A suicide note purportedly written by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is sealed inside the case file of his former cellmate, convicted quadruple murderer Nicholas Tartaglione, who told The New York Times the note was on yellow legal-pad paper and tucked inside a book.
Tartaglione said he found the note in July 2019 after Epstein unsuccessfully tried to kill himself about two weeks before Epstein died by suicide in his Manhattan jail cell. According to a Bureau of Prisons incident report, Epstein was found on July 23, 2019, “with a homemade noose fashioned around his neck.” The report said Epstein was “lying in the fetal position on the floor of his cell wearing a t-shirt and boxers. He was breathing heavily and was snoring. … His neck was red with no abrasions,” and that he “sustained a circular line of erythema at the base of the neck and friction marks on the front of neck.”
Initially, Epstein alleged that his cellmate, Tartaglione, had tried to kill him; he later said he could not recall what happened. Tartaglione has denied attempting to harm Epstein.
Tartaglione first mentioned the alleged note on a podcast last year, describing its contents: “It said something like ‘FBI, you know, looked into me for months and found nothing.’ Then he wrote, ‘What do you want me to do? Cry about it?’ And he was weird because he wrote a smiley face, and then he wrote ‘time to say goodbye,'” Tartaglione said.
The note is now part of a sealed file in Tartaglione’s criminal case. The New York Times filed a petition with a federal judge to have the note unsealed, arguing Tartaglione has publicly discussed it and that a two-page chronology about the note was included in recent Justice Department disclosures of Epstein files. U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas ordered the parties to respond to the Times’ unsealing request by May 4.
Sources familiar with the matter told ABC News that federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York did not know of any suicide note, but a two-page chart in the Justice Department’s Epstein files referenced it. The chart states, “Sometime between 7/23 and 7/27, NT found the note,” using Tartaglione’s initials, and notes that Tartaglione’s lawyer, Bruce Barket, authenticated the note in January 2020, without detailing how. Barket declined to comment to ABC News, saying the matter is sealed.
After the first possible suicide attempt, Epstein denied being suicidal in a jail “suicide risk assessment,” saying he “denied any past or present suicidal ideation, intention or plan” and denied prior attempts. He told evaluators he “lives to have fun, to enjoy life, and to learn” and planned to fight his case and return to his normal life. Epstein was taken off suicide watch on July 24, 2019, but remained under psychological evaluation. A staff psychologist recorded Epstein saying, “I have no interest in killing myself,” that his situation was “not perfect” but he had “lots to do for [his] legal case,” and that it “would be crazy” to take his life.
Epstein, a wealthy financier who owned private islands in the Virgin Islands, had come under investigation for allegedly luring minor girls to his Palm Beach, Florida, home for sexual encounters. He served 13 months of an 18-month sentence after a controversial 2007 non-prosecution agreement in Miami. In 2019, Epstein was indicted on charges alleging he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls” at his homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach and used cash payments to recruit a network of underage victims, some as young as 14.
Epstein died in jail while awaiting trial on August 10, 2019. The New York Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his death a suicide by hanging, a finding the Justice Department agreed with.
Tartaglione was convicted in 2023 and in 2024 was sentenced to four consecutive terms of life imprisonment. His appeal is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.