Federal judge unseals alleged Epstein suicide note in cellmate trial

Epstein died by suicide in custody in 2019; his victims of sex trafficking remain affected by his crimes.
They investigated me for months — FOUND NOTHING!!!
Epstein's alleged words in the note discovered by his cellmate weeks before his death in federal custody.

In the long shadow cast by Jeffrey Epstein's death in federal custody, a handwritten note — discovered by his convicted murderer cellmate after a 2019 suicide attempt — has finally entered the public record, unsealed by a federal judge as evidence in that cellmate's criminal trial. The document, which lay hidden even as millions of pages of Epstein-related material were released in the name of transparency, offers a glimpse into the mind of a man simultaneously defiant and resigned. Its emergence raises enduring questions about institutional accountability — how a note written by one of the most scrutinized figures in modern American legal history could remain unknown to the very agency charged with prosecuting him. History rarely closes cleanly around its most contested chapters.

  • A handwritten note from Jeffrey Epstein — cryptic, furious, and laced with references to choosing one's own death — has been unsealed in open court for the first time, years after it was quietly buried.
  • The Justice Department's own spokeswoman admitted she had never seen the document, a stunning gap given that Epstein was among the most closely watched figures in federal custody.
  • Nicholas Tartaglione, a man convicted of four murders, sits at the center of this unsealing — it was he who found the note, and it is his trial that forced it into the light, raising the question of what role, if any, he played in Epstein's death.
  • The note's contents — rage at investigators who 'found nothing,' and a chilling line about the privilege of choosing one's moment to say goodbye — complicate the official narrative of a straightforward suicide.
  • For Epstein's victims, the unsealing delivers no resolution, only another fragment of a story that institutions have repeatedly failed to tell in full.

In July 2019, Nicholas Tartaglione — a convicted murderer sharing a cell with Jeffrey Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan — discovered a handwritten note after finding his cellmate unresponsive, a cloth wrapped around his neck. Weeks later, Epstein was dead at 66, never having faced trial for charges of sex trafficking minors. The note Tartaglione found that day would remain sealed for years.

On Wednesday, Federal Judge Kenneth M. Karas unsealed the document as evidence in Tartaglione's ongoing criminal trial. Its contents are striking in their emotional range: Epstein rails against investigators who he claims 'found nothing,' despite charges that ultimately reached back years into his past. Then the note turns stranger — 'It is a treat to be able to choose one's time to say goodbye,' he wrote, before closing with two underlined words: 'NO FUN. NOT WORTH IT!!'

The circumstances surrounding the note's suppression are themselves troubling. Even as the Justice Department released millions of pages of Epstein-related documents in a stated effort at transparency, this particular piece of paper — discovered in federal custody, written by one of the most scrutinized defendants in recent memory — apparently escaped the attention of the agency responsible for his prosecution. A department spokeswoman told The New York Times she had never seen it before it became public.

Tartaglione's trial now forces these questions into the open: why the note remained sealed, what federal officials knew and when, and whether other evidence about Epstein's final days remains hidden. For the survivors of his trafficking operation, the unsealing offers no comfort — only another incomplete fragment of a case that has never been fully reckoned with.

In July 2019, Nicholas Tartaglione found a piece of paper in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan. His cellmate, Jeffrey Epstein, had just survived what appeared to be a suicide attempt—a cloth wrapped around his neck, his body found unresponsive. Tartaglione, himself a convicted murderer serving time for four killings, discovered the note in the aftermath. Weeks later, Epstein would be found dead in that same facility, dead at 66, before he could face trial on charges of sex trafficking minors.

On Wednesday, Federal Judge Kenneth M. Karas unsealed that note as evidence in Tartaglione's criminal case. The document had remained sealed for years, even as the Justice Department released millions of pages of material related to Epstein in what was presented as a transparency initiative. Now, for the first time, the alleged words Epstein wrote before his death became public record.

The note reads like a man in rage and resignation at once. "They investigated me for months — FOUND NOTHING!!!" it begins, referring to authorities. Despite that claim, charges had materialized anyway, reaching back years into his past. Then came the stranger passages, the ones that suggested something darker than mere frustration. "It is a treat to be able to choose one's time to say goodbye," he wrote. "Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!!" The note ends with two words, underlined for emphasis: "NO FUN. NOT WORTH IT!!"

The unsealing raises immediate questions about how such a document was handled in the first place. A Justice Department spokeswoman told The New York Times that she had never seen the note before it became public. That statement itself is striking—a document written by one of the most scrutinized figures in recent American criminal history, discovered in federal custody, and somehow it had escaped the attention of the very agency responsible for prosecuting his case. The note had been sealed, kept from public view even as the broader Epstein archive was released to journalists and researchers seeking to understand the full scope of his crimes and the systems that enabled them.

Tartaglione's role in all this is peculiar. He was the one who found the note, the one who reported it. He is also a man convicted of killing four people. His trial, which prompted the unsealing, centers on whether he played any role in Epstein's death—whether the man who discovered the note had anything to do with the circumstances that followed. The note itself, if authentic, suggests Epstein's state of mind in those final weeks: defiant about the investigation, cryptic about his intentions, and ultimately resigned to an end he felt he could control.

What remains unclear is why the note stayed sealed for so long, why federal officials claim unfamiliarity with it, and what other documents or evidence related to Epstein's death might still be hidden from view. The unsealing is a small window into a case that has generated enormous public interest and deep skepticism about the official account of what happened in that cell. For the victims of Epstein's sex trafficking operation, the note offers no answers—only another fragment of a story that has never fully been told.

They investigated me for months — FOUND NOTHING!!!
— alleged note written by Jeffrey Epstein
It is a treat to be able to choose one's time to say goodbye
— alleged note written by Jeffrey Epstein
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Inventor

Why does this note matter now, years after his death?

Model

Because it's evidence in a murder trial, and because it was hidden. A document written by a man in custody, found by his cellmate, and it stayed sealed while everything else about Epstein got released. That gap itself is the story.

Inventor

Do you think the note is genuine?

Model

The judge thought it was genuine enough to unseal it. But that's not really the point. The point is that it existed, someone found it, and the Justice Department claims they didn't know about it. That's either incompetence or something else.

Inventor

What does the note actually tell us about what happened?

Model

It tells us what Epstein was thinking—angry at investigators, oddly philosophical about death, resigned. Whether it's a suicide note or something else, it shows a man who felt cornered and was thinking about an end.

Inventor

And Tartaglione? Why is he on trial?

Model

Because he was the cellmate. Because he found the note. Because authorities want to know if he had anything to do with Epstein's death, or if he's just the witness who discovered the body.

Inventor

Does the note answer that question?

Model

No. It only raises more. Why was it sealed? Why didn't the Justice Department know about it? What else is still hidden?

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