On Wednesday, a judge unsealed a note that Nicholas Tartaglione said Jeffrey Epstein left for him inside a book, a document that had been kept locked away in a courthouse vault for years while it sat amid separate litigation. The case renewed focus on Tartaglione, who was awaiting trial when he shared a cell with Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in 2019 and who later described the note’s origin to his lawyers and, eventually, to the public.
Tartaglione retired on a disability pension in 2008, later, authorities said, turning to dealing drugs. Prosecutors described him as the mastermind of the kidnapping and murder of four men in 2016, including allegations that one man stole money meant for cocaine, was lured to a bar, tortured to locate the money, and then strangled with a zip tie. Prosecutors said three of the victims’ friends and relatives who were present were shot in the head, and that all four men were buried on Tartaglione’s property.
Tartaglione was arrested in December 2016 and remained awaiting trial three years later when he ended up sharing a cell with Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. Epstein’s later death in August 2019 drew scrutiny from federal investigators and from people who questioned the official narrative of what happened to him in custody—questions that have now expanded to include the contents and timing of the note that Tartaglione said he found.
The first suspected suicide attempt tied to that cellmate arrangement took place in the early hours of July 23, 2019, according to jail records. Epstein was found in the cell with Tartaglione around 1:30 a.m., alive but with marks on his neck, and jail staff placed Epstein on suicide watch elsewhere in the facility. During that time, an officer said Epstein sat up and accused Tartaglione of trying to kill him, adding that Epstein claimed Tartaglione tried to extort money and threatened to beat him.
That allegation quickly became public, and within a day NBC News reported that jail officials questioned Tartaglione and were investigating whether Epstein had been assaulted. But in an interview with jail staff a week later, Epstein recanted, according to records, saying he had never had issues with Tartaglione, was not threatened by him, and did not “want to make up something that isn’t there.” Epstein also told staff he was not suicidal, and after 31 hours on suicide watch he was downgraded to psychiatric observation. Officials later said Epstein was without a cellmate when he was found dead on Aug. 10, 2019, and that they found a handwritten note in his cell that appeared to be about grievances over filthy conditions rather than a suicide note.
A key dispute behind the current release is how and when the separate “suicide note” Tartaglione described first surfaced. A chronology included in recently released Justice Department files about Epstein’s case said Tartaglione told his lawyer about the note four days after the July 23 incident. Yet jail staff made no mention of the note in a report recounting an interview with Tartaglione late that month, which included the statement that Tartaglione said he did not understand Epstein’s motive and what Epstein was trying to do, and that Tartaglione said he believed Epstein was having a heart attack.
The note Tartaglione described was later submitted as evidence in Tartaglione’s drug murder case and placed under seal amid a dispute over his legal representation. Tartaglione also mentioned it last year in a podcast interview from prison, saying he found it after opening his book: “It was in my book. When I got back into the cell, I opened my book to read, and there it was,” he said.
The newly unsealed note itself is difficult to interpret, according to the account of its contents. One line says, “They investigated me for month — found nothing!!!” Another passage includes what it describes as “a treat to be able to choose” the “time to say goodbye,” and continues: “Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!!”
For people who say they were among Epstein’s victims or survivors’ advocates, the note’s delayed release has not resolved questions. Alicia Arden, an actor and model who filed a 1997 police report about Epstein that went nowhere, said it was “hurtful” because she did not know whether Epstein “really wrote it” or, if he did, when it was written. Arden’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, said the note “simply deepens the mystery,” adding that Epstein’s victims want truth and transparency.
Jennifer Freeman, an attorney for survivors, said the document distracts from calls to scrutinize how the government handled Epstein’s case and to hold accountable those who enabled him, according to the reporting. Freeman said, “We cannot allow the narrative to become muddied by speculation over whether this note is real.”