Purported Epstein Suicide Note Is Released

A federal judge released the note, which Jeffrey Epstein’s former cellmate said he found in a graphic novel. The New York Times has not authenticated that Mr. Epstein wrote it.

Listen · 6:05 min

By Benjamin Weiser, Jan Ransom and Steve Eder, May 6, 2026

A federal judge has released a suicide note purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein that was sealed for years as part of the criminal case of his cellmate.

“They investigated me for month — FOUND NOTHING!!!” the note begins, adding that the result was charges going back many years.

“It is a treat to be able to choose one’s time to say goodbye,” the note continued.

“Wasatch want me to do — Bust out cryin!!” the note reads.

“NO FUN,” it concludes, with those words underlined. “NOT WORTH IT!!”

Mr. Epstein’s cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, said he discovered the note in July 2019 after Mr. Epstein was found unresponsive with a strip of cloth wrapped around his neck. Mr. Epstein survived that incident, but he was found dead weeks later at age 66 in the now shuttered Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan.

The note was made public on Wednesday by Judge Kenneth M. Karas of Federal District Court in White Plains, N.Y., who oversaw the cellmate’s case. The judge acted after The New York Times petitioned the court last Thursday to unseal the document and published an article in which Mr. Tartaglione described the note and how it came into his possession.

The Times has not authenticated the note, which was placed on the court docket Wednesday evening. The note repeats a saying — “bust out cryin” — that Mr. Epstein wrote in emails. It included another phrase — “No fun” — that Mr. Epstein also used in emails, as well as in a separate note found in his jail cell at the time of his death.

The document unsealed on Wednesday remained hidden from public view even as the Justice Department released millions of pages of documents related to Mr. Epstein in a move required by a new law. The Times searched those records and did not find a copy of the note. (A spokeswoman from the Justice Department said the agency had never seen it.)

The search did turn up a cryptic two-page chronology that described how the note became caught up in Mr. Tartaglione’s complicated legal case. The chronology said that Mr. Tartaglione’s lawyers authenticated the note, though it did not explain how.

Mr. Tartaglione, a former police officer in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., shared a cell with Mr. Epstein while awaiting trial in a quadruple murder case. He told The Times in recent phone interviews from a California prison that he found the note in a graphic novel after Mr. Epstein was taken out of their cell after the apparent suicide attempt.

Editor’s Note: Credit to the New York Times, for not placing this important news update behind their paywall. That’s public service to America. –DrWeb

Continue/Read Original Article: Jeffrey Epstein’s Purported Suicide Note Is Released by Federal Judge – The New York Times