A suicide note allegedly written by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein has been quietly sealed in a New York courthouse for nearly seven years — kept from investigators and the public even as millions of pages of government records on Epstein were released, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Epstein’s former cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, said he discovered the handwritten note in July 2019, after Epstein was found on the floor of his cell with a homemade noose around his neck; BOP records say he was breathing heavily and appeared responsive. Tartaglione said the note was written on a piece of yellow legal pad paper and tucked inside a graphic novel Epstein had been reading.
According to Tartaglione, the note referenced that investigators had looked into Epstein for months and “found nothing,” before concluding: “What do you want me to do, bust out crying? Time to say goodbye.”
Tartaglione — a former Briarcliff Manor police officer who was convicted in April 2023 and sentenced to four consecutive life terms for the 2016 murders of four men in a drug conspiracy — said he gave the note to his attorneys at the time to use as a potential defense if Epstein accused him of assault. Tartaglione has maintained his innocence in those killings and is pursuing an appeal.
Epstein did, in fact, accuse Tartaglione of assaulting him following the July 2019 incident, claiming his cellmate had given him red marks on his neck. Bureau of Prisons records show that a week later, Epstein told officials he had no issues with Tartaglione and felt safe in the shared cell.
A federal judge eventually sealed the note as part of Tartaglione’s criminal case. It was never reviewed during any official investigation into Epstein’s death and does not appear among the roughly 3.5 million pages of Epstein-related records the Department of Justice released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which President Trump signed into law in November 2025. A DOJ spokesperson told the Times the agency had not seen the note, despite what the department described as an exhaustive effort to collect all relevant records.
A two-page document titled “Chronology” that was included in the DOJ’s Epstein file release appears to reference the note, with an entry reading: “Sometime between 7/23 and 7/27, NT found the note.” The origin of the document is unclear, and it is not known who created it.
Tartaglione’s attorneys attempted to authenticate the note on two occasions before Tartaglione’s lawyer reportedly authenticated it; the note has not been publicly released. It was never mentioned in official investigations surrounding Epstein’s death, including a 2023 report from the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General. Tartaglione had previously mentioned the note publicly on a podcast in July 2025, but the physical document had not been seen.
The New York Times petitioned a federal judge Thursday to unseal the note. U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas, who oversees Tartaglione’s case, set a Monday deadline for all parties to respond to the unsealing request, saying no extensions would be granted.
Epstein survived the July 2019 incident but was found dead in his cell on Aug. 10, 2019. Correctional officers Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, who were on duty that night, failed to perform required inmate counts and falsely completed forms stating they had done so. Officers entering Epstein’s cell at 6:33 a.m. found him unresponsive with a noose around his neck. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.
The New York City medical examiner ruled Epstein’s death a suicide. Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist hired by Epstein’s brother, told Fox News in October 2019 that the autopsy findings were more consistent with homicidal strangulation than suicidal hanging, citing fractures to both sides of Epstein’s larynx and his left hyoid bone. Noel and Thomas were charged by the DOJ in November 2019 with conspiring to defraud the United States by falsifying records; those charges were later dropped after both complied with a deferred prosecution agreement requiring them to admit fault, complete community service and cooperate with an inspector general review.
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