Epstein Note Before Suicide Attempt: "Watcha Want Me To Do? Bust Out Crying"

A note Jeffrey Epstein’s former cellmate claimed he found after the millionaire sex offender’s first suspected jail suicide attempt was made public Wednesday, years after being sealed and locked in a courthouse vault as part of an unrelated legal dispute. U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas in White Plains, New York, ordered the release of the note after The New York Times asked him last week to unseal it and other documents in a case involving the former cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione. Federal prosecutors did not oppose the request. Few people had known about the note until Tartaglione, a former police officer serving a life sentence for killing four people, mentioned it last year on writer Jessica Reed Kraus’ podcast. Tartaglione claimed he discovered the note in a book after Epstein was found on the floor of their cell at a Manhattan federal jail on July 23, 2019, with a strip of bedsheet around the financier's neck. That was about three weeks before Epstein was found dead in his cell in what authorities concluded was a suicide. “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!!” It is unclear who wrote the note Tartaglione claimed to have found. It wasn’t mentioned in the lengthy government reports examining the circumstances of Epstein’s death, nor did it surface in the Justice Department’s recent release of files on the late financier. In a written ruling, Karas said he weighed the privacy interests of third parties, including Epstein, before ruling to release the note. He said existing case law suggests that privacy interests of a deceased person, such as Epstein, "are vastly reduced and disclosure of the deceased’s information is unlikely to ‘work a concrete harm.‘” According to jail records, Epstein had friction marks and skin irritation on his neck from the suspected July 23 attempt. Jail officers said he was breathing heavily but responsive. One officer reported at the time that Epstein said he believed Tartaglione had tried to kill him, according to a memo included in the Justice Department’s files. Jail officials placed Epstein on suicide watch for 31 hours after the incident before downgrading him to psychiatric observation — his status when he killed himself. According to jail records, he denied trying to harm himself, telling a jail psychologist that suicide was against his Jewish religion and that he was a “coward” who didn’t like pain. A chronology included in the files states that Tartaglione told his lawyer about the note four days after the suspected July 23 attempt. The note was later submitted as evidence in Tartaglione’s criminal case and was placed under seal amid a dispute over his legal representation.