A federal judge ordered the release on Wednesday of a purported suicide note written by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that had been kept under court seal for years as controversy persisted over his 2019 death in custody while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
“They investigated me for months — FOUND NOTHING!!,” the note reads, adding that the allegations dated back years.
“It is a treat to be able to choose one’s time to say goodbye,” the note continues. “Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin’!! NO FUN — NOT WORTH IT!!”
The existence of the note was first reported by the New York Times last week after veiled references to the message surfaced in the millions of pages of Epstein-related material that the Justice Department released earlier this year. Epstein’s former Manhattan correctional center cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, said he originally discovered it in July 2019 — weeks before Epstein’s death — after an incident in which Epstein was found unresponsive in his cell. Epstein survived that incident, but was found dead in his cell weeks later. His death has been ruled a suicide.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Karas, who oversaw a criminal case involving Tartaglione, ordered that the note be unsealed following a request by the Times. The document remained under seal despite the Justice Department’s legally mandated release of millions of documents related to its investigation into Epstein.
Lawyers for Tartaglione have said they authenticated the note, but they have not explained what they mean by that, and no court or investigative agency has vouched for the note’s authenticity. The note is scrawled on a single sheet of lined paper.
Tartaglione, a former police officer charged in a quadruple homicide, said on a podcast last year that he handed the note over to an attorney who provided it to the judge overseeing his case. That judge ordered the document sealed but agreed to make it public at the request of the Times.
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to two charges of soliciting prostitution, including one involving a minor. He was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019 and died in federal custody in a Manhattan jail cell later that year. Judges and lawmakers say that over decades, he abused, trafficked and molested scores of girls, many of whom have come forward in court and in other public forums.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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