Nicholas Tartaglione, a former cellmate of Jeffrey Epstein, said he discovered a handwritten suicide note in a book during Epstein’s incarceration in New York, and the note was later made public through a court decision in another case. The disclosure did not come through a Justice Department release of materials connected to the sex offender, the department said, but instead through proceedings tied to Tartaglione’s own litigation over his representation.
Asked in court on Thursday why the note had not appeared earlier in what the government has disclosed about Epstein, the Justice Department said it was seeing the document for the first time. “The note has not yet been authenticated, and this is the first time DOJ is seeing it as well,” the department said.
The department’s explanation described a narrower understanding of what it possessed as the note surfaced in litigation. Tartaglione said he found the handwritten note after Epstein’s first suspected jail suicide attempt in 2019, when Epstein was later moved to a different cell and, weeks after that attempt, was found dead alone in a suicide.
Tartaglione, who was then a former police officer facing murder charges, told the court that he gave the note to his lawyers. He said he did so to protect himself against any claim that he harmed Epstein while the two were in custody together, according to the account of what was argued in the case. Epstein, at the time, was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
The court materials described the note as being hard to decipher in places and said it had been kept out of public view for years. The New York Times petitioned a U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas to release the note, arguing that Tartaglione had discussed it publicly. Karas agreed to the request on Wednesday, saying Epstein’s privacy interests in the note had been “vastly reduced” due to his death.
The note itself is quoted in the court filing record as including short lines and unclear handwriting. It includes the line: “They investigated me for month — found nothing!!!” and continues, “It is a treat to be able to choose” and “Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!!” It ends with “NO FUN. NOT WORTH IT!!” The filings also state the note has not been authenticated.
The proceedings also referenced what jail records described about Epstein’s 2019 suicide attempt, including friction marks and skin irritation on his neck. Jail officers said Epstein was breathing heavily but responsive, and the records say Epstein told a guard that Tartaglione had attacked him before Epstein later recanted.
After that suspected attempt, jail officials placed Epstein on suicide watch for 31 hours before downgrading him to psychiatric observation, a status that the accounts said he was on when he killed himself on Aug. 10, 2019. In court, the Justice Department did not object to releasing the note, with Deputy U.S. Attorney Sean Buckley telling the judge the public was interested in the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death.
Buckley also said two Justice Department lawyers were included in the 2021 proceedings between Tartaglione and his attorneys, but that the judge had barred disclosure of anything from those hearings because of attorney-client privilege. Buckley’s account thus tied the note’s earlier absence from government materials to the secrecy of those prior court disputes, rather than any decision by the department to withhold the document once it came into view.