Jul 23, 2025 10:27:27 pm
Attorney David Schoen, who met with Jeffrey Epstein days before his death in August 2019, has challenged the official narrative surrounding Epstein’s alleged suicide attempt two weeks prior. Schoen claims that Epstein told him the neck injury, which was attributed to a suicide attempt by jail officials, was actually caused by his cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, as part of a bizarre “experiment.”
Tartaglione, a former cop awaiting trial for multiple murders, reportedly placed something around Epstein’s neck, possibly a rope or cloth, and whipped it, causing an abrasion.
Epstein, according to Schoen, did not sustain any serious injuries and chose not to report the incident to avoid further complications.
“He said that he told the prison officials that he couldn’t remember what had happened because he didn’t want any trouble. He didn’t want to be perceived to be a rat or something like that. And he was just hoping the whole incident would go away,” said Schoen.
David Schoen is an American attorney specializing in federal criminal defense and civil rights law cases. He was one of the attorneys who represented former president Donald Trump during his second impeachment trial in the United States Senate.
August 1: Schoen meets with Epstein for five hours at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. Epstein expresses optimism about his upcoming bond hearing.
Shortly after: Tartaglione is removed from Epstein’s cell for unknown reasons, leaving him without a cellmate despite official orders for one and 30-minute cell checks.
August 10: Epstein is found dead in his cell, with the medical examiner ruling his death a suicide. A later DOJ report concurred. Mark Epstein, Jeffrey’s brother, has publicly disputed the suicide conclusion, citing an independent autopsy by renowned forensic expert Dr. Michael Baden that suggests foul play.
Schoen believes labeling the previous neck injury as a suicide attempt fuels the narrative that Epstein took his own life. He argues that the lack of a cellmate and camera malfunction on the night of Epstein’s death raise further questions about the official account.
“It doesn’t seem logical to me that someone would actually hire me in a case nine days earlier and be excited up until the day of his death about fighting it, based on the strategy we had come up with, setting up meetings for me with the other lawyers,”said Schoen.
“That meeting was supposed to take place on Friday before he died, by the way. I cancelled and was going reschedule. I do regret that,” he said.
The discrepancies between official reports and Schoen’s account, along with Mark Epstein’s concerns, highlight the need for further investigation and transparency.
TN World Desk Jan 4, 2024, by Feba Bovas.
I DON’T BELIEVE IT WAS SUICIDE: The lawyer who met with Jeffrey Epstein in the days before his death doesn’t believe the convicted sex offender died by suicide.
David Schoen, a Federal Criminal Defence and Civil Rights Lawyer told Fox Nation’s Deep Dive on Thursday that when he met with Epstein, “he was upbeat and excited about going
Mr Schoen claimed the conversations he had with other lawyers helped convince him that Epstein didn’t die by suicide.
“The reason I say I don’t believe it was suicide is for my interaction with him that day. The purpose of asking me to come there that day and over the past previous couple of weeks was to ask me to take over his defence.”
James Crump Friday 13 March 2020 The Independent.
THE ZIP-TIE STRANGLER: A former New York police officer who shared a jail cell with Jeffrey Epstein before the sex trafficker’s suicide has been found guilty of executing four men and burying them in a mass grave over a perceived debt.
Nicholas Tartaglione faces life imprisonment after being found guilty by federal jurors of the killings of Martin Luna, Urbano Santiago, Miguel Luna and Hector Gutierrez, according to a statement from US justice department prosecutors.
Tartaglione, 55, first drew national media attention when he was named as the cellmate of Epstein at the time the disgraced financier first attempted suicide in July 2019 while he was detained on federal charges of sex trafficking girls as young as 14.
In that case, Tartaglione was cleared of wrongdoing. Epstein killed himself in August 2019, when Tartaglione was not his cellmate.
In the case for which he was just convicted, Tartaglione was charged by prosecutors with becoming a drug dealer after retiring as a police officer in the suburban community of Briarcliff Manor, New York.
He suspected that Martin Luna had stolen money from him and then lured him to a meeting about 60 miles north of New York City – in Chester – to ambush him, as prosecutors tell it.
Martin Luna had no idea what Tartaglione had planned, so he showed up with his two nephews – Miguel Luna and Santiago – as well as a family friend, Gutierrez. Calling what ensued “pure terror”, Tartaglione tortured Martin Luna and STRANGLED him to death with a zip-tie while one of his nephews watched, prosecutors contended.
He and some associates then took Luna’s nephews and friend away, forced them to their knees and then fired bullets into the backs of their heads, killing them, authorities maintained. Tartaglione then buried all four men in a grave dug at a property that he rented before the victims were discovered about eight months later and he was charged.
Ramon Antonio Vargas – Fri 7 Apr, 2023. New York Post.