A prison guard searched for updates about Jeffrey Epstein online only minutes before the convicted sex offender was discovered dead in his jail cell in 2019, according to newly released US Department of Justice documents.
Tova Noel, a correctional officer at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, typed “latest on Epstein in jail” into a computer search engine at 5:42 am and again at 5:52 am, FBI records show. Less than 40 minutes later, her colleague, correctional officer Michael Thomas, found Epstein hanging in his cell at around 6:30 am on August 10, 2019, as per The NY Post.
During a sworn interview with the Department of Justice in 2021, Noel denied searching for Epstein online.
“I don't remember doing that,” she said, according to the transcript. “I don't recall looking him up.” She also said the FBI's records were not “accurate.”
Noel was one of two guards accused of falsifying official records to claim they had checked on Epstein throughout the night. Both she and Thomas were later fired from the Bureau of Prisons, though criminal charges filed against them were eventually dropped.
The searches were flagged in a 66-page forensic review conducted by the FBI, which examined the Bureau of Prisons desktop computers used by the two officers during their overnight shift.
Financial documents included in the DOJ release also raised questions about activity in Noel's bank account. According to a suspicious activity report submitted by JPMorgan Chase to the FBI in November 2019, the bank flagged multiple cash deposits linked to Noel.
Records show a total of 12 deposits beginning in April 2018, including the largest, a $5,000 cash deposit made on July 30, 2019, only ten days before Epstein's death. The documents made public include bank activity from December 2018 onwards, revealing seven cash deposits totaling $11,880.
Noel, who later worked as a medical office assistant at Montefiore Einstein Advanced Care and has since faced a lawsuit alleging assault at that job, denied having any role in Epstein's death. When investigators asked whether she had any involvement, Noel replied, “no.”Noel began working in the Special Housing Unit, where Epstein was being held, on July 7, 2019, only weeks before his death.
“I've never worked in the Special Housing Unit and actually done rounds every 30 minutes,” she said in the statement.
The documents also include details from an internal FBI briefing that examined surveillance footage from the night before Epstein died. Investigators believe Noel may have been the unidentified figure seen in a blurry video near Epstein's cell at approximately 10:40 pm.
“At approximately 10:40 pm, a correctional officer, believed to be Tova Noel, carried linen or inmate clothing up to the L-Tier, last time any correctional officer approached the only entrance to the SHU tier,” the agency wrote.
Epstein is believed to have used strips of orange cloth to hang himself. In her sworn statement, Noel said she last saw Epstein alive “somewhere around after 10” pm and denied giving linen or clothing to inmates during her shift.
“I never gave out linen ever,” she told investigators, explaining that such duties were normally handled by the earlier shift.
The unclear figure captured in the surveillance footage has been the subject of debate and conspiracy theories since the video was released publicly last year. A 2023 inspector general report described the individual only as “unidentified correctional officers.”
Correctional staff have previously said that an officer entering the area near Epstein's cell alone would violate prison policy.
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