Epstein Data Wiki

Nicholas Tartaglione

Properties2
tagsperson, mcc, bureau-of-prisons, epstein-death, july-2019-incident, witness
aliasesNicholas Tartaglione, Nick Tartaglione, Tartaglione, Nicholas

13 min read

⚠ What this page is about, and what it is not

This page is about his documented role in the Epstein matter and nothing else. He faces grave charges of his own, entirely unrelated to Epstein; those are the reason he was in that jail and this page carries them no further than that. ⚠⚠ And the central question here is one the record does not answer. The Bureau of Prisons investigated whether Epstein was assaulted in that cell and found no evidence that he was. Its own national reviewers then recorded that the question had not actually been answered. Both findings are below and this page does not choose between them.

WhoA federal inmate at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York. Jeffrey Epstein’s cellmate in July 20191
Why he was in the unitHe was already in the Special Housing Unit before Epstein arrived, on a disciplinary matter: possession of a cell phone, 2 July 20191
How they came to share a cellExecutive Staff decided on 7 July 2019, the day Epstein was placed in the unit, that Tartaglione would be his cellmate. They actually shared from 10 July1
The window10 to 23 July 2019: thirteen nights. He was removed from the cell in the early hours of 23 July and never housed with Epstein again1
⭐ What two institutions say he didMCC New York, formally: “Mr. Tartaglione notified staff immediately when he realized Mr. Epstein first made a possible suicide attempt/gesture”2
⭐ And the prosecutorsSDNY internally treated corroboration of “Tartaglione’s account that he saved Epstein’s life” as potential penalty-phase Brady material3
What Epstein first saidThat his cellmate had tried to kill him, had harassed him for a week and had tried to extort him4
⚠ And what Epstein said eight days later”He has never had any issues with Tartaglione, he is not threatened by Tartaglione, and he do not want to make up something that isn’t there”4
The investigation’s finding”insufficient evidence to support Epstein was assaulted by Tartaglione”; CIMS Separation Warranted: No5
⚠ And the Bureau’s own reviewers”staff was unable to determine whether he was assaulted or engaged in self-directed violence”5

Nicholas Tartaglione shared a cell with Jeffrey Epstein for thirteen nights in July 2019, and was in it on the night Epstein was found injured.

He is in the released files almost entirely as someone other people describe. He gave no sworn statement, no deposition and no affidavit about any of it, and no recording was made of any of the three Bureau interviews in which he was asked what happened. What the release does hold is those three interviews, written down by three different members of staff, and they do not say the same thing.

How they came to share a cell

He was in the Special Housing Unit before Epstein arrived, on a disciplinary matter: an internal memorandum of 5 July 2019 records that he had been found in possession of a cell phone three days earlier.1

On 7 July 2019, the day Epstein was placed in the unit, Executive Staff decided that Tartaglione would be his cellmate. They began sharing on 10 July, when Epstein came off psychological observation.1

The cell was Z05-124, on M Tier.1

The night of 23 July, in three tellings

The Bureau recorded his account three times, at three different hours, through three different officers. No page of this wiki has previously carried more than one of them, and the differences are the point.

Overnight, to the Operations Lieutenant. He was asleep with his headphones on when he felt something hit his legs; he said “Jeff, what you’re doing?”, got no answer, turned on the light and saw Epstein with a string around his neck; he called the guards. The same memorandum records that he slept on the floor on a mattress, having given the bottom bunk to Epstein “because he’s old”, and that he could not remember whether he sat up or stood up.6

At 2:50 that afternoon, to the Unit Manager. He was sleeping on the floor, felt something hit his foot, woke and saw Epstein sitting on the ground staring at him, asked what he was doing, got no reply, and immediately banged on the cell door for staff. ⚠ No headphones, no light, no string in this account.6

On 31 July, to the investigators. He was asleep on the floor, his head covered with a sheet, headphones in, when something hit his foot; when he uncovered his head Epstein was sitting in the corner with his eyes open; he called Epstein’s name, got nothing, and began to bang on the door. He thought Epstein was having a heart attack.6

Three accounts, one week apart at most, differing on where he was struck, whether the light went on, and whether there was anything around Epstein’s neck. This page sets them side by side and draws no conclusion from the differences, which are as consistent with a man recounting a confused few seconds three times as with anything else.

What Epstein said, and then unsaid

Epstein initially told staff that his cellmate had tried to kill him, had been harassing him for a week, and had tried to extort money from him.4

Eight days later, on 31 July at 9:10 in the morning, he retracted it, and the retraction is considerably stronger than the summary of it that has been published elsewhere:

Epstein stated he has never had any issues with Tartaglione, he is not threatened by Tartaglione, and he do not want to make up something that isn’t there

The same record has him saying he feels safe being housed with Tartaglione. The grammar is the document’s.4

A medical assessment of Tartaglione found no injuries on him.5

The two findings, and this page does not choose

The Bureau’s Special Investigative Services investigated whether Epstein had been assaulted. Its report concludes there is “insufficient evidence to support Epstein was assaulted by Tartaglione”, and answers “CIMS Separation Warranted: No”, meaning the Bureau did not treat the two as needing to be kept apart.5

And the Bureau’s own Psychological Reconstruction, written by different people some weeks later, says the question was never answered:

results were inconclusive as to whether Mr. Epstein engaged in self-directed violence, willingly fought with his cellmate, or was assaulted by his cellmate

Despite this investigation, staff was unable to determine whether he was assaulted or engaged in self-directed violence

5

⚠⚠ “Insufficient evidence to support” an assault and “unable to determine” whether there was one are not the same finding. They were written by two different parts of the same agency, and the release contains both. The honest statement is the one that carries both: the Bureau investigated, found no evidence of assault, imposed no separation, and its own national reviewers recorded that the question had not actually been answered.

What two institutions said he did

MCC New York, in its formal written response to the reconstruction:

Indeed, Mr. Tartaglione notified staff immediately when he realized Mr. Epstein first made a possible suicide attempt/gesture on July 23, 2019.

2

And the prosecutors. An internal Southern District of New York message asks colleagues to review notes from other inmates “to determine if there are any inmates who gave statements that corroborate Tartaglione’s account that he saved Epstein’s life”, adding: “We think this could arguably be penalty-phase Brady.”3

Neither of those is his claim. Both are institutions characterising what he did, one of them the jail that held him and one of them the office prosecuting him.

What the release does not contain

  • No statement, declaration, affidavit, deposition or sworn testimony by him about Epstein. Tested with live controls.7
  • No recording of any Bureau interview of him. The Government told his counsel so in writing: “we have confirmed that no such recordings were made.”7
  • ⚠ An account attributed to him in a 2025 court filing is deliberately not carried here. What the release holds is an FBI news briefing summarising a newspaper summarising a petition: three removes, with the petition itself absent from the corpus. Under this desk’s own rule the primary source is the petition, and we do not have it.7

⚠ One sentence in the record appears to have a staff officer describing him as fabricating. Read at the image, the surrounding paragraph shows the subject is almost certainly Epstein, mistyped. It is unusable in either direction and is not quoted, in either direction.8

Notes

Footnotes

  1. The cell-phone matter: Special Investigative Services memorandum of 5 July 2019, EFTA00097207 p.1, single sheet, read at the image at 300 dpi; the Unit Manager separately records him as “currently housed in the Special Housing Unit for being in Possession of a Cell Phone”, EFTA00139917 p.1, single sheet, at the image. The pairing decision of 7 July and the 30 July assignment of a different cellmate are at EFTA00121398 pp.9 and 10, at the image. ⚠ That identifier is a 22-sheet run whose p.1 is a transmittal; cite the page, never the run. The 10 July start, when Epstein came off psychological observation, is at the same identifier p.5, from the text layer, cross-read against p.9 at the image. The removal from the cell in the early hours of 23 July and the cell number Z05-124 on M Tier are at EFTA01687615 pp.20 and 27, both at the image, the tier confirmed twice on separate sheets. ⚠ That run is 28 sheets and heterogeneous, memoranda, a custody log and an after-action tasking. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  2. MCC New York’s formal Institution Response to the Psychological Reconstruction. EFTA00121398 p.10, read at the image at 300 dpi. ⚠ See the ink-colour warning at 5: this sentence is the institution’s own voice, and it was confirmed as such at the image rather than taken from the text layer. ↩ ↩2

  3. Internal Southern District of New York message, EFTA00076014 p.1, single sheet. From the searchable text; not read at a page image. ⚠ It is quoted here because it is the prosecuting office’s own characterisation, and it is flagged as text-layer so a later pass can upgrade it. ⚠ “Tartaglione’s account that he saved Epstein’s life” is the office’s summary of his account, not a finding that he did, and this page presents it as the former. ↩ ↩2

  4. Epstein’s initial account is at EFTA01687615 p.28, read at the image at 300 dpi; it is already carried on `cases/epstein-death-mcc` and is correct there. His retraction of 31 July 2019 at 9:10 a.m. is at EFTA00019348 p.3, read at the image at 400 dpi, and is quoted verbatim including its grammar. ⚠ It is materially stronger than the paraphrase of it in the Inspector General’s account, which is why this page quotes the primary record rather than the summary. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  5. The investigation: Bureau of Prisons Inmate Investigative Report NYM-19-0061, “Investigative / Threat Assessment”, EFTA00019348, read at the image at 400 dpi; the finding and the separation answer at p.5, the medical assessment at p.5. ⚠ This is the report the Government offered his counsel “Attorney’s Eyes Only” under a protective order in December 2019, and it is public in full in this release. ⚠ Its four-step approval chain carries barred names beside electronic date-stamps and no ink anywhere; a dated approval line is not a signature and this page treats none of them as one. The contrary finding: the Bureau’s Psychological Reconstruction, EFTA00121398, read at the image at 400 dpi. The two quoted sentences are on two different sheets and are pinned separately here: “results were inconclusive as to whether Mr. Epstein engaged in self-directed violence, willingly fought with his cellmate, or was assaulted by his cellmate” at p.11 (Bates EFTA00121408), in the section headed Documentation Accuracy; “Despite this investigation, staff was unable to determine whether he was assaulted or engaged in self-directed violence” at p.5 (Bates EFTA00121402), in the July 23 narrative. Image and text-layer pagination agree on this document. ⚠ A HANDLING WARNING FOR ANYONE WORKING IT: it sets black narrative and red annotation on the same sheet: on p.11 the red is routing (“Exec Staff”, “Psyc Svc”) and a section heading, not narrative, and p.5 carries no red at all. The extraction strips colour, so which voice a sentence belongs to cannot be settled from searchable text. Both sentences quoted above were confirmed black at the image. ⚠ Neither of these documents was cited anywhere on this wiki before this page. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  6. Three records of what he said, each read at the image. Overnight 23 July, the Operations Lieutenant’s memorandum: EFTA01687615 pp.20-21, 300 dpi. 2:50 p.m. 23 July, the Unit Manager’s memorandum to the Acting Warden and the Captain: EFTA00139917 p.1, 300 dpi, with a duplicate copy at EFTA00140825 p.1. 10:00 a.m. 31 July, the Special Investigative Services interview, recorded in Inmate Investigative Report NYM-19-0061: EFTA00019348 p.3, 400 dpi. ⚠ These are three officers’ written records of what he told them. None is his own statement, none was recorded, and none is signed by him, see 7. ⚠⚠ This page draws no conclusion from the differences between them. A man recounting a confused few seconds three times, to three people, over nine days, is the ordinary explanation, and the record supports no other. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  7. Absences, each tested with a live positive control. No statement, declaration, affidavit, deposition or sworn testimony by him about Epstein: "Tartaglione" AND "affidavit" returns 0 against a corpus-wide control of 4,021 documents for “affidavit”; "Tartaglione" AND "pro se" returns 0; "Interview of Tartaglione" returns 0. No recording of any Bureau interview: the Government wrote to his counsel, “After speaking with BOP, we have confirmed that no such recordings were made”, EFTA00074097 p.2, a two-sheet homogeneous email chain, from the searchable text. ⚠⚠ The 2025 account is not carried. The release holds it only as an item in a 16-sheet FBI daily news briefing summarising a newspaper report of a court petition, three removes, and the petition itself is not in the corpus ("Tartaglione" AND "2255" returns 0; "Tartaglione" AND "petition" returns 2, being that briefing and its duplicate). This desk’s rule is to cite the underlying primary source rather than inherit a news ceiling; here the primary source is absent, so nothing is carried. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  8. EFTA01687615 p.21, read at the image. One sentence on that sheet reads as a staff officer recording that Tartaglione was fabricating. ⚠⚠ The surrounding paragraph shows the subject is almost certainly Epstein, mistyped. It is the most quotable line in the record and the most dangerous, it would change the meaning of this page in either direction, and the release does not settle which reading is right. It is therefore quoted in neither direction and its wording is not reproduced. ↩

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