A suicide word purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein in a Manhattan jail has been saved secret for almost seven years, locked up in a New York courthouse.
A cellmate stated he found the word in July 2019, after Mr. Epstein was discovered unresponsive with a strip of fabric round his neck. Mr. Epstein survived that incident however weeks later was discovered lifeless within the jail.
The word was finally sealed by a federal choose as a part of the cellmate’s personal felony case, in accordance with paperwork and interviews. Which means investigators scrutinizing Mr. Epstein’s high-profile death lacked what may have been a key piece of proof.
On Thursday, The New York Instances petitioned the choose to unseal the word, which stated it was “time to say goodbye,” the cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, recalled. Whereas Mr. Tartaglione talked about the word on a podcast final 12 months, the scrawled message has remained hidden from public view, even at a time of unprecedented transparency across the authorities’s investigations into Mr. Epstein. Since December, the Justice Division has launched tens of millions of pages of paperwork associated to the sexual predator.
The Instances has not seen the word and couldn’t discover it within the Epstein information. A Justice Division spokeswoman stated the company had not seen it.
However a cryptic two-page chronology within the information describes how the word turned tousled in Mr. Tartaglione’s messy authorized case. The chronology says that Mr. Tartaglione’s attorneys authenticated the word, although it doesn’t clarify how. If it was written by Mr. Epstein, the message may present insights into his mind-set within the weeks earlier than he died hanging from a bunk mattress.
The Justice Division spokeswoman stated that in response to a federal regulation demanding the discharge of the federal government’s Epstein information, the company “underwent an exhaustive effort to gather all information in its possession,” together with these from the Bureau of Prisons and the Workplace of the Inspector Common.
Mr. Epstein’s loss of life, at age 66, was ruled a suicide by the New York Metropolis medical expert. However revelations of safety lapses contained in the now-shuttered Manhattan Correctional Heart have spawned numerous theories about how he died and whether or not he was murdered. When jail officers requested Mr. Epstein about purple marks on his neck after the July incident, he informed them that Mr. Tartaglione had attacked him and that he was not suicidal.
Mr. Tartaglione, a former police officer charged with a quadruple murder, has lengthy denied assaulting Mr. Epstein. Bureau of Prisons information present {that a} week after the preliminary accusation towards his cellmate, Mr. Epstein told officials that he had “by no means had any points” with Mr. Tartaglione and felt secure being housed with him.
Convicted in 2023, Mr. Tartaglione is now serving 4 life sentences. He’s pursuing an attraction and maintains that he’s harmless.
Acquired a confidential information tip? The New York Instances wish to hear from readers who need to share messages and supplies with our journalists.
In current interviews by cellphone from a federal jail in California, Mr. Tartaglione gave his model of how he stumbled on the word.
After the July episodeMr. Epstein was moved to a distinct a part of the jail and briefly positioned on suicide watch. Round then, Mr. Tartaglione stated, he discovered the word in his cell, tucked right into a graphic novel.
“I opened the e-book to learn and there it was,” Mr. Tartaglione stated: a bit of yellow paper ripped from a authorized pad.
The word stated that investigators had regarded into Mr. Epstein for a lot of months and “discovered nothing,” Mr. Tartaglione recalled. He stated the message continued alongside the traces of: “What would you like me to do, bust out crying? Time to say goodbye.”
Mr. Tartaglione gave the word to his attorneys, he stated, as a result of it may have been useful if Mr. Epstein continued to assert Mr. Tartaglione had tried to harm him.
The word was not talked about within the official investigations into Mr. Epstein’s deathtogether with a 2023 report by the Justice Division’s Workplace of the Inspector Common. The OIG declined to remark.
However the timeline doc launched as a part of the Epstein information summarizes the word’s journey by the justice system. It’s unclear why the doc, which is titled “Chronology” and refers to inmates and attorneys by their initials, was created or who wrote it.
The timeline says that on July 27, 2019, 4 days after Mr. Epstein’s obvious suicide try, Mr. Tartaglione met with “BB” — his lead lawyer, Bruce Barket — and informed him about discovering the word.
When a guard stated Mr. Tartaglione was not allowed to go to his cell to retrieve the word, Mr. Barket informed his shopper to present it to the subsequent lawyer who visited him, the doc says. Mr. Barket then referred to as “JW” — one other lawyer, John Wieder — and requested him to select up the word from their shopper.
The timeline signifies that the attorneys tried twice within the subsequent few days to have the word authenticated, with out success. They did authenticate the word in late 2019 or early 2020, the chronology says. Mr. Barket declined to remark for this text.
“My attorneys on the time wished to verify, you realize, I didn’t write it,” Mr. Tartaglione stated in a July 2025 interview with the podcast host Jessica Reed Kraus. He stated they’d “handwriting consultants” look at the word.
The choose overseeing Mr. Tartaglione’s case, Kenneth M. Karas, who sits within the federal district courthouse in White Plains, finally ordered the word to be turned over to the court docket, in accordance with Mr. Tartaglione and Mr. Wieder. In an interview, Mr. Wieder informed The Instances that he drove the word to the courthouse and gave it to a clerk. He couldn’t recall what it stated.
The word seems to have develop into enmeshed in a protracted dispute amongst Mr. Tartaglione’s attorneys, main Decide Karas to nominate an out of doors lawyer to look into the battle, in accordance with public filings. Paperwork associated to the dispute had been sealed in an effort to defend attorney-client privilege, the filings say. The choose finally issued a quick order that disqualified Mr. Wieder from the case, citing a separate, sealed order that apparently defined why. Mr. Wieder declined to touch upon the disqualification.
A court docket spokesman declined to touch upon the existence of any sealed doc. Such information, he stated, are positioned in court docket vaults for safekeeping.
Seamus Hughes contributed reporting.
