspiracy thatve engulfed Epsteins death last August.
The wealthy financier, who was accused of grooming and sexually abusing dozens of girls for years, was found unconscious in his cell at New Yorks Metropolitan Correction Center shortly after his July arrest on sex trafficking charges. (He later died by suicide in the same jail in August.)
Just two days after Epsteins first apparent suicide attempt, his then-cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, requested surveillance footage to prove that he attempted to save the registered sex offender. Tartaglione, a former police officer, is awaiting trial on charges of killing four men in 2016, and faces the death penalty. His attorneys hoped the video would help his case, according to The Journal News.
Jail officials apparently preserved a video from that day and time, but from the wrong cell block entirely, according to prosecutors. And although theres a backup video mechanism for the Special Housing Unit, where Epstein was held that day, the secondary video doesnt exist, either, due to a technical error. The FBI only discovered the jail had failed to preserve the correct video last week, and jail officials previously thought the right video existed.
Tartagliones attorney, Bruce Barket, told CBS News the jail where Epstein died is “the worst facility, jail or prison that I’ve been to in 35 years of practicing law.”
Epstein died by suicide three weeks after the first apparent attempt. Video from outside his cell that day was successfully preserved, and is being used as evidence against the two guards accused of not properly monitoring Epstein in the hours leading up to his death.
Ever since his August death, conspiracies and speculation about whether or not the well-connected Epstein actually killed himself have flourished, and some have even been shared on Twitter by President Donald Trump and members of Congress. Conspiracy theorists used Thursdays news about the missing footage to bolster their claims on Twitter.
Epstein was left alone in the cell when he died. A forensic pathologist hired by Epsteins family has described the financiers death as a murder, although New York Citys chief medical examiner has insisted his injuries were consistent with a suicide by hanging.
Representatives from New Yorks MCC did not immediately respond to a VICE News request for comment. A representative for the federal Bureau of Prisons, which oversees the New York jail, declined to comment because Epsteins death is still under investigation.
Cover image: This July 1, 2019 file photo shows the Manhattan Correctional Center, in New York. Financier Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide and was found in his cell at the Manhattan Correctional Center. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)