Epstein cellmate took 17 secret calls with illicit phone before child sex abuser's arrival

The inmate who Jeffrey Epstein claimed had attempted to kill him in their cell was busted with a cell phone a few days before the sex offender arrived at the New York City detention center.

A Bureau of Prisons memo released as part of the massive trove of Epstein files released by the Department of Justice details an incident four days before Epstein's arrival in which the former police officer was accused of having a cell phone at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

"On July 2, 2019, inmate Tartaglione, Nicholas; Reg. No. 78514-054 was found in possession of a cell phone," the memo states. "The following telephone numbers were found in the history of the telephone," but all 17 numbers were redacted in the document released by the DOJ.

Reporting at the time indicated that corrections staff at the Manhattan detention center caught Tartaglione, a former police officer who was awaiting trial in the killing of four men in Orange County, but he told staff that his cell mate at the time had tossed the phone to him as officers approached.

Federal prosecutors said they intended to seek a search warrant to investigate the contents of the mini phone, which was only capable of making voice calls, and have the device handed over to the FBI.

Epstein was placed in a cell with Tartaglione, a muscular retired police officer-turned-drug dealer, after his July 6, 2019, arrival, and the disgraced financier 17 days later told officers that his cellmate had shown him a newspaper article that placed his net worth at $77 billion and that he believed the ex-cop was trying to extort money from him.

The following night, July 23, 2019, Tartaglione told jail staff he found Epstein slumped on the floor with fabric around his neck, and once Epstein became alert he claimed his cellmate had tried to kill him, which he later walked back and said he couldn't remember what had happened.

Tartaglione has long insisted he did not try to kill Epstein, but also believes that the accused sex trafficker was deliberately exposed to violence behind bars to prevent him from standing trial.

“I clearly was not protected on purpose, nor was Epstein," Tartaglione wrote in a 2025 pardon petition. "I truly believe that the government wanted both Epstein and me dead,” Tartaglione wrote.

Epstein was placed on suicide watch for about a day after that incident but that status was downgraded to psychological observation, although he insisted he was not suicidal and did not feel hopeless, and he was assigned a new cellmate, Efrain Reyes, on July 30, 2019 – but that arrangement lasted only nine days until Reyes was transferred.

That night, on Aug. 9, 2019, Epstein had the cell to himself, and a corrections officer found him the following morning on the floor, unresponsive and cold to the touch.