Kamal Ghorui
New Department of Justice documents revealed that Tova Noel, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s prison guards at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, googled the sex predator minutes before he was found dead and made a $5,000 cash deposit 10 days before Epstein’s August 10, 2019, jail-cell suicide.Noel was one of two Metropolitan Correctional Center workers accused of falsifying records to say they checked on Epstein throughout the night before his suicide. The guards were fired but criminal charges against both were later dropped, New York Post reported.According to an FBI record of Noel’s internet search history that night, Noel googled “latest on Epstein in jail” at 5.42 am and then again at 5:52 a.m., less than 40 minutes before her colleague, correctional officer Michael Thomas, found the disgraced financier dead in his cell by hanging at 6.30 a.m.Prosecutors said that earlier in the shift Noel, 37, shopped for furniture online and snoozed on the job instead of making the mandated checks on Epstein every 30 minutes, while Thomas perused motorcycles.The FBI highlighted the internet search in its 66-page forensic examination of the Bureau of Prisons desktop computers of Noel and Thomas. It was the only search highlighted.“I don’t remember doing that,” she claimed, according to a transcript. She said FBI records were not “accurate. I don’t recall looking him up.”Noel also claimed to investigators that everyone at the Manhattan federal lockup failed to do rounds and falsified records about it.“I’ve never worked in the Special Housing Unit and actually done rounds every 30 minutes,” she told investigators.Another file from the DOJ revealed that Chase Bank flagged cash deposits in Noel’s bank account in a “suspicious activity report” to the FBI in November 2019.The bank said a total of 12 deposits began in April 2018 and culminated in the largest deposit, for $5,000, on July 30, 2019, records showed.The files only contained Noel’s bank records beginning in December 2018. They showed seven cash deposits totalling $11,880. Noel started working at the Special Housing Unit, where Epstein had been held, beginning on July 7, 2019, weeks before his death.Records showed Noel, who drove a $62,000 2019 Land Rover Range Rover, was not asked about the cash during her DOJ interview.An internal FBI briefing, also released in the DOJ files, said the agency thought Noel was likely the mysterious orange shape spotted in a blurry surveillance video near Epstein’s cell around 10:40 p.m. that night.“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 apparently hanged himself with strips of orange cloth.In the sworn statement, Noel, who was working a double shift that day, told investigators she last saw Epstein alive “somewhere around after 10” and that she “never gave out linen — ever” or clothing to inmates because that was done the shift before.The identity of the pixelated orange blob in the video was a source of debate and conspiracies since the FBI released the footage last summer. The original 2023 inspector general report said it was “unidentified correctional officers,” making the recently released FBI document the first time a name was publicly put to the mysterious shape.She testified she did not know why Epstein had extra linen in his cell. She said the other guard on duty was sleeping between 10 p.m. and midnight.Workers said a prison employee entering the area of Epstein’s cell alone would be a policy violation.Noel has since been sued in Westchester County Supreme Court for alleged assault at her new job as a medical office assistant at Montefiore Einstein Advanced Care.Lawyers for Noel declined to comment. Asked during her sworn statement if she had any part in Epstein’s death, Noel replied “no.”
