Epstein cellmate claims Trump administration wanted crooked powerbroker ‘dead’

Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cellmate claims to have evidence that the Trump administration wanted the disgraced financier dead and left him unharmed “on purpose,” according to documents obtained by The Daily Beast.

Nicholas Tartaglione, a quadruple murderer and former police officer, filed a clemency/commutation petition last summer in which he claimed Epstein was subjected to deliberate violence in the hope he would not live long enough to stand trial.

Before Epstein’s death on August 10, 2019, which authorities ruled a suicide, prison bosses decided that America’s most high-profile inmate should share a cell with an accused mass murderer for reasons that have never been explained.

Tartaglione had a reputation for extreme violence and a self-confessed hatred of child sex offenders. Tartaglione — who Epstein said prison guards tried to kill three weeks before he was found dead — claims “it’s no coincidence” that he was “knowingly” moved to the same prison as Epstein and “put in the same cell” as a convicted child sex offender.

In a 21-page petition obtained by The Daily Beast, Tartagloin says he believes the Trump administration wants Epstein “dead.”

A White House spokesperson said, “Anyone is able to submit a clemency request — much like the Daily Beast writes, no one should take their trash seriously. President Trump is the final decision maker on all clemency and clemency requests.”

Trump, 79, has repeatedly denied any knowledge of or involvement in Epstein’s criminal activities, but has long been haunted by his decades-long relationship with the uber-wealthy pedophile.

The well-connected financier was found hanged in a cell at New York City’s Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) while awaiting trial for child sex trafficking.

References to the president and many of his high-society and political associates identified in the Epstein files likely would have featured heavily during public hearings.

The circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death remain controversial, and many in Epstein’s circle — including his brother, Mark, his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, his former butler, and his legal team — do not believe he took his own life.

This week, outspoken podcaster Joe Rogan, a one-time Trump supporter, also blasted the government for keeping Epstein in a cell with Tartaglione. “It’s weird that they took a guy who is the most high-profile defendant ever, and you put him in prison with a mass murderer. Kind of crazy,” he said.

Reports on Epstein’s death blamed widespread institutional failures, but they were riddled with inconsistencies. A prison psychologist who saw Epstein before his death reported that he thought suicide was “against his religion” and insisted that he was too cowardly to hurt himself because he could not bear the pain. Epstein’s lawyer, Reed Weingarten, later told the judge overseeing Epstein’s case: “We have not seen a depressed or depressed person at or around the time of his death.”

On Thursday, CBS News reported a document in the Epstein files showing investigators flagging an orange figure on prison surveillance video moving toward the tier of Epstein’s locked home at 10:39 p.m. on Aug. 9, 2019 — despite earlier official assurances that no one had entered that night.

The FBI’s observation memo described the image as “likely an inmate,” while the DOJ inspector general’s review treated it as a corrections officer.

About three weeks before Epstein’s death, he was found semiconscious in his cell with a cut throat. He told guards Tartaglione tried to strangle him, before later withdrawing the complaint, saying he could not remember what happened.

Tartaglione, who was moved out of Epstein’s cell after the incident, has denied attacking the financier and claimed he tried to save Epstein’s life, finding him on the floor with a “piece of wire” around his neck.

“I never touched that man,” Tartaglione wrote to the New York Daily News in September 2019. “I hate anyone who hurts children, but whatever was going to happen to him, I wasn’t going to be a part of it.”

Despite this, Tartaglione admitted in the same letter to the Daily News that he had been a curious choice of cellmate for Epstein. “The MCC staff had hundreds of inmates to choose from but I was their first choice,” Tartaglione wrote.

Tartaglione has now written to the president for a pardon.

“It is no coincidence that before the trial I was transferred to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan and deliberately placed in the same cell as Jeffrey Epstein,” he wrote.

He explained that the bloody and violent nature of his crimes was well known to his prosecutor, Maureen Comey, who was also the lead prosecutor in the Epstein case.

He claims that several attempts were made on his own life after he was unwittingly drawn into the twisted story of Jeffrey Epstein. “I was clearly not protected on purpose, nor was Epstein. I truly believe the government wanted Epstein and me dead,” he wrote.

The petition also contains clear attempts to favor the President. He made allegations against Comey, the daughter of Trump nemesis James Comey, who has since been fired from the DOJ.

She says she tried to implicate Trump in exchange for Epstein’s freedom, but also claims that Epstein “told me that President Trump was not involved in Epstein’s crimes.”

The former police officer also claimed that he was implicated in the kidnapping and murder of four people. He was convicted in 2024 and is serving four consecutive life sentences, meaning he is unlikely to be released.

The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.