\n<\/p>\n
A note that Jeffrey Epstein<\/a> ‘s former cellmate claims to have found after the financier’s first suspected jail suicide attempt in 2019 has been made public<\/a> \u2014 not because of the Justice Department’s release of records<\/a> related to the sex offender, but as part of an unrelated case.<\/p>\n The government’s explanation: It never had the note.<\/p>\n \u201cThe note has not yet been authenticated, and this is the first time DOJ is seeing it as well,” the department said Thursday when asked why it wasn’t part of the voluminous Epstein files.<\/p>\n Nicholas Tartaglione said he discovered the handwritten note in a book after the disgraced financier was found in their cell at a Manhattan federal jail with a strip of bedsheet around his neck. Epstein was subsequently moved to a different cell, where a few weeks later, he was found dead<\/a>, alone, in a suicide.<\/p>\n Tartaglione, a former police officer then facing murder charges, said he gave the note to his lawyers to protect himself against any claim that he might have harmed Epstein while they were in custody together. Epstein was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges at the time.<\/p>\n Since 2021, the note had been in a vault in federal court in New York. It somehow became part of proceedings between Tartaglione and his lawyers over their representation in his murder case. Anything related to that dispute was sealed out of the public’s eye by the judge because it involved attorney-client privilege.<\/p>\n Tartaglione, a former suburban New York officer turned drug dealer, was convicted<\/a> in April 2023 in the strangulation death of one man and the execution-style murders of three other people. He said he discovered the note in a book he was reading in his jail cell.<\/p>\n The New York Times petitioned U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas to release the note, noting that Tartaglione, now serving a life sentence, has talked publicly about it. The judge agreed to the request Wednesday, adding that Epstein’s privacy interests in the note had been \u201cvastly reduced\u201d due to his death.<\/p>\n \u201cThey investigated me for month \u2014 found nothing!!!\u201d said the short note, which is hard to decipher in some places and has not been authenticated. \u201cIt is a treat to be able to choose\u201d the \u201ctime to say goodbye,\u201d the note continues. \u201cWatcha want me to do \u2014 Bust out cryin!!<\/p>\n \u201cNO FUN. NOT WORTH IT!!\u201d the note concludes.<\/p>\n According to jail records, Epstein had friction marks and skin irritation on his neck from the suspected July 23, 2019, suicide attempt. Jail officers said he was breathing heavily but responsive. Epstein told a guard Tartaglione had attacked him, but later recanted.<\/p>\n Jail officials subsequently placed Epstein on suicide watch for 31 hours before downgrading him to psychiatric observation, which was his status when he killed himself<\/a> on Aug. 10, 2019.<\/p>\n The Justice Department did not object to releasing the note. Deputy U.S. Attorney Sean Buckley told the judge the public was interested in the circumstances surrounding Epstein\u2019s death.<\/p>\n Buckley also said that while two Justice Department lawyers were included in the proceedings between Tartaglione and his attorneys in 2021, they were barred by the judge from disclosing anything from those hearings to protect his attorney-client privilege. So if they did see the note, they weren’t allowed to tell anyone about it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n