Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged jailhouse note is now unsealed, as a former inmate describes him unraveling behind bars.
The Note
As reported on Friday’s AM Update, a handwritten note allegedly written by Jeffrey Epstein after his first suicide attempt was unsealed Wednesday, years after his former cellmate said he discovered it inside their jail cell.
The document remained a secret after it was placed in the criminal case file of Nicholas Tartaglione, a former New York police officer then awaiting trial in a quadruple murder case. U.S District Judge Kenneth Karas released the one-page note in response to a request from The New York Times.
The note was allegedly written in July 2019, just days after Epstein’s arrest on federal sex trafficking charges. Epstein and Tartaglione were housed together in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) where, shortly after his arrest, Epstein was found with injuries to his neck.
The disgraced financier initially told jail officials that Tartaglione had attacked him, an accusation his fellow inmate denied. After that incident, Epstein was moved out of the shared cell and placed in a cell by himself. Tartaglione later told his lawyers he found the note tucked inside a graphic novel and turned it over as proof that he did not attempt to strangle Epstein.
In the barely legible note, Epstein appeared to deny the allegations against him, writing:
“They investigated for months — found nothing!!! So 16 year old charges results! It is a treat to be able to choose one’s time to say goodbye. Watcha wants me to do — bust out crying!! NO FUN — not worth it!!”
“Bust out crying” is a reference to the 1931 movie Little Rascals, a line Epstein also included in a September 2016 email to his brother, according to The Tab. While the handwriting does appear similar to some his other handwritten documents, others look different.
The Authenticity
The Department of Justice told NPR the note has not been authenticated and that officials are only now seeing it for the first time. Bruce Barket, a former Tartaglione lawyer, told the outlet his legal team never had the validity officially confirmed either.
“We didn’t ever authenticate it [with] any real handwriting analysis or something like that,” he said. “The surrounding circumstances of how we came into possession of it, [Tartaglione’s] account, and looking at a similar writing that was found in the cell after [Epstein] actually killed himself led us to be comfortable with the fact that Epstein had written it.”
One of those similarities is the phrase “no fun,” which also appeared in another jailhouse note from where he complained about the conditions inside the facility, according to The New York Post.
Epstein was ultimately found dead in his cell just a couple of weeks later.
Epstein’s State of Mind
On Thursday, TMZ spoke to former MCC inmate and Epstein’s suicide watch companion, Bill Mersey, who said he believes the note is authentic. When asked if the contents “[rang] true to the person you interacted with for so many hours in terms of just the way he speaks,” Mersey said it does.
“It seems to me he was probably very stressed being in the Special Housing Unit [SHU] because that’s a really bad environment. That’s the worst of the worst in the prison. If you wind up in protective custody, you’re with the bad boys and they yell and scream all night. It’s just harrowing to be in the SHU, is what I understand,” he explained. “But I think that he was probably very stressed at that moment and was just scribbling.”
Mersey told TMZ he saw Epstein’s mental state decline after a judge denied him bail. “I watched him ratchet down emotionally after he couldn’t get bail from the judge. He couldn’t give up his island and his airplane and get out, as he had before,” he recalled. “He was facing life behind bars for the rest of his life, and he was not ready for prison. He confessed that he’d been bullied by black kids when he was growing up, and he was afraid of black inmates. He was afraid of inmates. I mean, most of his conversations centered around, ‘How am I going to deal with this place?’ He was really apprehensive.”
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