Prison Guard Faces Grilling Over Epstein’s Last Minutes
House probe to haul in the guard on duty when the pedophile died for questioning.
Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images
The prison guard on duty when Jeffrey Epstein died will go before Congress to answer questions as suspicions remain about the convicted sex offender’s final moments.
Tova Noel was one of the guards working at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York when the pedophile died while awaiting trial in August 2019.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer announced on Friday that the committee wants Noel to appear for a transcribed interview on March 26 as part of its ongoing investigation into Epstein.
This is the last public picture of Epstein, the mug shot taken when he entered federal custody after his attest in July 2019. He died weeks later in his cell. Authorities said it was by suicide.
Kypros/Kypros
In its letter to Noel, the committee chairman said that, based on public reporting and documents, the committee believed she had information that would assist in the investigation.
Epstein was found dead on August 10, 2019, in his prison cell. The authorities said he died by hanging. It happened after he was arrested in July on federal sex trafficking charges involving minors.
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Noel and the other guard on duty, Michael Thomas, who found Epstein, were later arrested and charged with falsifying prison records.
They were accused of making it appear they were carrying out the required 30-minute rounds on Epstein, but the charges against them were eventually dismissed.
Tova Noel (pictured in yellow in 2019), was one of two correctional officers on duty the night Jeffrey Epstein died. She and fellow guard Michael Thomas were charged with falsifying records on the night Epstein died, but the charges were later dismissed.
Kena Betancur/Getty Images
However, Noel has come under fresh scrutiny after recently released Justice Department files showed she had googled the pedophile minutes before he was found unresponsive and made a mysterious $5,000 cash deposit ten days before his apparent suicide.
Noel googled “latest on Epstein in jail” at 5:42 am and again at 5:52 am on August 10. Less than 40 minutes later, Thomas found the convicted sex offender unresponsive at 6:33 am.
The details about her search history in the FBI files were first reported by the New York Post.
Prison guard Tova Noel Google searched "latest on epstein in jail" twice less than an hour before he was found unresponsive, released Epstein documents show.
DOJ
Last year, Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in prison for sex trafficking, told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in an interview that she did not believe Epstein killed himself.
She said she had no firsthand knowledge of what happened, but did not think he was suicidal and believed he had been murdered in prison.
Convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein with accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who said last year she did not believe the pedophile died by suicide.
Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Image
The committee has now conducted depositions with seven people as part of its investigation launched last year into Epstein’s crimes and the handling of the federal investigation into him and his death.
Those who have faced questioning to date include former Attorney General Bill Barr, former Labor Secretary and U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, billionaire Les Wexner, former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Maxwell and Epstein’s personal accountant Richard Kahn, who went before the committee for questioning this week.
Epstein’s lawyer, Darren Indyke, will also go before the committee for a deposition next week on March 19.
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