A handwritten message that Jeffrey Epstein’s former cellmate says he discovered following the financier’s initial suicide attempt in 2019 has now been released to the public through an unexpected legal avenue – not through Justice Department document releases, but via separate court proceedings.
Federal officials maintain they had no prior knowledge of the document’s existence.
“The note has not yet been authenticated, and this is the first time DOJ is seeing it as well,” the department stated Thursday when questioned about why the document wasn’t included in the extensive Epstein file releases.
Nicholas Tartaglione reported finding the handwritten message inside a book following the incident where the convicted sex offender was discovered in their shared Manhattan federal detention facility cell with bedsheet material wrapped around his neck. Following this event, Epstein was relocated to different housing, where he would later be found deceased several weeks afterward in what was ruled a suicide.
Tartaglione, a former law enforcement officer who was then facing homicide charges, explained he turned the note over to his legal team as protection against potential accusations that he had injured Epstein during their time as cellmates. At the time, Epstein was being held while awaiting trial on sex trafficking allegations.
The document had been stored in a federal court vault in New York since 2021. It became entangled in legal disputes between Tartaglione and his attorneys regarding their representation in his murder case. All materials related to this conflict were kept confidential by judicial order due to attorney-client privilege protections.
Tartaglione, a former suburban New York police officer who later became involved in drug trafficking, received a conviction in April 2023 for strangling one victim and executing three others. He claimed to have found the note while reading in his detention cell.
The New York Times filed a petition with U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas requesting the note’s release, pointing out that Tartaglione, now serving life imprisonment, had discussed it publicly. The judge granted the request Wednesday, stating that Epstein’s privacy concerns regarding the note had been “vastly reduced” following his death.
“They investigated me for month — found nothing!!!” reads the brief message, which contains some illegible portions and remains unverified. “It is a treat to be able to choose” the “time to say goodbye,” the note continues. “Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!!
“NO FUN. NOT WORTH IT!!” the message concludes.
Detention facility records indicate Epstein sustained friction marks and neck irritation from the suspected July 23, 2019, suicide attempt. Correctional officers reported he was breathing laboriously but remained conscious. Epstein initially told guards that Tartaglione had assaulted him, but subsequently withdrew this claim.
Following the incident, jail administrators placed Epstein under suicide watch for 31 hours before reducing his status to psychiatric observation, which remained his classification when he took his own life on August 10, 2019.
The Justice Department raised no objections to making the note public. Deputy U.S. Attorney Sean Buckley informed the judge that the public had legitimate interest in understanding the circumstances of Epstein’s death.
Buckley also explained that while two Justice Department attorneys participated in the 2021 proceedings between Tartaglione and his legal counsel, the judge prohibited them from sharing any information from those sessions to preserve attorney-client privilege. Therefore, even if they had viewed the note, they were legally prevented from disclosing its existence.
