An apparent suicide note purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein has been released by a New York court.

The note was found by a cellmate of Epstein and turned in to court, where it has remained secret for years.

But it was made public by a judge after the New York Times petitioned for its release.

READ MORE: Doctor who designed cognitive test addresses Trump's boasts

"They investigated me for months — FOUND NOTHING!!!" the note reads.

"It is a treat to be able to choose one's time to say goodbye.

"Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!!

"NO FUN. NOT WORTH IT."

The note has not been authenticated as being penned by Epstein.

Fellow inmate at Metropolitan Correctional Centre Nicholas Tartaglione said he found the note within the pages of a graphic novel. 

It was penned on a piece of yellow paper ripped from a legal pad.

Tartaglione said he found the note after Epstein had been found dead in another cell. 

Today's court ruling states the note predates Epstein's death by "over a week".

READ MORE: US Defence Secretary 'won't confirm or deny' use of 'kamikaze dolphins'

In deciding to release the note, the judge found "the privacy interests of a third party who is deceased, like Jeffrey Epstein, are vastly reduced".

Weeks before his death, Epstein had denied a previous suicide attempt and told staff at the jail that marks on his neck were from Tartaglione attacking him.

Epstein was then moved into another cell by himself, where he was found dead.

Epstein's suicide has been the subject of much conjecture and suspicion.

Tartaglione, a former police officer, is serving four life sentences after being convicted of killing four people.

He has repeatedly denied causing any harm to Epstein. 

He gave the note to his lawyer to submit to court, out of fear he would be accused of harming Epstein again.

He has been cleared of any involvement in Epstein's death.

The note was released after the judge got the blessing of Tartaglione's lawyers and the prosecutors who tried his case.

It was not included in the as-yet-released Epstein files and has not been mentioned in formal investigations of his death.

Epstein had been indicted on charges of sex trafficking minors at the time of his death.

READ MORE: Trump pushes to take $115m rape case payout to the Supreme Court

If you or someone you know is in need of support contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue. In the event of an emergency dial Triple Zero (000).

NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.

• Download the 9NEWS App here via Apple and Google Play
• Make 9News your preferred source on Google by ticking this box here
• Sign up to our breaking newsletter here

Donald Trump wants the Supreme Court to halt a $A115 million payout he owes to E Jean Carroll, a woman a New York jury found he raped in the mid-1990s.

A jury awarded Carroll the immense payout after she successfully sued him for defamation.

But Trump's lawyers have asked the Supreme Court to intervene so he wouldn't have to pay her.

READ MORE: US Defence Secretary 'won't confirm or deny' use of 'kamikaze dolphins'

His lawyers argue that because his remarks about her were made when he was president, he was protected by presidential immunity.

Trump also wants a stay to prevent Carroll giving away the payout to charity, as she has repeatedly said she will do.

"In addition, Carroll has publicly and repeatedly promised to give away any money that she collects from this lawsuit," the court filing read.

"Once grants are distributed and spent by organisations around the country, the funds almost certainly will not be recoverable if the Supreme Court reverses the Panel's decision, as is likely to occur."

The court filing today is specifically asking an appeals court to stay its verdict so the Supreme Court can weigh in.

In a highly unusual move, the Department of Justice has stepped in with the intention of arguing the case before the Supreme Court on behalf of the president.

Carroll's defamation argument hinged on the president's accusation that she wasn't telling the truth when she came forward with her rape allegation.

Because the statute of limitations for a sexual assault charge had passed, Carroll sued him in civil court and won.

In 2019, Trump denied ever knowing Carroll and said she "wasn't his type".

But when presented with a photograph of Trump speaking with Carroll, he mistook her as his former wife Marla Maples.

READ MORE: Doctor who designed cognitive test addresses Trump's boasts

A jury found she was telling the truth when she alleged Trump raped her in the dressing room of a New York department store.

"She completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes, 'swooned' her," Trump said afterwards.

"It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years."

With a 6-3 conservative majority, including three judges the president has appointed himself, Trump is hoping the Supreme Court will be more sympathetic to his argument.

In the past week, the court has made a series of sweeping decisions favouring the conservative point of view, including on abortion and voting rights.

Trump's move to involve the Supreme Court comes a week after the appeals court knocked back his move to substitute the United States as a replacement defendant in the case.

He is hoping the Supreme Court will reverse that decision.

Such a move would lead to the case being dismissed, because the United States cannot be sued for defamation.

READ MORE: A billion in taxpayer money set aside for Trump's ballroom project

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

Jane Fonda has paid tribute to billionaire media mogul Ted Turner, who has died aged 87.

Turner, the brash and outspoken television pioneer who created a media empire and transformed the news business by creating CNN and introducing the 24-hour cable news cycle, died surrounded by his family.

Turner's empire expanded far beyond media — owning professional sports teams in Atlanta and huge chunks of the American West. He raced yachts too, defending the America's Cup in 1977.

READ MORE: Trump claims he's on the brink of ending Iran war

He donated a stunning $US1 billion ($1.53 billion) to United Nations charities and fuelled conservation efforts through habitat restoration and endangered species work on his sprawling ranches in the West.

Turner married three women — most famously Fonda — and earned the nicknames "Captain Outrageous" and "the Mouth of the South".

He once bragged: "If only I had a little humility, I'd be perfect."

My 'favourite' ex-husband

In a heartbreaking post on Instagram, Fonda, 88, described Turner as a "gloriously handsome, deeply romantic, swashbuckling pirate" who had "a big life, a brilliant mind and a soaring sense of humor".

"Ted Turner helped me believe in myself," Fonda said.

"He gave me confidence. I think I did the same for him, but that's what women are raised to do.

"Men like Ted aren't supposed to express need and vulnerability. That was Ted's greatest strength, I believe."

https://www.instagram.com/p/DYAtlcgkgfi/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Fonda said she loved Turner "with all her heart".

"I see him in heaven now with all the wildlife he helped bring back from extinction – the black footed ferrets, the prairie dogs, Big Horned sheep, Mexican Gray Wolf, the Yellowstone wolf pack, bison, the red cockaded woodpecker and so many more, they're all gathered at the pearly gates applauding and thanking him for saving their species," she said.

"Five children survive him, five talented, complex kids who I had the privilege of becoming stepmother to.

"If it was complicated to be married to him, think how complicated it was being his child. And they are all doing fine.

A media titan

Turner was slowed in later years by Lewy body dementia. Long since out of the television business, he concentrated on philanthropy and his more than 2 million acres (800,000 hectares) of property, including the nation's largest bison herd.

His garrulous personality sometimes overshadowed a driven, risk-taking business acumen. By the time he sold his Turner Broadcasting System to Time Warner Inc in a 1996 media megadeal, Turner had turned his late father's billboard company into a global conglomerate that included seven major cable networks, three professional sports teams and a pair of hit movie studios.

US President Donald Trump, reacting to Turner's death, called him "one of the greats of all time".

"Whenever I needed him, he was there, always willing to fight for a good cause!" Trump posted on social media.

READ MORE: Sick trio removed from nightmare cruise ship

The creation of CNN

Turner's signature achievement was creating CNN, the first 24-hour, all-news television network in 1980. At a time when news is instantly available, it's hard to recall that the idea of letting consumers decide when they choose to learn what's going on in the world was once revolutionary.

In part, Turner's own frustration with television news was the instigator. He often worked late after the network newscasts had gone off the air, and was in bed by the time his local stations did their own news.

He took a chance by starting the operation sometimes derided as the "chicken noodle network" in the early days of cable television, living in an apartment above its Atlanta office.

"I was going to have to hit hard and move incredibly fast and that's what we did — move so fast that the (broadcast) networks wouldn't have the time to respond, because they should have done this, not me," Turner recalled in a 2016 interview with the Academy of Achievement. "But they didn't have the imagination."

READ MORE: Man charged over symbol on shirt worn outside royal commission

CNN's breakthrough moment came during the Gulf War with Iraq in 1991. Most television journalists had fled Baghdad. CNN stayed, capturing arresting images of a war's outbreak, with anti-aircraft tracers streaking across the sky and correspondents flinching from the concussion of bombs.

Turner was promised a continued role in CNN after his company's sale to Time Warner for $US7.3 billion ($11.16 billion) in stock, but was gradually pushed out, much to his regret.

"I made a mistake," he later said. "The mistake I made was losing control of the company."

That same year — 1996 — saw the birth of Fox News Channel and arrival of a new dominant mogul in cable news, Rupert Murdoch.

Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav called Turner a visionary and a trailblazer on Wednesday.

"Ted's entrepreneurial spirit, creative ambition and willingness to take risks changed the media industry forever," Zaslav said in a note to employees.

Building TBS SuperStation

Robert Edward Turner III was born November 19, 1938, in Cincinnati. When he was nine, his family moved to Savannah, Georgia. After being expelled from Brown University for sneaking a female student into his room, Turner came to Atlanta to work for his father's billboard company.

After his father's 1963 suicide, Turner took over the company. In 1970, he bought an independent UHF station with a weak signal that didn't even cover Atlanta.

On December 17, 1976, he began transmitting the station to cable systems across the country via satellite. It became the TBS SuperStation.

"It was the start of something bigger than we ever imagined," Turner said in 1996.

TBS' collection of old movies and The Andy Griffith Show reruns was augmented by Turner's acquisition of baseball's Atlanta Braves. Perennial doormats, the Braves slowly attracted fans across the nation and in the 1980s began declaring themselves "America's team".

In the 1980s, Turner went deeply into debt to buy MGM, a move again greeted with scepticism.

But the acquisition gave his company a huge library of vintage movies that eventually were parlayed into the TNT and Turner Classic Movies networks. His devotion to older movies earned Turner a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004. He was also criticised for adding colour to classic movies like Casablanca, which he said he did to appeal to a younger audience.

TBS also acquired the Hanna-Barbera animation library, which led to the launch of the Cartoon Network.

"He sees the obvious before most people do," Bob Wright, former president and CEO of NBC, told The New Yorker in 2001.

"We all look at the same picture, but Ted sees what you don't see. And after he sees it, it becomes obvious to everybody."

He revealed his ambitions as a younger man: "I used to tell people I wanted to become the world's greatest sailor, businessman and lover all at the same time."

Asked to share the secret to his success, he said: "Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise."

Acquiring sports teams and land

For much of his life a partying roustabout who wooed beautiful women with a roguish charm, the lean, moustachioed sportsman married three times. He was married to Fonda from 1991 to 2001. She quit acting while married to Turner, but tired of his philandering and divorced him, although they remained friends.

"He was sexy. He was brilliant. He had 2 million acres by the time I left. It would have been easy to stay," Fonda once said of her relationship with Turner.

Turner had an unexpected friendship with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, bonding over hunting and arguments about politics over rum and cigars. A once bitter rival who compared Fox's Murdoch to Adolf Hitler, they later reconciled over their concern for the environment.

Turner built a sports empire, at one point owning professional baseball, basketball and hockey teams in Atlanta. He was best remembered at the helm of the Atlanta Braves, turning the team into champions in the 1990s. Their former stadium, built for the 1996 Olympics, was named Ted Turner Field.

Perhaps Turner's greatest love was for the land. He acquired millions of acres in ranches complete with roaming buffalo and was Nebraska's largest private landholder. He spoke often of reviving the West's bison herds, and in 2002 started a restaurant chain serving bison burgers, Ted's Montana Grill.

He had a net worth of $US2.5 billion in 2023 but had dropped off Forbes magazine's ranking of the 400 richest Americans in 2021. During a stock market bust, Turner's net worth went from nearly $US10 billion ($15.29 billion) to about $US2 billion in two-and-a-half years.

He had enough time, and money, to devote to such lofty goals as promoting world peace and protecting the environment.

"See, my life is more an adventure than a quest to make money. Adventure is going out and doing something for the pure hell of it," Turner once said.

"You just want to see if you can do it, period. There's no thought of gain other than your own satisfaction."

'The Mouth of the South'

Through the years, Turner's antics occasionally overshadowed his business activities.

Fresh from skippering his boat Courageous to the 1977 America's Cup title, a very inebriated Turner was captured by TV cameras stretched out on the floor at the victory celebration.

Turner managed to insult many with his shoot-from-the-lip style. An atheist since his only sister died of lupus at age 17, he called Christians "losers" and "Jesus freaks", later apologising.

He once suggested in a speech that Black people be used to haul mobile missiles with ropes "like the Egyptians building the pyramids". After civil rights leaders demanded an apology, he said he was just joking.

Other times, his humour saved him from potentially awkward situations, like when he talked to an audience in Berlin in 1999.

"You know, you Germans had a bad century," Turner said, according to The New Yorker.

"You were on the wrong side of two wars. You were the losers. I know what that's like. When I bought the Atlanta Braves, we couldn't win, either. You guys can turn it around.

"You can start making the right choices. If the Atlanta Braves could do it, then Germany can do it."

Dedication to various causes

Turner, a father of five children, grabbed a leadership role in American philanthropy with his 1997 pledge to give $US1 billion, or $US100 million a year for 10 years, to United Nations charities. Even as Turner's fortune shrank after the AOL Time Warner merger, he continued giving money to the UN, calling it the best hope for peace.

He promoted a range of humanitarian causes. Turner joined former US senator Sam Nunn to start the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a US-based non-profit dedicated to reducing the threat of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

"If I had to predict, the way things are going, I'd say the chances are about 50-50 that humanity will be extinct in 50 years," Turner said in 2003.

"Weapons of mass destruction, disease, I mean this global warming is scaring the living daylights out of me."

As he poured millions into non-profits, Turner was also fond of spreading his wealth in small ways. He once gave $US500 to a volunteer fire department that helped extinguish a blaze on one of his ranches. Another time he lent personal paintings for an exhibit at a Bozeman, Montana, museum.

NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.

• Download the 9NEWS App here via Apple and Google Play
• Make 9News your preferred source on Google by ticking this box here
• Sign up to our breaking newsletter here