Surveillance video footage from outside the jail cell of accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein during his first reported suicide attempt in July has been inadvertently deleted, federal prosecutors revealed Thursday.
In a document filed to court, prosecutors said they asked the Metropolitan Correctional Center for the surveillance footage recorded outside of Epstein’s cell from the night he first tried to commit suicide in July 2019. But the jail, they said, accidentally preserved video footage from the wrong part of the building. Assistant US Attorneys Maurene Comey and Jason Swergold wrote in the filing:
“The Government has learned that the MCC inadvertently preserved video from the wrong tier within the MCC, and, as a result, video from outside the defendant’s cell on July 22 – 23, 2019 (i.e. the requested video) no longer exists.”
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While the court filing states that there was a “backup system in place” to store the video they needed, it was nonetheless deleted sometime in August 2019 due to “technical errors.” Prosecutors first alerted the court in December that the footage had gone missing.
Epstein, who was being held at the jail on charges of sex-trafficking minors, was successful at attempting suicide a second time on August 10, 2019. Two of the security guards who were supposed to check on him regularly throughout the night were charged for failing to do their jobs. The indictment accuses them of leaving him alone for hours at a time and lying on documents saying they had checked in on him. Both guards have denied any wrongdoing.
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Attorney General William Barr revealed in November that the handling of Epstein’s suicide was “a perfect storm of screw-ups.” He said the FBI is still pursuing anyone who may have helped Epstein sexually abuse young girls, and has asked the Inspector General’s office to examine the case.
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