A suicide note reportedly penned by Jeffrey Epstein while in prison has allegedly been kept under wraps for nearly seven years. The disgraced financier's letter is said to have been locked away in a vault at a New York courthouse.
A fellow inmate claims he discovered the note in July 2019, after Epstein was found unresponsive with a strip of cloth around his neck. Epstein survived that incident, but weeks later was found dead in the prison.
On Thursday, The New York Times petitioned the judge to unseal the note, which cellmate Nicholas Tartaglione claimed said it was 'time to say goodbye'. The note had been sealed by a federal judge as part of the cellmate's own criminal case, according to documents and interviews. This meant that detectives investigating Epstein's high-profile death were denied access to what could have been a crucial piece of evidence. A two-page document within the records reportedly outlines how the scrawled message became entangled in Tartaglione's legal proceedings.
It has been reported that Tartaglione's lawyers authenticated the note, though no explanation has been provided as to how this was carried out. Tartaglione did reference the note on a podcast last year, however the contents were never disclosed, despite widespread calls for transparency surrounding the investigation. Since December, the Justice Department has released millions of pages of documents relating to Epstein.
Tartaglione, a former police officer, is currently serving four consecutive life sentences for the murder of four people. Prison records reveal that a week after Epstein accused his cellmate of attacking him in July 2019, he subsequently reversed his claim, stating they 'never had any issues'.
A Justice Department spokeswoman informed the New York Times that the agency had not seen the note and that it 'underwent an exhaustive effort to collect all records in its possession,' including those from the Bureau of Prisons and the Office of the Inspector General.
Tartaglione claims he discovered the note tucked inside a graphic novel after Epstein was relocated to a different section of the jail. The note allegedly indicated that investigators 'found nothing' from their enquiries into the sex offender, according to Tartaglione. He stated that the message read: 'What do you want me to do, bust out crying? Time to say goodbye.'
Epstein was discovered dead in his cell at a federal jail in Manhattan, New York, in August 2019, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was officially ruled as suicide.
