A possible suicide note written by Jeffrey Epstein and discovered by his former cellmate has been kept from the public for nearly seven years, with even the US Department of Justice saying it has never seen the document, according to The New York Times.
Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer serving four life sentences for a drug-related quadruple murder, told the newspaper he found the note between the pages of a graphic novel in late July 2019 while he was Epstein's cellmate at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City. The note was written on a piece of yellow paper, in which Epstein reportedly wrote that investigators had “found nothing” after months of scrutiny, and added: “What do you want me to do, bust out crying? Time to say goodbye.”
The document is referenced in a cryptic chronology of events released by the DOJ as part of the so-called Epstein files, but the department has not included the actual note in its online repository. A DOJ spokeswoman told The New York Times that the department had “undergone an exhaustive effort to collect all records” and had not seen the note. The DOJ compiled roughly six million documents, posting nearly 3.5 million online, but withheld others containing child pornography or privileged information.
The note has been stored in a courthouse vault after a federal judge sealed it during a dispute between Tartaglione's lawyers. The New York Times reports that it petitioned US District Judge Kenneth Karas on Thursday to unseal the note. The timeline shows that Tartaglione's lawyer Bruce Barket had the note authenticated in late 2019 or early 2020, and that Judge Karas ordered it turned over to the court. Another lawyer, John Wieder, drove the note to the courthouse but said he could not recall its contents. The judge later disqualified Wieder from the case and sealed all related documents on grounds of attorney-client privilege.
Epstein’s death on 10 August 2019 was ruled a suicide by the New York City Medical Examiner's Office, but polls indicate that around half of American adults believe he was murdered. The existence of the note is likely to fuel further speculation, as it was not mentioned in official investigations, including a 2023 DOJ Inspector General report.
