Surveillance footage taken during first Epstein suicide attempt missing

https://ift.tt/2MabmAr Surveillance footage recorded inside a Lower Manhattan prison at the time of Jeffrey Epstein’s first apparent suicide attempt has mysteriously gone missing, officials admitted Wednesday. The footage was recorded outside the millionaire pedophile’s cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on July 23, when Epstein apparently tried to hang himself at the lockup. Epstein was sharing the cell with Nick Tartaglione, a hulking former cop in Westchester County accused of killing four people in a botched drug deal. Tartaglione’s lawyer had requested that the footage be preserved — but prosecutors admitted in a court hearing Wednesday that the footage has gone missing, the lawyer, Bruce Barket, said. “I don’t know the details of how it was lost or destroyed or why it wasn’t retained when it should have been,” Barket said. Barket has maintained Tartaglione came to Epstein’s aide and tried to alert the guards when the perv tried to commit suicide in the cell. “We want to be sure that all the evidence is preserved to show that Nick behaved appropriately and even admirably that evening,” Barket said. “We asked for all the video and photographic evidence to be preserved, specifically this surveillance video. Now it’s gone,” he added. Epstein was treated for neck injuries following the July 23 incident inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan, law enforcement officials have said. Epstein told his lawyers that Tartaglione inflicted the injuries that left him nearly unconscious in his cell last month, a source close to the convicted pedophile’s case told The Post. Epstein successfully killed himself in the prison weeks later on Aug. 10.