A federal judge in New York has ordered the release of a handwritten note attributed to Jeffrey Epstein, a document that sat under seal for years while questions about the disgraced financier’s death continued to multiply. U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas ruled the note qualifies as a judicial document and that the public’s right of access outweighs any remaining privacy concerns, given that Epstein is dead and details about the note had already entered the public domain.
The note surfaced in the case of Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer convicted of multiple murders who was briefly housed with Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. Tartaglione claimed he found the note after Epstein’s first suspected suicide attempt in July 2019. AP News reported that Tartaglione said he discovered the document inside a book after Epstein was found on July 23, 2019, with a strip of bedsheet around his neck.
Epstein was found dead in his cell on August 10, 2019, while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide, but skepticism has never faded, and the contents of this note, along with the circumstances of its discovery, do little to settle the matter.
The note’s language suggests frustration and despair. One line reads: “They investigated me for month, found nothing!!!” Another states: “It is a treat to be able to choose one’s time to say goodbye.” The note concludes with the words “NO FUN. NOT WORTH IT!!” as Fox News Digital reported.
But who actually wrote the note remains an open question. The document has not been independently authenticated. Breitbart noted that some phrases in the note match language Epstein used in prior emails and in another note found after his death, though that alone does not confirm authorship.
Mark Epstein, Jeffrey’s brother, told Fox News Digital flatly that he does not believe the note is legitimate. He said he had not seen it before its release.
“We know the event in July was not a suicide attempt. Hence, there would not be a note from then. He was not in the same cell with NT after that.”
His two-word assessment of the note’s credibility: “Makes no sense.”
Tartaglione’s attorneys submitted the document as part of court proceedings, where it remained under seal for years, seven years, by Just The News’s count. The New York Times petitioned the court to unseal the note along with other materials tied to a legal inquiry into potential conflicts among Tartaglione’s defense attorneys.
Judge Karas sided with the Times on the note itself, writing that the public’s access rights were clear.
“The public has a strong presumptive right of access to certain judicial documents, established by the First Amendment, as well as a weaker presumptive right to all judicial documents, established at common law.”
The judge added that the common-law right of public access is “firmly rooted in our nation’s history” and provides “a measure of accountability” for federal courts while protecting the public’s “confidence in the administration of justice.”
Karas found that Tartaglione had waived attorney-client privilege by discussing the note’s contents publicly, including in interviews. With Epstein deceased and details already in the public domain, the court concluded that privacy concerns were limited.
The broader fight over Epstein-related records continues to play out across multiple fronts, including congressional subpoenas over the DOJ’s handling of Epstein files.
Prosecutors did not oppose unsealing the note, AP News reported. But the court stopped short of granting the Times’ broader request for additional documents, including attorney reports, hearing transcripts, and prior court orders. Karas directed attorneys for both sides to propose redactions and provide legal arguments before a final decision on those remaining materials.
The timeline around the note is itself worth scrutiny. Epstein had accused Tartaglione of assaulting him roughly a month before he was found dead. Tartaglione later told guards that Epstein had attempted to hang himself. The note was allegedly found after that first incident in July 2019, not after Epstein’s death in August.
Mark Epstein’s objection hinges on that distinction. If the July incident was not a genuine suicide attempt, as he maintains, then a suicide note from that period makes little sense. And if Epstein and Tartaglione were no longer cellmates after July, the chain of custody for the document grows murkier still.
The Washington Examiner reported that the note is not currently included in the DOJ’s online public Epstein files library, placing it outside the scope of the government’s own disclosure efforts even as a federal judge has now made it a matter of public record.
That gap between what the government has chosen to release and what courts are now forcing into the open is a pattern familiar to anyone following this case. The DOJ has faced sustained pressure, from Congress, from the press, and from the public, over its handling of Epstein-related materials.
The ripple effects of Epstein’s network continue to surface in unexpected places. The Gates Foundation recently ordered an outside review of Bill Gates’ connections to Epstein, and courts have dealt with Epstein-linked litigation involving other prominent figures.
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Correctional Center where Epstein died, a facility whose failures in monitoring him became their own scandal, has since closed. The institution that was supposed to keep one of the most high-profile defendants in modern American history alive long enough to face trial failed at the most basic level. No amount of unsealed notes changes that.
Separate revelations about individuals connected to Epstein’s orbit have also continued to emerge, including the suspension of a Kansas City pastor after her church discovered she had managed Epstein’s private island.
Judge Karas’s ruling opens one door while leaving others closed, at least for now. The court set a deadline for further filings on the remaining documents the Times sought, but the specific deadline was not disclosed. The broader collection of materials, attorney reports, hearing transcripts, prior court orders, could shed additional light on the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s time at MCC and the legal maneuvering that followed.
The note itself, whatever its origin, adds one more fragment to a story defined by missing surveillance footage, broken protocols, and convenient institutional failures. Whether Epstein wrote it, whether it reflects genuine suicidal intent, and why it sat under seal for years while the public demanded answers, none of those questions have been resolved by its release.
The Epstein case has become a test of whether powerful institutions will ever fully account for what happened inside that Manhattan jail cell. Accountability from federal courts in Epstein-linked litigation has come in fits and starts, often only when outside parties force the issue.
Seven years to unseal a single note. The public has a right to wonder what else is sitting in sealed files, and who benefits from keeping it there.
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