So what if he deleted his own tapes. Like you said, they are HIS tapes. (Who uses tape anymore?)
They care more about these videos than Epsteins. Gee, I wonder why?
Because the demand sent to him probably indicated that all electronic records must be maintained.
I wouldn’t doubt that he uses tape...he is a cheap guy. But in reality, people refer to videos in all forms as “tapes”. It is most likely on a hard drive.
Unless his security can show an established policy where all security video is deleted on a “regular basis” (ex. They delete them every rolling 30 days) he is screwed. And if he says this, it better apply to ALL of the video—not just this particular set of cameras.