2 Jail Guards Accused of Conspiracy and Falsifying Records the Night of Jeffrey Epstein's Suicide
Jeffrey Epstein died of suicide, myth or mystery? The disgraced financier left the world with multiple conspiracy theories, and according to the federal grand jury, two guards in jail, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, were accused and charged with filing false records and browsing the internet when the sex trafficker killed himself.
In August 2019, 31-year-old Noel and 41-year-old Thomas slept through Epstein's "apparent suicide" rather than monitoring him and charged with falsifying jail records. But they were pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court, per CNN. Instead, they were released on bail packages of $100,000 bonds for each defendant.
The accused lied on prison records that they made frequent and required checks on Epstein. But they later admitted, "Epstein hung himself. We messed up." However, they were charged three months after the sex offender took his life at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a federal detention facility in lower Manhattan.
Epstein was awaiting his trial for his sex racket running from 2002 to 2005 at his Manhattan mansion and his Palm Beach estate. He reportedly procured young girls, particularly in their teens, to his private island for sexual favors for himself and his influential clients through his close aide and girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.
After he was found dead, the New York City Chief's medical examiner declared the financier died by hanging himself to death. However, a former medical examiner contradicted this conclusion, which was hired by Epstein's legal team.
The critics called it gross negligence because the guards in the Manhattan facility browsed through sports, entertainment, furniture sales, news, and other content online but falsely logged in the jail records they checked on Epstein every half hour. The indictment claimed Noel and Thomas "sat at their desk without moving and appeared to have been asleep" for two hours.
The night Epstein breathed his last, no officer in jail went for a round or did the required checks on the prisoners under their supervision in the unit between 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. The indictment statement read, " [Epstein] had committed suicide overnight while unobserved."
The multi-millionaire was inside the prison for over a month after being arrested on July 6, 2019, and nearly a month later, he was found dead. Although he was already convicted in the sex trafficking case, he pleaded not guilty in the latest charges. If alive and was convicted, he would have faced 45 years in prison.
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he killed himself, has had complaints of staff shortages and other problems. However, Noel and Thomas' attorneys claimed their clients had been made "scapegoats" to distract from other grave issues in the federal prison system, per The New York Times.
Jail guard Thomas' lawyer, Montell Figgins, argued Epstein had died "because of a system that failed completely." He alleged, "The silver lining of this incident is to shine light on the issues in the criminal justice system and how it can be improved for everyone involved."
