A handwritten note that may have been left by Jeffrey Epstein after an earlier 2019 jail incident has sat sealed inside a Manhattan federal courthouse for nearly seven years, quietly gathering dust while speculation runs wild outside. On April 30, 2026, The New York Times asked a judge to unseal the document, which prosecutors and defense lawyers had shifted into an entirely different case. The sealed record is tied to proceedings involving Epstein’s former cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, and could shed more light on what authorities knew in the weeks leading up to Epstein’s death.
What The Times Says
According to The New York Times, the two-page message was placed into Tartaglione’s court file, then later sealed by a federal judge, keeping it out of both investigators’ and the public’s view. The Times reports it has not seen the note, and a Justice Department spokeswoman told the paper the department has not seen it either. The outlet’s court filing says the note was first discovered after Epstein was found semiconscious in his cell in late July 2019.
Records Show What Happened In 2019
Government reviews and Bureau of Prisons records show that on July 23, 2019, Epstein was found with a homemade orange cloth around his neck. He was briefly placed on suicide watch and removed from that status days later. In a June 2023 review, the DOJ Office of the Inspector General concluded that the Metropolitan Correctional Center suffered serious lapses, from camera failures to missed rounds, complicating efforts to piece together exactly what happened that night.
How The Note Became Part Of Another Case
As reported by The New York Times, a sparse, two-page chronology in court records lays out how the note became entangled in Tartaglione’s criminal case. His lawyers later authenticated the handwriting. Tartaglione has previously said he found the note tucked into a book after the July 2019 incident, and the paper reports his recollection that the scrawl included the line, “time to say goodbye.” Because the text was filed in the cellmate’s case, a judge ordered it sealed, keeping the wording and any related forensic work off the public record.
Why It Matters Now
The Times’ request to unseal the note comes as federal releases of Epstein-related files have greatly expanded public access to internal records and interviews, even as courts and prosecutors keep other material under wraps. Earlier this year, the Justice Department posted millions of pages of Epstein records but acknowledged that significant documents remain sealed or heavily redacted, according to the Associated Press.
What Happens Next
A federal judge will now decide whether the public gets to see the note at all, weighing whatever evidentiary reasons were originally cited for sealing it against the transparency arguments raised by the Times. If the judge orders it unsealed, researchers, investigators, and survivors who have tracked the case for years will gain one more piece of the puzzle surrounding Epstein’s final weeks. If the seal stays in place, the note remains one more locked-away fragment in a case still driven by questions about what officials knew, and when.
