Jeffrey Epstein, a disgraced financier, claimed his cellmate attempted to kill him weeks before authorities said he died by suicide in a New York City jail. There are still unresolved concerns around that incident, but a new CBS story provides more insights.
A month after being jailed on federal trafficking charges, Epstein passed away on August 10, 2019. On July 23, 2019, Epstein was found on the floor of his cell with an orange scarf around his neck, according to a 2023 Department of Justice report. The billionaire said the cellmate had attempted to kill him, but the cellmate informed jail officials that Epstein had attempted to hang himself.
At the time, Epstein also said that he had been the victim of extortion by his cellmate. “He sat up on the bed and began telling me that he [thinks] his bunkie … tried to kill him,” a responding officer said in a memo, newly reported by CBS.
“He’s 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 a source. Epstein was still unconscious when corrections officers moved him to a cell on another floor.
However, the article claims that Epstein changed his mind the following day and claimed he couldn’t recall how he had been hurt. According to CBS, the cellmate has long denied attempting to kill Epstein, and his attorney called the initial charge “not true.”
As per a memo cited by CBS News, Epstein stated he was worried about his cellmate the day before the July 23 incident. According to the news outlet, Epstein told a correction officer that his cellmate had cited a New York Daily News article about him that calculated his net worth the day before he was discovered on the ground.
New reports suggest that Epstein then informed the officer that he woke up at one in the morning and that he didn’t remember anything until thirty minutes later, when police had hurried into his cell. After being placed on suicide watch for a day, Jeffrey later requested to be put back in the cell with his cellmate, according to the Justice Department’s investigation.
Jeffrey told the source and the correctional officer that Tartaglione, a burly former police officer who converted to drug dealing and was charged with and found guilty of four killings, intimidated him. Epstein said to the officer that he hadn’t previously been comfortable reporting the alleged threat because “his bunkie told him that if he beat him up, because of [His child trafficking] charges, the officers would not report it.”
The affluent former banker told jail officials that he thought Tartaglione was attempting “to extort money from him and stated that if he didn’t pay him that he would beat him up,” according to the officer’s letter. “He stated that this has been going on for a week.”
