A suicide note that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is said to have written before his death has been kept from public release after being sealed by the court.
The New York Times previously reported on the possibility of such a note, pointing to a claim from Epstein’s former cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, that appeared in a timeline detailing events surrounding the financier’s death.
The extensive chronology turned up among a large batch of materials connected to the continuing Epstein investigation. That collection included various documents, photographs and emails, many of them significantly redacted.
While no note has been made public within those files, the timeline reportedly indicates that Tartaglione — identified using the initials NT — told investigators that Epstein had left him a written message.
From prison in California, Tartaglione allegedly described portions of what he said the note contained, offering what he portrayed as a glimpse into Epstein’s state of mind in the days before he died.
“What do you want me to do, bust out crying? Time to say goodbye,” the note said, per the Times.
The report added that early efforts to authenticate the note were unsuccessful, but that Tartaglione’s attorney later confirmed it was legitimate. The chronology did not specify how that confirmation was reached.
In another development, the judge handling Tartaglione’s separate murder case directed his legal team to turn over the note to federal court in White Plains, New York. It has since been sealed along with other materials, with attorney-client privilege cited as the reason for keeping it from public view.
Tartaglione, a former police officer, is serving a life sentence for the 2016 killings of four people — charges he has repeatedly denied.
In the period before Epstein’s death, he was found on his cell floor with injuries to his neck — injuries that were initially attributed to an assault by Tartaglione.
A Bureau of Prisons memo included in the Epstein Files states that Epstein at first said his cellmate had tried to kill him. About a week later, he reportedly walked back that claim and told officials he had ‘never had any issues’ with Tartaglione and felt safe being housed with him.
After the episode was treated as a ‘suicide attempt’, Epstein was relocated within the facility and placed on suicide watch for a short time.
Tartaglione has said that during Epstein’s absence from the cell, he discovered the alleged note, which he claimed was tucked inside a graphic novel.
“I opened the book to read and there it was,” Mr. Tartaglione said: a piece of yellow paper ripped from a legal pad.
According to his version of events, the message said investigators had been looking into Epstein for months and had ‘found nothing,’ before continuing: “What do you want me to do, bust out crying? Time to say goodbye.”
A court spokesperson declined to confirm whether the note exists, per the Times.
On Aug. 10 — a little more than two weeks after the earlier incident — Epstein was found dead in his cell. His death was officially ruled a suicide as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.