Overview
- The New York Times, which petitioned U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas on Thursday, asked the White Plains court to unseal a handwritten note linked to Jeffrey Epstein.
- Nicholas Tartaglione, Epstein’s former cellmate, says he found the note in July 2019 tucked in a graphic novel after Epstein was discovered with neck marks at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
- The note remains under seal in a courthouse vault as part of Tartaglione’s criminal case, and it reportedly included lines such as “What do you want me to do, bust out crying? Time to say goodbye.”
- The Justice Department says the document is not in its massive recent releases and was not reviewed in the 2023 inspector general report, underscoring that investigators did not examine it.
- A two-page chronology in the released records says Tartaglione’s lawyers authenticated the note by early 2020, though the method is unclear, and court filings show the document became tangled in attorney disputes that prompted sealed orders.