For years, a handwritten note sat locked away in a courthouse, unseen by the public and absent from any official record.
Now, thanks to a legal push by The New York Times, Americans finally know what Jeffrey Epstein wrote in what authorities believe was a message left behind after his first attempt to take his own life.
The words are not what many might have expected.
Rather than expressing remorse or fear, the note reads as a taunt. Epstein wrote that investigators had combed through his affairs for months and walked away empty-handed.
He framed his ability to exit life on his own terms not as desperation, but as privilege. He questioned why anyone would expect him to weep over it.
The note ends with two phrases, both underlined for emphasis: “NO FUN” and “NOT WORTH IT!!”
The backstory behind how that piece of paper surfaced is nearly as striking as what is written on it. In July 2019, jail staff found Epstein in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City with a strip of cloth around his neck. He was still alive.
Following the incident, Epstein was moved to a different housing unit — and it was only then that his former cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, came across the note hidden inside a graphic novel.
Tartaglione, himself facing federal murder charges at the time, passed the note to his defense attorneys. His motivation was specific: Epstein had accused Tartaglione of being responsible for his injuries, not himself. The note became a piece of evidence in Tartaglione’s own legal battle.
In a striking omission, the note never appeared in the official inquiry into Epstein’s eventual death.
It existed in a legal gray zone, bouncing from one set of lawyers to another, as documented in a chronological account buried inside the voluminous Epstein files.
Tartaglione’s attorneys eventually confirmed the note’s authenticity, though the process by which they did so was not made part of the public record.
Judge Kenneth Karas solicited opinions from all parties before allowing the document to be unsealed.
Federal prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office, the same office that had handled the Tartaglione prosecution, weighed in that the public has a legitimate stake in understanding everything connected to how Epstein died.
That sentiment has only grown stronger in recent months.
The Department of Justice released more than three million documents tied to Epstein earlier this year, and that disclosure reignited debate over the circumstances of his August 2019 death — officially ruled a suicide — inside the same facility where he had survived the first attempt just weeks before.
Surveillance footage released alongside the documents put a clock to the morning of his death. At 6:30 a.m., a guard moved toward a desk positioned near Epstein’s cell. Seconds passed before the guard reached the cell door.
Then came more than a minute of back-and-forth movement between the desk and the cell. A second and third guard arrived. The group began running. At 6:39 a.m., Epstein was declared dead.
His autopsy catalogued three distinct fractures in his neck — one on the left hyoid bone, one on the right side of the thyroid cartilage, and one on the left side.
Epstein had been awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges at the time of his death, having entered a not guilty plea.
His passing immediately gave rise to theories that powerful figures with connections to his crimes had orchestrated his death to protect themselves from exposure.
The only American to face criminal consequences in connection with his operation remains Ghislaine Maxwell.
A federal court sentenced the British socialite and Epstein’s former partner to 20 years in prison in June 2022 for recruiting and grooming underage victims.
Maxwell sat down with then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last summer in a session where she discussed what she knew about Epstein’s network.
Those conversation records entered the public domain and yielded no evidence implicating prominent individuals, including former President Donald Trump.
Maxwell also flatly rejected the existence of a so-called client list — a document that has never been confirmed to exist but continues to drive widespread speculation.
