Epstein note: A US judge has released a suicide note purportedly written by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein weeks before his death in a New York jailhouse. Epstein's cellmate has said that he found the letter in a book following a failed suicide attempt by the disgraced financier, several weeks before his eventual August 2019 death.
"They investigated me for months -- Found NOTHING!!!" the text of the letter, written on lined paper, reads. "It is a treat to be able to choose one's time to say goodbye."
The text concludes with, "Watcha want me to do -- Bust out cryin!! No fun -- NOT WORTH IT!!"
The letter had been sealed for years as part of the cellmate's criminal proceedings, but was released by Judge Kenneth Karas of the US District Court for Southern New York after a request by the New York Times.
While the document has not been authenticated, its release comes as questions continue to swirl about the well-connected financier's death while awaiting sex trafficking charges.
His death was ruled a suicide, but numerous security lapses at the jail and missing CCTV footage have led to persistent doubts about the official account.
Epstein was found injured in his cell in late July 2019, in what officials said was a failed suicide attempt.
It was ahead of this earlier incident that the letter was purported to be written and stuffed into a graphic novel.
The Epstein saga has continued to roil American and British politics, as documents related to the expansive investigation into the financier's life have been released in previous months.
A note Jeffrey Epstein’s former cellmate claimed he found after the financier’s first suspected jail suicide attempt was made public Wednesday after it had been sealed and locked in a courthouse vault for nearly five years as part of an unrelated legal dispute.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas in White Plains, New York, ordered the note’s release after The New York Times petitioned last week to unseal it and other documents in a case involving the cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione.
Few people had known about the note until Tartaglione, a former police officer who is serving a life sentence for killing four people, mentioned it on a podcast last year. Tartaglione claimed he discovered the note in a book in his cell after Epstein was found on July 23, 2019, with a strip of bedsheet around his neck.
“They investigated me for month -- found nothing!!!” said the short note, which is hard to decipher in some places. “It is a treat to be able to choose” the “time to say goodbye," the note continues. “Watcha want me to do -- Bust out cryin!!”
“NO FUN,” the note concludes, with those words underlined. “NOT WORTH IT!!”
Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a federal jail in Manhattan, on Aug. 10, 2019, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
The medical examiner ruled it a suicide and authorities have pointed to a series of missteps by jail personnel — including browsing the internet and sleeping when they should've been checking on Epstein — for allowing him to take his own life.
It is unclear who wrote the note that Tartaglione claimed he found. It wasn’t mentioned in the lengthy government reports examining the circumstances of Epstein's death.
"They investigated me for months -- Found NOTHING!!!" the text of the letter, written on lined paper, reads. "It is a treat to be able to choose one's time to say goodbye."
The text concludes with, "Watcha want me to do -- Bust out cryin!! No fun -- NOT WORTH IT!!"
The letter had been sealed for years as part of the cellmate's criminal proceedings, but was released by Judge Kenneth Karas of the US District Court for Southern New York after a request by the New York Times.
While the document has not been authenticated, its release comes as questions continue to swirl about the well-connected financier's death while awaiting sex trafficking charges.
His death was ruled a suicide, but numerous security lapses at the jail and missing CCTV footage have led to persistent doubts about the official account.
Epstein was found injured in his cell in late July 2019, in what officials said was a failed suicide attempt.
It was ahead of this earlier incident that the letter was purported to be written and stuffed into a graphic novel.
The Epstein saga has continued to roil American and British politics, as documents related to the expansive investigation into the financier's life have been released in previous months.
A note Jeffrey Epstein’s former cellmate claimed he found after the financier’s first suspected jail suicide attempt was made public Wednesday after it had been sealed and locked in a courthouse vault for nearly five years as part of an unrelated legal dispute.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas in White Plains, New York, ordered the note’s release after The New York Times petitioned last week to unseal it and other documents in a case involving the cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione.
Few people had known about the note until Tartaglione, a former police officer who is serving a life sentence for killing four people, mentioned it on a podcast last year. Tartaglione claimed he discovered the note in a book in his cell after Epstein was found on July 23, 2019, with a strip of bedsheet around his neck.
“They investigated me for month -- found nothing!!!” said the short note, which is hard to decipher in some places. “It is a treat to be able to choose” the “time to say goodbye," the note continues. “Watcha want me to do -- Bust out cryin!!”
“NO FUN,” the note concludes, with those words underlined. “NOT WORTH IT!!”
Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a federal jail in Manhattan, on Aug. 10, 2019, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
The medical examiner ruled it a suicide and authorities have pointed to a series of missteps by jail personnel — including browsing the internet and sleeping when they should've been checking on Epstein — for allowing him to take his own life.
It is unclear who wrote the note that Tartaglione claimed he found. It wasn’t mentioned in the lengthy government reports examining the circumstances of Epstein's death.
