GRADE A1 -- BOP Incident Reports, FBI Forms, USMS Communications
BOP documents reconstruct the July 23 incident with precision:
Nicholas Tartaglione (Register 78514-054) was Epstein's cellmate -- a former police officer facing the death penalty for quadruple homicide. BOP opened case NYM-19-0061 as "Investigative / Threat Assessment" for both inmates (EFTA00139603). A USMS official corrected a typo to read: "cell mate reportedly threatened to kill him" (EFTA00096215, EFTA00096217).
The surveillance video from the July 23 incident was later found to be corrupted. FBI internal email dated January 10, 2020 states: "This is in regards to the suicide attempt that happened in July 2019. The video was stored on DVR 2 and when the FBI computer technicians attempted to download it was determined that the video storage had been corrupted" (EFTA00146837). FBI CID asked NY field office: "Does NY have any information regarding the alleged missing video?" (EFTA00037230). Tartaglione's attorney Bruce Barket filed a motion raising evidence destruction concerns (EFTA00016736).
SDNY prosecutors reacted with alarm: "if true, would be somewhat shocking that [they] didn't report (and more shocking that they took him off suicide watch)" (EFTA00085277). Suicide watch ended after only 7 days, and Psychology Observation ended on July 30 -- 11 days before death.
OIG report describes "Inmate 3" (a different cellmate after Tartaglione): when Inmate 3 left on August 9, "he told Epstein that he would leave the clothesline in the cell" (doj-ogr-00023446). Prior to leaving, Inmate 3 had asked Epstein not to kill himself while Inmate 3 was his cellmate.
WHAT THIS SHOWS AND DOES NOT SHOW: The July 23 incident is exhaustively documented in BOP, FBI, and USMS records. The cellmate threat, premature suicide watch removal, and subsequent destruction of the video from this date constitute a documented pattern. However, the documents do not resolve whether the July 23 incident was self-harm, an attack, or a staged event.