Judge releases note linked to Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide attempt
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas ordered the release of a note that jeffrey epstein’s former cellmate said he found after Epstein’s first suspected jail suicide attempt. The note had been sealed and kept in a courthouse vault for nearly five years. Its release on Wednesday puts a previously hidden document into the public record.
Kenneth Karas in White Plains
Karas acted in White Plains, New York, after petitioned last week to unseal the note and other documents in a case involving Nicholas Tartaglione. Tartaglione, a former police officer serving a life sentence for killing four people, said on a podcast last year that he discovered the note in a book in his cell.
The note was tied to Epstein’s jail death but had not appeared in government reports examining the circumstances around it. That omission kept the document outside the public account of what investigators and jail officials reviewed after Epstein was found dead.
Jeffrey Epstein note text
The released note includes the lines, “They investigated me for month — found nothing!!!” and “It is a treat to be able to choose” the “time to say goodbye,” according to the text released by the judge. It also says, “Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!!”
The note ends with “NO FUN,” underlined, and “NOT WORTH IT!!” The text does not say who wrote it. Tartaglione claimed he found it after Epstein was found on July 23, 2019, with a strip of bedsheet around his neck.
Metropolitan Correctional Center
Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Aug. 10, 2019, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. A medical examiner ruled the death a suicide, and authorities pointed to missteps by jail personnel, including browsing the internet and sleeping when they should have been checking on Epstein.
For readers following the case, the release adds one more document to the public record around Epstein’s death, but it does not settle who wrote the note or what role it played in Tartaglione’s account. Those questions now sit alongside the long-closed seal that kept the paper out of view for nearly five years.
