New details on Jeffrey Epstein’s supposed suicide attempt inside a Manhattan jail were revealed Monday after a batch of confidential documents were obtained and reported on by CBS News.
Epstein was arrested in July of 2019 on sex-trafficking charges, but would never stand trial after being found dead in his cell on Aug. 10, 2019 in what was ultimately ruled a suicide. His death came just weeks after another apparent suicide attempt in the early morning hours of July 23 in an incident Epstein initially alleged was an attempt on his life by his cellmate.
“[Epstein] is laying on the floor and his bunkie is screaming: 'I did nothing, I banged on my door to get him out of my cell,’” said one source close to the investigation, speaking with CBS News on the condition of anonymity.
Epstein’s cellmate at the time was Nicholas Tartaglione, a former law enforcement officer who was facing charges for four murders over a drug deal gone bad. Tartaglione has repeatedly denied that he tried to kill Epstein, but details in a corrections memo exclusively obtained by CBS News suggest that Epstein feared Tartaglione well before the July 23 incident.
“Epstein expressed concern about his cellmate the day before the incident, according to a corrections memo and a source who agreed to speak with CBS News on the condition they not be identified,” the report from CBS News reads.
“Epstein claimed to both the corrections officer and the source that he felt threatened by Tartaglione, a hulking retired cop-turned-drug-dealer, who was charged and later convicted for four murders.”
According to the memo, Epstein had feared Tartaglione long before making his concerns known to correctional officers, but had declined to voice them out of fear of retaliation, telling officers that “his bunkie told him that if he beat him up because of [Epstein’s child sex-trafficking] charges, the officers would not report it,” according to the memo.
Epstein told correctional officers that he had received violent threats from Tartaglione “for a week” leading up to the July 23 incident, and that he believed Tartaglione was trying “to extort” him.
The memo also detailed Tartaglione’s account of what happened that night.
“Jeff, what [are you] doing?” Tartaglione asked Epstein in the early morning hours of July 23, according to a separate memo.
Tartaglione told correctional officers that he, sleeping on a mattress on the floor beside Epstein, who had taken the bottom mattress in a bunk bed, felt something hit his legs. After turning on the light, Tartaglione told officers he observed Epstein sitting slumped on the floor “leaning to the side with his eyes opened” and with fabric around his neck, though unresponsive."
Epstein would go on to be placed on suicide watch the following day, on July 24, but taken off suicide watch on July 29, just five days before his death. In the days leading up to his death, the internal memos also reveal that Epstein was feeling optimistic for his future, telling correctional officers he was “too much of a coward” to kill himself, and that he “denied feeling hopeless” and was “reporting positive future plans and reasons to live for.”