Epstein surveillance video taken during first suicide attempt missing

Prosecutors told a court Wednesday that surveillance footage recorded at the time of Jeffrey Epstein’s first apparent suicide attempt inside Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center has gone missing, the New York Daily News first reported.

Details: The revelation of the missing footage captured outside Epstein's cell emerged during a New York hearing of accused quadruple murderer Nick Tartaglione, who shared a cell with the convicted sex offender.

• Tartaglione’s lawyer told the White Plains District Court that he had asked for the footage to be preserved to show that Tartaglione had behaved "appropriately and even admirably" on the night of the incident on July 23, per the New York Post.
• The presiding judge "asked the government to look further into what happened to the footage," the Daily News notes.

The big picture: Epstein's death in one of the most secure jails in the U.S. has sparked criminal charges against the guards monitoring him.

• Attorney General Bill Bar has said that Epstein's death was the result of "a perfect storm of screw-ups."

Go deeper:

• Barr: Jeffrey Epstein's death was a "perfect storm of screw-ups"
• What we know: The life and death of Jeffrey Epstein