Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cellmate claims to have evidence that the Trump administration wanted the disgraced financier dead and left him unprotected “on purpose,” according to a document obtained by the Daily Beast.
Nicholas Tartaglione, a quadruple murderer and former police officer, filed a pardon/commutation petition last summer in which he claimed that Epstein was deliberately exposed to violence in the hope that he would not survive long enough to stand trial.
Prior to Epstein’s death on Aug. 10, 2019, which officials ruled a suicide, jail bosses decided that America’s most high-profile prisoner should share a cell with an accused mass murderer for reasons that have never been explained.
Tartaglione had a reputation for extreme violence and a self-confessed hatred of child sex offenders. Tartaglione—who Epstein told prison guards had tried to kill him three weeks before he was found dead—claims “it is no coincidence” that he was “deliberately” moved into the same jail as Epstein and “placed in the same cell” as the convicted child sex offender.
In a 21-page petition obtained by the Daily Beast, Tartagloine says that he believes the Trump administration wanted Epstein “dead.”
Trump, 79, has repeatedly denied any knowledge or involvement in Epstein’s criminal activities, but has long been haunted by his decades-long association with the uber-wealthy pedophile.
The well-connected financier was found hanged in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York City, while awaiting trial over child sex trafficking offences.
References to the president and his many high-society and political associates identified in the Epstein files would likely have featured heavily during the public hearings.
The circumstances around Epstein’s death remain controversial, and many in Epstein’s circle—including his brother, Mark, his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, his former butler, and his legal team—do not believe that he took his own life.
This week, outspoken podcaster Joe Rogan, once a Trump supporter, also blasted the government for placing Epstein in a cell with Tartaglione. “It’s weird that they took a guy who is one of the most high-profile defendants ever, and you put him in jail with a mass murderer. Kind of crazy,” he said.
Reports into Epstein’s death blamed widespread institutional failings, but they were riddled with inconsistencies. A prison psychologist who saw Epstein in the weeks before his death reported that he said suicide was “against his religion” and insisted he was too cowardly to hurt himself because he couldn’t stand pain. Epstein’s lawyer, Reid Weingarten, later told a judge overseeing Epstein’s case: “At or around the time of his death we did not see a despairing or despondent person.”
On Thursday, CBS News reported a document in the Epstein files that showed investigators flagged an orange-colored figure on jail surveillance video moving toward Epstein’s locked housing tier around 10:39 p.m. on Aug. 9, 2019—despite earlier official assurances that no one entered that area that night.
The FBI’s observation memo described the image as “possibly an inmate,” while the DOJ inspector general’s review treated it as a corrections officer.
Around three weeks before Epstein died, he was discovered semiconscious in his cell with injuries to his neck. He told guards Tartaglione had attempted to strangle him, before later withdrawing the complaint, saying he couldn’t remember what happened.
Tartaglione, who was moved out of Epstein’s cell after that incident, has denied attacking the financier and even claimed that he had tried to save Epstein’s life, having discovered him on the floor with a “piece of string” around his neck.
“I never touched the man,” Tartaglione wrote in a September 2019 letter to the New York Daily News. “I despise anyone who hurts children, but whatever was going to happen to him, I was not going to be a part of it.”
Despite this, Tartaglione admitted in the same letter to the Daily News that he had been a curious choice of cellmate for Epstein. “The staff here at MCC had hundreds of inmates to choose from yet I was their first choice,” Tartaglione wrote.
Tartaglione has now written a petition for a pardon to the president.
“It is no coincidence that prior to trial I was transferred to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan and deliberately placed in the same cell as Jeffrey Epstein,” he wrote.
He explained that the bloody and violent nature of his crime was well-known to his prosecutor, Maureen Comey, who was also the lead prosecutor in the Epstein case.
He claims that there were several attempts made on his own life after he had been unwittingly dragged into the twisted tale of Jeffrey Epstein. “I clearly was not protected on purpose, nor was Epstein. I truly believe that the government wanted both Epstein and me dead,” he wrote.
The petition also includes obvious attempts to curry favor with the president. He makes accusations against Comey, the daughter of Trump nemesis James Comey, who has since been fired from the DOJ.
He says she tried to get Epstein to implicate Trump in exchange for his freedom, but also claims that Epstein “told me that President Trump was not involved with Epstein’s crimes.”
The former police officer also claims he was framed for the kidnapping and murders of four men. He was convicted in 2024 and is serving four consecutive life sentences, meaning he is unlikely ever to be released.
A spokesperson for White House told the Beast, “Anyone is able to submit a pardon request—much like everything else the Daily Beast writes, no one should take their garbage seriously. President Trump is the final decider on all clemency and pardon requests.” The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.
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