A short, hard-to-decipher handwritten note that Jeffrey Epstein’s former cellmate claims to have discovered years ago was made public this week, revealing new details about the days leading up to the disgraced financier’s death — and prompting the Justice Department to acknowledge that it had never seen the document before.
The note, penned in a tight, often illegible scrawl, surfaced more than six years after Epstein was found dead in his Manhattan federal jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. It had been sitting in a vault in federal court in New York since 2021, sealed as part of a dispute between Nicholas Tartaglione, a former suburban police officer turned drug dealer, and his then-defense attorneys over their representation in his murder case.
Tartaglione, who was convicted in April 2023 of strangling one man and carrying out execution-style murders of three others, was Epstein’s cellmate at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in July 2019. According to the account Tartaglione has given publicly and in court filings, he found the note in a book he was reading shortly after Epstein was discovered with a strip of bedsheet tied around his neck — an incident jail officials treated as a suspected suicide attempt. “They investigated me for month — found nothing!!!” the note reads in part. “It is a treat to be able to choose” the “time to say goodbye,” it continues. “Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!! NO FUN. NOT WORTH IT!!”
Tartaglione has said he gave the note to his lawyers at the time to shield himself from any allegation that he might have harmed Epstein while they shared a cell. The note remained under seal until The New York Times asked U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas to release it, arguing that Tartaglione had already spoken about it publicly. Karas agreed on Wednesday, noting that any privacy interest Epstein held in the document had been “vastly reduced” by his death.
The Justice Department’s response to the note’s release was a statement of surprise. “The note has not yet been authenticated, and this is the first time DOJ is seeing it as well,” the department said Thursday. The statement came after media outlets questioned why the note was not included in the voluminous Epstein files released by the government. Deputy U.S. Attorney Sean Buckley told the judge that the public had a legitimate interest in the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death. But Buckley also offered an explanation for why the department had not produced the note earlier: two Justice Department lawyers were included in the 2021 proceedings between Tartaglione and his attorneys, but the judge barred them from disclosing anything from those hearings to protect Tartaglione’s attorney-client privilege. Even if they saw the note at that time, they were not permitted to tell anyone about it.
Jail records obtained after Epstein’s death documented that he had friction marks and skin irritation on his neck from the July 23, 2019, incident. Officers reported that he was breathing heavily but responsive. Epstein initially told a guard that Tartaglione had attacked him, but later recanted that claim. Following the suspected attempt, jail officials placed Epstein on suicide watch for just 31 hours before downgrading him to psychiatric observation — a lower level of monitoring. It was under that status, weeks later, on Aug. 10, 2019, that Epstein was found dead in his cell alone. His death was ruled a suicide.
The release of the note adds a fragment of potential context to an episode that continues to generate public scrutiny, in part because of the high-profile nature of Epstein’s circle and the questions that have swirled around the circumstances of his death. But with the note unauthenticated and its provenance unverified beyond Tartaglione’s account, it remained unclear whether it would settle any of the lingering doubts — or merely deepen them.