Prison Guards Admit To Falsifying Records On Jeffrey Epstein, Cut Deal With Feds Photo: Michael Thomas, a federal jail guard responsible for monitoring Jeffrey Epstein the night he killed himself, leaves federal court Nov. 25, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
Two prison workers who were guarding convicted pedophile and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein the night he supposedly killed himself have admitted they falsified records, cutting a deal with federal prosecutors so they won’t have to spend any time behind bars.
The official version is that Epstein committed suicide on August 10, 2019, while being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City.
His death was almost immediately viewed as suspicious, especially since he was heavily guarded by New York Bureau of Prisons workers and he had already once attempted suicide. The prison cell video footage of that so-called suicide attempt went missing.
The prison guards, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, were accused of sleeping on the job and surfing the internet instead of monitoring Epstein. They are accused of falsifying prison records to make it seem as though they had made the required checks, AP reported.
Prosecutors alleged that Noel and Thomas sat at their desks located just 15 feet from Epstein’s cell, shopped online for furniture and motorcycles, and walked around the unit’s common area instead of making their required rounds every 30 minutes.
During a two-hour period, both appeared to have been asleep, according to the court documents. Both guards were working overtime because of staffing shortages.
Noel and Thomas will enter into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department and will serve no time behind bars, according to a letter from federal prosecutors that was filed in court papers. The two former guards will be subjected to supervised release, must complete 100 hours of community service, and fully cooperate with an ongoing probe by the Justice Department’s inspector general, authorities said.
Twitter has plenty to say about the deal.
“They sang like birds. This is about to get interesting,” D. Scot Miller @atsuttonfrosurreal tweeted.
Many still think Epstein was murdered in jail. He was known to mingle with rich and famous people including Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, and former presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton. Those meetings were well documented.
“This was pretty obvious to most of us,” HNM @naposapo8 tweeted. “Who did Epstein have the most dirt on though? Trump? Clinton? Prince Andrew? Someone murdered Epstein.”
“What kind of deal did they make? Did Epstein actually kill himself or were they paid to take a walk while the cleaner came in?” tweeted Soul Owner @DavidDusseau1.
The deal, which still needs to be approved by a judge, has been criticized. Sen. Ben Sasse, a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the deal “unacceptable” and said the report detailing the prison agency’s failures should be made public.
“One hundred hours of community service is a joke — this isn’t traffic court,” Sasse said in a statement. “The leader of an international child sex trafficking ring escaped justice, his co-conspirators had their secrets go to the grave with him, and these guards are going to be picking up trash on the side of the road.”
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