Judge releases purported Jeffrey Epstein suicide note

CNN

By Katelyn Polantz, Aleena Fayaz, Dan Berman, CNN

(CNN) — A federal judge unsealed a purported suicide note from Jeffrey Epstein on Wednesday.

The unverified and undated document was placed on the court docket in the case of a former cellmate of the late convicted sex offender who said he had found the note.

The note — which is not signed — reads, in part:

“They investigated me for month – found NOTHING!!!

“It is a treat to be able to chose ones time to say goodbye.”

“NO FUN – NOT WORTH IT!!

The cellmate said the note was from Epstein’s unsuccessful suicide attempt in July 2019, weeks before he was found dead in his cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. A medical examiner ruled that he died by suicide.

The court’s release of the record on Wednesday comes after the Justice Department said it had released millions of documents in its possession related to Epstein.

The existence of a purported suicide note was first reported by The New York Times, which shared last week that the note had been concealed from the public for almost seven years. The Times had asked District Judge Kenneth Karas to make public the reported note and other documents related to the cellmate’s criminal case, and the Justice Department did not oppose the transparency.

“There appears to be a strong public interest in the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death as described in the unsealing motion. That said, because the Government has no knowledge as to … the accuracy of the factual narrative described in the unsealing motion, the Government defers to the court,” the department wrote to Karas on Monday, indicating that it did not know if the purported note is legitimate.

CNN has reached out to DOJ for comment.

The note was reportedly discovered in July 2019 by Epstein’s cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer convicted of quadruple murder. The cellmate had said he revived Epstein during the initial unsuccessful suicide attempt. A law enforcement source and a source familiar with the incident told CNN at the time that Epstein was found in his Manhattan jail cell with marks on his neck.

“Jeffrey Epstein tried killing himself when he was in the cell with me. I woke up, I brought him back with CPR. And to prove this point, Jeffrey Epstein wrote a suicide note,” Tartaglione told influencer and writer Jessica Reed Kraus last year.

The note “was in my book, yeah, when I got back into the cell, I opened my book to read, and there it was. And he wrote it and stuck it in the book,” he added.

Tartaglione asserted his lawyers had handwriting experts authenticate the note, the Times reported.

The outlet included those statements in arguing to the judge late last month that the note should now be public.

There are still questions around Epstein’s first reported suicide attempt.

It was not clear in July 2019 to jail officials whether those injuries, which were not serious, were self-inflicted or the result of an assault, sources told CNN at the time. Epstein told authorities he was beaten up and called a child predator, the sources said.

Epstein also initially accused Tartaglione of trying to kill him, but he later recanted that story. In the days after, he told a prison psychologist that Tartaglione had not threatened to harm him and that he had no recollection of the incident, according to a document labeled “Post Suicide Watch Report.”

A report from the incident included in the released files said Epstein was found “lying in the fetal position on the floor with a homemade fashioned noose around his neck.”

Epstein stated, “I have no interest in killing myself” on July 24, the day after his reported suicide attempt, according to the psychologist’s report.

He reiterated that during an examination again the next day. “I am too vested in my case to fight it, I have a life and I want to go back to living my life,” he told the psychologist, the report said.

Epstein was then placed on suicide watch in the Metropolitan Correctional Center. He later killed himself in the same jail, an event which has been surrounded by conspiracy theories questioning whether he actually died by suicide.

The Department of Justice said in a memo last year there is no evidence Epstein was murdered, and it released 10 hours of jailhouse security footage that shows no one entered Epstein’s jail cell on the day he died.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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CNN’s Isabelle Khurshudyan contributed to this report.