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A federal judge in New York ordered the declassification of the alleged farewell note attributed to the magnate Jeffrey Epstein, a document that had remained sealed for nearly five years in the court records of his former cellmate.
The judge Kenneth Karas from the Southern District of New York included the document in the record this week following a formal request from The New York Times, which asked the court last week to release the writing and the circumstances under which it was found.
"They investigated me for months, and they found nothing!!!" the note begins.
The text continues: "It is a privilege to be able to choose the moment to say goodbye. What do you want me to do, cry? IT'S NOT FUN. IT'S NOT WORTH IT." The final phrases are underlined in the original document.
According to court records, Nicholas Tartaglione —a former New York police officer sentenced to life in prison for the quadruple murder of four men in 2016— stated that he found the note in July 2019, folded inside a book in his cell, written on yellow legal pad paper.
Tartaglione found him after Epstein was discovered unconscious with a strip of fabric around his neck on July 23, 2019 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan.
Epstein survived that first incident, but just two weeks later, on August 10, 2019, he was found dead in his cell at the age of 66, before his trial for sex trafficking of minors could take place.
The official autopsy determined death by hanging as a suicide, although the circumstances surrounding the death were fraught with irregularities that fueled theories for years regarding a possible homicide: two surveillance cameras in front of his cell malfunctioned, the guards on duty falsified records and were asleep, and Epstein had been removed from the suicidal risk monitoring protocol just six days after the first incident.
The accuracy of the report has not been independently verified by U.S. media.
The document also did not appear among the millions of pages that the Department of Justice published between December 2025 and January 2026, when political pressure on the Epstein case intensified following the massive release of files.
In November 2025, the House of Representatives approved by a wide majority a resolution that mandated the Department of Justice to disclose all files related to the case.
The Department of Justice issued an official memorandum in July 2025, closing the investigation, reaffirming suicide as the cause of death, and denying the existence of a client list or evidence of blackmail involving prominent figures.
The declassification of the note occurs at a time of increasing political pressure: Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick has already been questioned by Congress regarding his ties to Epstein, and this month, former Attorney General Pam Bondi and billionaires Leon Black and Bill Gates will have to answer questions from representatives about their connections to the tycoon.
Melania Trump also publicly denied any connection to Epstein in April, amidst the ongoing debate regarding the release of documents, while the main accomplice of the magnate, Ghislaine Maxwell, remains in prison after being convicted in December 2021 of sex trafficking.
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