Jeffrey Epstein wrote a suicide note before his 2019 death in a New York City federal lockup, his cellmate claims – but its contents remain secret seven years after his death because a judge ordered it sealed, a new report revealed Thursday.
Epstein, 66, reportedly proclaimed his innocence in the note, and moaned that investigators had “found nothing” on him despite months of searching, the New York Times reported.
“What do you want me to do, bust out crying?” the note reportedly read, in part.
“Time to say goodbye,” it added.
It was scrawled on a piece of yellow legal paper and tucked into a book in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, and was reportedly found by his former cellmate — disgraced cop and convicted killer Nicholas Tartaglione.
“I opened the book to read and there it was,” Tartaglione told the Times from prison, recalling what he could about the note’s contents.
Tartaglione was Epstein’s cellmate after the pedo’s July 2019 arrest, but was transferred out after jail staff found severe red marks on Epstein’s neck – with Epstein accusing Tartaglione of trying to strangle him.
The ex-cop always denied that he attacked the well connected sex offender — and some have speculated the marks on Epstein’s neck were really from an initial suicide attempt just weeks before he succeeded the next month.
Tartaglione found the note inside a graphic novel that had been left behind after Epstein was transferred to a new cell, he told the Times. Tartaglione said he gave it to his lawyers to support his claims that he never tried to hurt Epstein.
The note was verified as having been written by Epstein within a year, according to The Times.
But it has remained under seal by a federal judge as part of Tartaglione’s ongoing efforts to clear his name for the four murders he convicted of carrying out.
The note has not appeared in the trove of Epstein files released by the Department of Justice this year, with the agency telling the Times their investigators had never seen it.
Instead, it is reportedly sitting in a White Plains courthouse where an attorney for Tartaglione hand-delivered it after being ordered to turn it in by the judge handling Tartaglione’s case.
Some writings were found in Epstein’s cell after he succeeded in killing himself, though they appeared to be little more than lists of grievances he had about the jail, DOJ files show.
Epstein’s death and any clues about his frame of mind before have become a flashpoint for conspiracy theorists, with some spinning stories from a series of jail failures on the night he killed himself – namely that the guards assigned to him had fallen asleep, and that cameras overlooking his cell were not running.
Claims that Tartaglione attempted to murder Epstein after they were bunked together have also fueled theories, though the ex-cop has insisted he never touched his cellmate.
Jail records seem to agree, with Epstein telling staff a week after the supposed murder attempt that he “never had any issues” living with Tartaglione.