A US federal judge has ordered the release of a handwritten document described as a suicide note purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein (the disgraced financier who died in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 in what was ruled a suicide). The seven-line note, which includes the phrase "It is a treat to be able to choose one's time to say goodbye," had been kept under seal as part of criminal proceedings against Epstein's former cellmate Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer convicted of four drug-related murders, who first revealed the note's existence in a podcast last year. Judge Kenneth Karas released the document following a request by The New York Times, ruling that it qualified as a judicial record subject to public access, though neither BBC nor US authorities have independently verified that the handwriting belongs to Epstein.