Epstein suicide note said to be sealed in ex-cellmate's court file

A purported Jeffrey Epstein suicide note is sealed inside the federal case file of Nicholas Tartaglione, the former Briarcliff Manor police officer now serving four consecutive life sentences for orchestrating four 2016 murders. Tartaglione told The New York Times that he found the note in July 2019, in the weeks after Epstein was discovered with a strip of cloth around his neck at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan and before Epstein died on Aug. 10, 2019.

The alleged note, Tartaglione said, was written on paper from a yellow legal pad and tucked inside a book or graphic novel. He described it as including the phrase “time to say goodbye.” That detail has pushed the case beyond another round of Epstein speculation and into a narrower question: what, if anything, can be authenticated about the paper, the chain of custody and the circumstances under which a jailhouse discovery was made.

The New York Times has asked U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Karas in White Plains to unseal the note, arguing that Tartaglione has publicly discussed it and that a two-page chronology referencing the alleged note was included in recent Justice Department disclosures tied to Epstein. Karas ordered the parties to respond to the unsealing request by May 4. The Justice Department’s Epstein library, updated under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, now includes prior disclosures and redacted materials, but federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York told ABC News they did not know of any Epstein suicide note.

Epstein’s death was ruled a suicide by hanging by the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner. A 2023 report from the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General examined the Bureau of Prisons’ custody, care and supervision of Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center and documented major failures in the jail’s response, later calling for reforms. Those failures remain central to why any contemporaneous note, if it exists and can be verified, matters at all: it could add context to the final days of a detainee whose death has fueled public distrust for years.

Tartaglione’s own case has added another layer of notoriety. He was convicted in April 2023 of 11 murder counts, four counts of kidnapping resulting in death, one count of kidnapping conspiracy and one count of narcotics conspiracy, then sentenced to four consecutive life terms. His sealed file now sits at the intersection of two separate prison stories, one about a notorious financier’s last days and another about a former officer convicted of orchestrating multiple killings. Whether the alleged note reshapes the record or simply deepens the dispute, the decision now rests with the court.