Law&Crime Sidebar - 5 Bizarre Theories Tied to Epstein's New Prison Note

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

A newly unsealed note allegedly written by Jeffrey Epstein is raising shocking questions about his death behind bars. The official ruling is suicide, but this note, along with newly released files, is fueling a fresh wave of suspicion and conspiracy theories. Law&Crime's Jesse Weber examines some of the most interesting new details.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Download the FREE Upside App at  https://upside.app.link/sidebar to get an extra 25 cents bonus for every gallon on your first tank of gas.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrimeTwitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A newly unsealed note, purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein himself, is now raising shocking questions about what really happened behind bars inside his final days. Locked away for years. We have not seen this until now. What it says, what it means, did he write it? And does this prove or disprove the theory behind his death? Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

All right, before we jump into this, I got to tell you about this app, this sponsor that I think you're going to love. It is called Upside. Now, Upside gets you cashback. Yes, extra cash back on everyday purchases like gas, groceries, takeout. So here's what you do. You download Upside for free. You claim an offer at one of their 100,000-plus locations. You pay like normal with your card.

You verify the purchase, and just like that, money back. So say, I need to get gas or I want takeout one night. I'll search for Upside offers first. And after I spend, the money appears in my app that I can transfer right into my bank account. And upsides frequent users, by the way, earn an average of $254 back a year. So to start getting your cash back, click the link in the description or scan the QR code and make sure to use promo code sidebar to get an extra 25 cents bonus on every gallon on your first tank of gas. A handwritten note locked in a federal courthouse for years, never reviewed by federal investigators,

and hidden from you. It is a treat to be able to choose one's time to say goodbye. what you want me to do. Bust out crying. No fun. Not worth it. That note was allegedly written by Jeffrey Epstein. And it just got released by a federal judge.

Now, if you followed this case at all, if you've been following us here on sidebar, because we've been all on top of the Jeffrey Epstein story, you know there are already more questions than answers about what happened in that jail cell. So to be clear, the official ruling says one thing. We already know what that is, right? That's on the record. But this newly released note, along with other documents, is fueling a new wave of speculation and suspicion and maybe theories. And depending on who you ask, this note either supports the official

story or blows it apart. We know that Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in July of 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges. He was being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City awaiting trial. And on August 10, 2019, he was found unresponsive in his cell. The official ruling from the New York City Medical Examiner, later backed by the Department of Justice and the FBI, was that he went out in his own terms. But almost immediately, questions emerged, considering who Jeffrey Epstein was and his connections, right? Multiple surveillance failures and camera issues were documented at the jail.

That contributed to speculation. Two correctional officers were charged with falsifying records related to required inmate checks, though prosecutors later dismissed those charges under eight different. prosecution agreement. But again, questions, questions, questions. And before all of that, about two weeks before Epstein died, there was another incident. On July 23rd, 2019, guards found Epstein in his cell with marks on his neck. This is according to a Bureau of Prisons incident report. He survived. And his cellmate at the time was a man named Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer awaiting trial for quadruple murder. And according to the New York Times,

Tartaglione, or Tartaglione, says he found something after Epstein was removed from the cell. A handwritten note tucked inside a book. Now, Tartaglione gave the note to his lawyers, but then nothing. For nearly what? Seven years, the note sat locked away in a federal courthouse in White Plains, New York, sealed as part of Tartaglione's own criminal case. It never came up in the official investigations into Epstein's death as far as we could see. The Department of Justice told the times they had never.

even seen it. So how did it just come out now? Last week, the New York Times filed a petition with Judge Kenneth Carras, who oversaw Tartaglione's case, asking the court to unseal the note. And the Justice Department didn't oppose the release. And on May 6th, just yesterday, Judge Carras ordered it unsealed. And now, for the first time, we can all see what it apparently says. So the obvious question is, did Jeffrey Epstein actually write this? That's the biggest question, right? And if he did, was he serious? Or was he just messing around?

And if he wasn't serious, why was this apparently locked away for seven years? So let me read this to you in full. It's from a note that authorities have not publicly authenticated. Okay, I want to be clear about that. But it's one that Tartaglione claims Epstein wrote. Quote, they investigated me for a month. found nothing. It is a treat to be able to choose one's time to say goodbye. What you want me to do, bust out crying, no fun, not worth it. Now here's where it gets weird, because just days before

that July incident and weeks before his death, Epstein was telling prison psychologists, he had no interest in ending his life. That's in the files. We have the documents. We've talked about this before. So which is it? The note saying goodbye or the man. saying he wanted to live. I mean, that's the first question the files won't let us ignore. And that's just the beginning because once you start looking at what else came out in these files, the questions don't stop. They just get bigger.

Now, now, there's a big but here. But before we go any further down the conspiracy road, we do have to talk about something else because there is actually some compelling evidence that suggests Jeffrey Epstein did write this note. I'm going to start with the phrase bust out crying. It's not a common expression, but Epstein used it. In a September 2016 email to his brother Mark, which is included in the files, Epstein wrote, quote, What you want me to do, bust out crying.

Same phrasing, same misspelling, same everything. So if someone faked this note to make it look like a suicide note, they must have had access to Epstein's private emails from years earlier. Maybe, or more simply, Epstein just wrote it himself. Then there's the CBS note. 2020, CBS News reported on a different handwritten note found in Epstein's cell after his death. That one complained about jail conditions and a guard keeping him in a locked shower stall for an hour. They also complained about burnt food and giant bugs crawling over his hand.

And at the bottom of that note, Epstein wrote two words, no fun. Exactly what he wrote in this newly released note, no fun. So with that in mind, I want to start right off the bat with the obvious. conspiracy that has been circulating since the very announcement of Jeffrey Epstein's death, that he didn't do this, that he didn't want to do this, that he was killed. So I want to take a look back at what Epstein told psychologists because it directly contradicts that note in theory, right? So, okay, maybe he wrote it. The emails in the other note might indicate he talk like this. But here's the thing. If he wrote those words, did he mean them? According to the BOP records,

the Bureau of Prison Records released in the file dump, Epstein was evaluated multiple times in July of 2019. And just one day after that July 23rd incident on July 24th, he told a prison psychologist he had no interest in ending his life. He said he had lots to do for his legal case. He described having a wonderful life with interesting people and projects. He said, it would be crazy to take his life. And then this, I would not do that to myself. Next day, July 25th, said it Again, I am too vested in my case to fight it. I have a life and I want to go back to living my life. Now, does that sound like someone who's writing goodbye notes?

Could also be the possibility. Maybe he's lying. Maybe he didn't want to have extra precautions put in place. So he appears to not look like he's going to take his life so that he has the flexibility and the opportunity to do so, maybe. Because here's a thing. The people who knew Epstein say he wasn't that type, his own brother, Mark Epstein, actually came on our show and said this.

I thought, okay, he killed himself. At the time, I had no reason to doubt it, and I just figured that was his decision, and I respected it. I grieved the loss of a brother, but it was his decision. But then after the autopsy was done, and all the other information started coming out,

it became apparent that it was not a suicide. When you looked at the autopsy results, the photographs we have of the body, the details of the marital, on his neck compared to the way they said he was hanging. Nothing matches up. If you looked at all of these facts and evidence, you would not come up with the conclusion that it was a suicide.

And by the way, Mark Epstein has been saying that for years. He told News Nation, he, quote, laughed at how stupid it was that officials ruled out murder. Told Nancy Grace, two pathologists, who examined the body allegedly said they couldn't call it a suicide because it looked too much like a homicide. But we do have to remember this. Two days before he died, so August 8, 2019, Epstein signed a new will, placing more than $500 million in assets into a trust. And reports at the time identified Corinna Shuliac as his longtime girlfriend and primary beneficiary. The filing included properties that were tied to Epstein.

We're talking his homes in Manhattan, New Mexico, Paris, the U.S. Virgin Islands, along with a 33-carat diamond ring described in court records as given in contemplation of marriage. And Epstein also reportedly spoke to that girlfriend for 20 minutes on an unrecorded phone call the night before he died. We did a whole deep dive on Epstein's secret girlfriend that you could check out on our YouTube page. But anyway, you could argue updating will and speaking to this person is exactly what someone does when they think the end is near. That's a possibility. But let's say he wasn't planning to die. This would raise a question that the official report does not answer. What was that note?

because if Epstein was fighting to live, talking about his future, updating his will for a life that he expected to return to, then that note isn't a goodbye. It's something else entirely. And that brings us to the people who were supposed to be watching him. Because it turns out the files have some answers about those guards, and I will tell you, it's weird. Let's talk about this woman, Tova Noel. She was one of the correctional officers assigned to Epstein's unit at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. And on the night of August 9th, 2019, she was working in double shift. Her job was to check on inmates every 30 minutes. That apparently didn't happen. Here's what did happen.

According to a forensic examination of her desktop computer that was released as part of these files, Tova Noel searched Google for something at 542 in the morning on August 10th, 2019. Quote, latest on Epstein in jail. Apparently searched again 10 minutes later, 5.52 a.m. and less than 40 minutes later, her co-worker Michael Thomas found Epstein unresponsive in his cell. Now, when investigators asked Tova Noelle about this in a sworn statement that was taken in 2021, she apparently said she didn't remember doing those searches. She apparently said, I don't recall looking him up, like when you click on the browser,

like how it has that little news piece, like one time he was there. The problem with that? The forensic logs appear to show she navigated. to specific articles, a CNBC article, a KTLA article. She wasn't just apparently scrolling a news feed. The argument was she was clicking. And then there's the money. Yeah, according to reporting from the New York Post and the Miami Herald, Tova Noelle's bank, Chase, filed a suspicious activity report with the FBI in November of 2019. So 12 cash deposits made between April 2018 and July 2019, with the largest being $5,000 on July 30th, just days before Epstein died. Tammy Herald reports that she also received thousands of dollars in Zell payments in the months leading up to his death.

No official explanation for where that money came from. And Newell's financial records show she was leasing a new Range Rover worth more than $60,000. But just to be clear here for a second, Newell was never charged with anything related to Epstein's death directly, right? She wasn't charged with killing him. She and Thomas, they faced charges for falsifying records, but as I mentioned, those charges were dropped. Now, here's what makes people keep asking questions. According to the Miami Herald, Epstein's former cellmate told prison authorities that Epstein said he should pay off inmates and guards to protect him. The Herald sources said that Epstein did make those protection payments.

So a guard who was supposed to be watching Epstein Googles him 40 minutes before his bodies found. Financial records later reviewed by reporters showed multiple cash deposits into Noelle's accounts before Epstein's death. Now, is that proof of anything? No, but it's weird. It raises a question about that note. And if someone else was involved in what happened to Epstein, hypothetically, would they have wanted a note that looked like a goodbye? Because it brings us to what other inmates say they heard that morning. According to a five-page handwritten note included in the Epstein files, an inmate at the MCC apparently spoke with the FBI about what he heard on the morning of August 10, 2019. And around 6.30 a.m., he recalled officers shouting, quote, breathe, breathe. Then he allegedly heard an officer say, quote,

dudes, you killed that dude. Female guard allegedly replied, quote, if he's dead, we're going to cover it up and he's going to have an alibi, my officers. That same inmate later claimed, quote, Mr. Well killed Jeffrey. Again, to be clear, there is no corroborating evidence to back this up. The DOJ's investigation concluded that none of the inmates who were interviewed had any credible information suggesting Jeffrey Epstein's cause of death. was anything other than what the official ruling says. But the note exists. It's in the files. The FBI interviewed this person, and the allegation is on the record.

So why include it? Because it shows what people inside that jail believed happened, or seemingly. And if an inmate was claiming a guard killed Epstein, then that note, the one that looks like a suicide note, would essentially be the perfect cover, which brings us to the video, or what little video there is. Because if you recall, according to a DOJ Inspector General memo from the files, the only camera that was apparently recording in the SHU, the special housing unit of the MCC that night,

was positioned near the entrance to the unit. It had low-quality video, could only show part of the officer's station, had a partial view of the stairs leading to the tiers, and at 10.39 p.m. on August 9, 2019, a flash of orange appeared going up the stairs toward the L-tier. That's where Epstein's cell was located. The FBI report described it this way, quote, flash of orange looks to be going up the L-tier stairs, could possibly be an inmate escorted up to that tier. The Inspector General's report offered a different explanation because they said it was

likely a correctional officer carrying inmate linen or bedding up the stairs. Which is it? An inmate in an orange jumpsuit or an officer carrying orange betting? Now, if you recall, according to CBS News, which analyzed the footage with video forensic experts, the movement was more consistent with an inmate wearing a prison uniform than an officer carrying clothing. They also said it would be unusual for an officer to be escorting an inmate at that time of night. Again, you can see why people look at this and say it's suspicious. Now, here's what the Inspector General determined that between approximately 1040 p.m. on August 9th and just before 6.30 a.m. on August 10th, no one entered any of the S.HU tiers. That finding is consistent with what the two guards on duty

admitted that they didn't conduct the required rounds or counts that night. Here's the problem. The only camera recording, kind of like I mentioned, had terrible angles. And the FBI report included diagrams showing how much of the unit was simply not visible. You couldn't see the entrance to Epstein cell. You couldn't see most of the stairs. You couldn't see who came and went from the officer's station. So this would mean that that that note, the one that's supposed to explain everything, was found in a cell that the cameras barely even watched. And that leads to the missing minute. So here's what happened with that footage, okay?

When the FBI released the surveillance video in July of 2025, eagle-eyed viewers noticed something almost immediately. The timestamp jumps. At 11.58.58 p.m., it skips forward to 12 a.m. exactly. So 62 seconds just gone. Now, Attorney General, or former Attorney General, Pam Bondi, address this at a press conference and she said that missing minute was caused by the camera resetting itself at around midnight. And she said the system was old from like 1999 and that

every night the video reset. So every night should have the same minute missing. But according to CBS News, a government source said she was incorrect in that assessment. And here's the problem. Again, no missing minute was documented apparently in the inspector general's investigation, not a mention of it. So if this happened every single night, why didn't the OIG note it? Does that prove something happened in that missing minute? No. But again, another question, another weird part about this. And it leads to the final one. Because according to the files themselves, officials did something that day that most people don't know about. A decoy. According to an FBI interview document included in the Epstein files,

a food services employee told investigators that after Epstein's body was found, officials noticed a large media presence gathered outside the MCC. So what did they apparently do? They came up with a plan. And I'm going to read this directly here from this document. Quote, in order to thwart the media, three redacted names use boxes and sheets to create what appeared to be a human body, which was put into the white OCME vehicle, which the press followed, allowing the black vehicle to depart unnoticed with Epstein's body.

a fake body made of boxes and sheets, loaded into a medical examiner's van, press followed it, the real body went out the back in a black car. That is not the kind of information that is going to squash the theories out there. It's just going to amplify it. Now, again, to be clear, this doesn't prove anything about how Epstein died, and yes, he was a notable figure. You can maybe understand why they did something like this. The decoy was about media management, not a cover-up.

But, again, it's another example of how strange this whole episode is. And it's another reason people keep asking questions. One more I got for you. If the official story is correct, if Epstein wrote that note, one that we've been talking about, took his own life, then why go through the trouble of faking a body? Why hide the real body in a black car while the press chased a decoy made of boxes and sheets? I mean, the note says goodbye, but everything else in these files says, you know, it's wait a minute. So, what do you believe? And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody.

Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. You can also check us out on NBC's Peacock as well. If you want to follow me, X Instagram, my News Nation show, Jesse Weber Live, Monday through Friday, 11 p.m. Eastern. See you next time, everybody. Thank you.