WASHINGTON — A federal judge in New York unsealed a suicide note Wednesday purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein in July 2019, before a failed suicide attempt that came weeks after he was taken into federal custody on sex trafficking charges.
The disgraced financier ultimately died weeks later in the same New York City facility in what was ruled a suicide.
Although the note’s authenticity has not been established, it contains an apparent reference to a line from a 1931 “Little Rascals” film that Epstein had used in at least two prior email messages, according to the trove of Epstein documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice this year in response to the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act.
In the short handwritten note released Wednesday, Epstein allegedly wrote, “They investigated me for month — Found nuthing!!!”
The note concludes, “Whatcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!! No Fun – Not Worth It!!”
It was a phrase Epstein had used before.
In a September 2016 email to his brother, Mark, he wrote, “whtchoo want me todo — bust out cryin” in response to news that their cousin had become a grandfather.
And in another message the following year to his childhood friend Terry Kafka, Epstein wrote, “Whatcha want me todo/bust out cryin,” in response to a message from Kafka about being nostalgic.
Mark Epstein, who has long maintained that he believes his brother was killed and did not die by suicide, said Friday that he does not believe his brother wrote the note and that he does not believe he attempted suicide.
Asked about the inclusion of the line from the “Little Rascals,” Mark Epstein said he thought it was included to make the note sound more authentic.
“If you want it sound like he wrote it, you don’t use Spanglish!!!!!,” Mark Epstein wrote in a message.
Kafka did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The line is an apparent reference to a 1931 Little Rascals short film “Little Daddy,” in which the character Stymie says, “Well, what do you want me to do, bust out crying?” when another character says that it will be their last breakfast together.
The note emerged from the court records of Epstein’s onetime cellmate Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer who is serving four consecutive life sentences for a 2016 quadruple murder.
It was released in response to a request by the New York Times.
The note was not included in the millions of pages released by the Justice Department.
An official for the department said that because the note was part of Tartaglione’s court proceedings, Justice Department officials hadn’t seen it before it was unsealed Wednesday.
“The note has not yet been authenticated, and this is the first time DOJ is seeing it as well,” the official said.
In 2020, “60 Minutes” disclosed a different note Epstein reportedly wrote days before his August 2019 death that included complaints about his conditions and similarly concluded with the phrase “No fun!!!”
Journalist Katie Phang sued acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche for allegedly failing to comply with the requirements of the Epstein files law enacted last year, which required that the documents be released in their entirety within 30 days, with reasoning provided for any documents not released.
The department released the files after the deadline passed and has faced criticism for taking down some documents and failing to release others. It also failed to redact the names of some Epstein victims while redacting the names of some of the financier’s friends and associates.
Epstein, who counted President Trump, former President Clinton and former British Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor among his friends, is accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 women and girls. His ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for her role in recruiting and grooming girls for Epstein to abuse and participating in the abuse on at least one occasion. She is seeking a pardon from the Trump administration.