NEW YORK: A federal judge on Wednesday released a document described as a suicide note purportedly written by the late Jeffrey Epstein and including the line: “It is a treat to be able to choose ones time to say goodbye.”
Epstein, the disgraced financier and accused sex trafficker, was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 in what was ruled a suicide. The handwritten note was said to have been found by his former jail cellmate, convicted murderer and ex-police officer Nicholas Tartaglione.
US District Judge Kenneth Karas, who oversaw the Tartaglione case, released the note after a request by The New York Times, which reported its existence last week.
Karas ruled that the note qualified as a judicial document subject to the public’s right of access because it was submitted in connection with Tartaglione’s criminal case. Tartaglione is serving four consecutive life sentences for drug-related murders. Karas oversaw that case.
A scan of the note in the court document unsealed on Wednesday shows a handwritten sentence saying, “They investigated me for month – FOUND NOTHING!!!”, and mentioned years-old charges.
“It is a treat to be able to choose one’s time to say goodbye,” the note says.
“Watcha want me to do – Bust out cryin!!” it continues. “NO FUN – NOT WORTH IT.”
The note amounts to only seven lines of text, leaving uncertainty over its purported meaning.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) did not immediately respond to the BBC’s request for comment.
A DOJ spokesperson previously told NBC News in a statement that the department had not seen the note. They highlighted the DOJ’s “exhaustive effort” in collecting and publicly releasing millions of other Epstein-related files in recent months.
The note was accompanied by a May 2021 letter submitted to the court by John A Wieder, a former lawyer for Tartaglione. The lawyer described the note as “the original document” that federal Judge Kenneth M Karas ordered be provided to the court at that time.
The New York Times had petitioned the judge in White Plains, New York, to unseal the note, arguing there was no need to keep it secret. The newspaper was also seeking other documents that the judge did not rule on.
Federal prosecutors have also pushed for the note to be released, saying that there was no longer a compelling interest in keeping it under seal and that Tartaglione’s public statements about the note “constitute a waiver of the need for continued sealing”.
In his order unsealing the note on Wednesday, Judge Karas concluded that the note “is subject to the presumption of public access“.
“The Court comfortably concludes that public access to the Note promotes ‘a measure of accountability’ as well as ensures that the public will ‘have confidence in the administration of justice,'” Karas wrote.
He added that the court agrees that Tartaglione’s repeated public discussion of the note’s contents “constitutes waiver of the attorney-client privilege as to the document” and that sealing is not justified on that basis.
Security failures at the prison on the night of Epstein’s death were identified in a federal report and there has been a constant stream of speculation about how he died.
