Video taken outside Jeffrey Epstein’s cell on the night of his first suicide attempt was DESTROYED ‘by mistake’, federal prosecutors claim

• Footage was from an incident two weeks before Jeffrey Epstein’s death 
• Officials said he tried unsuccessfully to hang himself in his cell early on July 23
• Prosecutors say hallway footage was deleted due to a mistake by prison workers
• Footage from the wrong tier was tagged for preservation, prosecutors claim 

Federal prosecutors claim that surveillance video taken outside of Jeffrey Epstein’s cell during his first alleged suicide attempt at the Manhattan Correctional Complex was destroyed due to a record-keeping error.

The lost footage was taken outside of the cell that Epstein shared with accused quadruple murderer Nick Tartaglione on July 22-23, two weeks before the sex criminal’s death in a different cell.

Officials have said that Epstein unsuccessfully attempted to hang himself and that ex-cop Tartaglione intervened and called for help.

Prosecutors say that the hallway footage of the incident was deleted by accident when prison workers accidentally marked the wrong camera’s footage for preservation.

‘The footage contained on the preserved video was for the correct date and time, but captured a different tier than the one where Cell-1 was located because the preserved video did not show corrections officers responding to any of the cells seen on the video. After speaking with MCC legal counsel, the Government was informed that the MCC computer system listed a different, incorrect cell for Tartaglione,’ prosecutors wrote in a letter filed in Manhattan Federal Court.

The letter said that automatic backup systems also failed to preserve the footage.

‘The requested video no longer exists on the backup system and has not since at least August 2019 as a result of technical errors,’ the prosecutors wrote.

Prosecutors have repeatedly waffled on whether or not the overnight hallway footage from the night of July 22 had been preserved.

Tartaglione’s attorney had asked MCC to preserve the video days after the July 22 incident, saying that it would show his client acted admirably and quash rumors that the ex-cop had assaulted Epstein in any way.

Epstein died in a different cell, which he alone was assigned to, on August 10 in what the New York City medical examiner ruled a suicide, though his lawyers dispute that finding.

His death, at age 66, came a little over a month after he was arrested and charged with sex trafficking dozens of underage girls as young as 14 from at least 2002 to 2005.

“READ MORE…”