Federal prosecutors on Monday sided with The New York Occasions, which petitioned a choose in White Plains, New York, to unseal a purported suicide observe by Jeffrey Epstein.
The observe is sealed as a part of prison proceedings involving Epstein’s one-time cellmate, convicted quadruple assassin Nicholas Tartaglione, who instructed the paper he found the observe tucked inside a ebook after Epstein’s unsuccessful suicide try in July 2019.
The Occasions requested the court docket to unseal the observe, arguing that as a result of Tartaglione talked about it, there’s nothing left to maintain secret.
Federal prosecutors agreed, writing to the choose that there was not a compelling curiosity in maintaining the merchandise sealed.
“If Tartaglione has publicly mentioned issues occurring within the Curcio proceedings, then his public statements represent a waiver of the necessity for continued sealing as to the issues he has publicly disclosed,” U.S. Lawyer Jay Clayton wrote in a letter Monday.
It should now be as much as Decide Kenneth Karas to determine whether or not to permit the general public to see one other piece of long-concealed proof associated to the late intercourse offender, who hanged himself in jail in August 2019, earlier than prosecutors may put him on trial for intercourse trafficking minors.
Epstein was present in his cell on July 23, 2019, “with a home made noose normal round his neck,” in keeping with a Bureau of Prisons incident report.
Undated photos of Jeffrey Epstein supplied by the US Division of Justice, January 30, 2026.
Martin Bureau/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Epstein was “mendacity within the fetal place on the ground of his cell carrying a t-shirt and boxers. He was respiratory closely and was loud night breathing. … His neck was purple with no abrasions,” the report stated. Epstein was “decided to have sustained a round line of erythema on the base of the neck and friction marks on the entrance of neck.”
In line with the report, at first Epstein alleged that his cellmate, Tartaglione, had tried to kill him — an allegation he didn’t repeat. He later stated he couldn’t recall what occurred. Tartaglione has denied making an attempt to hurt Epstein.
Tartaglione first talked about the existence of the purported suicide observe in a podcast final yr.
“It stated one thing like ‘FBI, you recognize, regarded into me for months and located nothing.’ Then he wrote, ‘What would you like me to do? Cry about it?’ And he was bizarre as a result of he wrote a smiley face, after which he wrote ‘time to say goodbye,'” Tartaglione stated on the podcast.
Federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York didn’t know of any suicide observe written by Epstein, sources accustomed to the matter beforehand instructed ABC Information, however a two-page chart contained within the Justice Division’s Epstein information referenced it.
“Someday between 7/23 and seven/27, NT discovered the observe,” the chart stated, referencing Nicholas Tartaglione by his initials.
The chart stated Tartaglione’s lawyer, Bruce Barket, authenticated the observe in January 2020 however didn’t say how.
Barket beforehand declined to touch upon the matter to ABC Information as a result of the observe is sealed.
Epstein, a rich financier who owned two personal islands within the Virgin Islands, got here below investigation for allegedly luring minor ladies to his seaside residence in Palm Seaside, Florida, for massages that turned sexual. He served 13 months of an 18-month sentence for intercourse crimes costs after reaching a controversial non-prosecution settlement in 2007 with the U.S. legal professional’s workplace in Miami.
In 2019, Epstein was indicted on costs that he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor ladies at his properties in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Seaside, Florida, amongst different places,” and used money funds to recruit a “huge community of underage victims,” a few of whom have been as younger as 14 years outdated.
Epstein died in jail whereas awaiting trial on August 10, 2019. His loss of life was ruled a suicide by hanging by the New York Medical Examiner’s Workplace, and the Justice Division concurred with that discovering.
Tartaglione was convicted in 2023 and sentenced in 2024 to 4 consecutive phrases of life imprisonment. His enchantment is at the moment pending earlier than the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals.
In the event you or somebody you recognize is battling ideas of suicide — free, confidential assist is offered 24 hours a day, 7 days every week. Name or textual content the nationwide lifeline at 988.
