Ex-cellmate says he found suicide note from Jeffrey Epstein following earlier suicide attempt

A suicide note purportedly written by the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is locked inside the case file of his former cellmate, convicted quadruple murderer Nicholas Tartaglione, who told The New York Times it was written on paper from a yellow legal pad and tucked inside a book.

According to the Times, Tartaglione found the note in July 2019, after Epstein unsuccessfully tried to kill himself — about two weeks before Epstein died by suicide in his lower Manhattan jail cell.

Epstein was found in his cell on July 23, 2019, “with a homemade noose fashioned around his neck,” according to a Bureau of Prisons incident report.

Epstein was “lying in the fetal position on the floor of his cell wearing a t-shirt and boxers. He was breathing heavily and was snoring. … His neck was red with no abrasions,” the report said. Epstein was “determined to have sustained a circular line of erythema at the base of the neck and friction marks on the front of neck.”

According to the report, At first Epstein alleged that his cellmate, Tartaglione, had tried to kill him, an allegation he did not repeat. He later said he could not recall what happened. Tartaglione has denied attempting to harm Epstein.

Tartaglione first mentioned the existence of the purported suicide note in a podcast last year.

“It said something like ‘FBI, you know, looked into me for months and found nothing.’ Then he wrote, ‘What do you want me to do? Cry about it?’ And he was weird because he wrote a smiley face, and then he wrote ‘time to say goodbye,'” Tartaglione said on the podcast.

The note is now part of a sealed file in Tartaglione’s criminal case. The New York Times on Thursday filed a petition with a federal judge to have the alleged note unsealed, arguing that Tartaglione has publicly discussed it and that a two-page chronology document about the alleged note was included in the Justice Department’s recent disclosures of Epstein files.

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas ordered the parties to the case to respond to the Times unsealing request by May 4.

Federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York did not know of any suicide note written by Epstein, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News, but a two-page chart contained in the Justice Department’s Epstein files referenced it.

“Sometime between 7/23 and 7/27, NT found the note,” the chart said, referencing Nicholas Tartaglione by his initials.

The chart said Tartaglione’s lawyer, Bruce Barket, authenticated the note in January 2020 but did not say how.

Reached by ABC News on Thursday, Barket declined to comment because the matter is sealed.

“The entire Epstein affair, as it relates to Nick, is under seal, not just the supposed note, if there is one,” Barket said. 

After the first possible suicide attempt, Epstein himself denied he was suicidal during a “suicide risk assessment” he underwent while in jail.

“Inmate Epstein denied any past or present suicidal ideation, intention or plan. He denied ever engaging in any suicide attempts or self-injurious behavior in the past,” the evaluation said. “He stated he lives to have fun, to enjoy life, and to learn. He said his future plans include fighting his case and going back to his normal life.”

Epstein was taken off suicide watch the following day, July 24, 2019, but was kept under psychological evaluation.

“Mr. Epstein stated, ‘I have no interest in killing myself,’ a staff psychologist at the Metropolitan Correctional Center wrote in a report. “He explained although his situation is ‘not perfect’ due to his being incarcerated, he noted he has ‘lots to do for [his] legal case.’ He described having a ‘wonderful life,’ to include interactions with ‘interesting people and projects.’ He said ‘it would be crazy’ to take his life. He furthered, ‘I would not do that to myself.'”

Epstein, a wealthy financier who owned two private islands in the Virgin Islands, came under investigation for allegedly luring minor girls to his seaside home in Palm Beach, Florida, for massages that turned sexual. He served 13 months of an 18-month sentence for sex crimes charges after reaching a controversial non-prosecution agreement in 2007 with the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami.

In 2019, Epstein was indicted on charges that he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations,” and used cash payments to recruit a “vast network of underage victims,” some of whom were as young as 14 years old.

Epstein died in jail while awaiting trial on August 10, 2019. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging by the New York Medical Examiner’s Office, and the Justice Department concurred with that finding.

Tartaglione was convicted in 2023 and sentenced in 2024 to four consecutive terms of life imprisonment.  His appeal is currently pending before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.