Exclusive | Epstein prison guard googled him minutes before his body was found and made mysterious deposit days before his suicide: DOJ
One of Jeffrey Epstein’s prison guards googled the sex predator minutes before he was found dead — and also made a mysterious $5,000 cash deposit 10 days before the predator’s jail-cell suicide, new Department of Justice documents reveal.Tova Noel was one of the two Metropolitan Correctional Center workers accused of falsifying records to say they checked on Epstein throughout the night before his Aug.10, 2019, suicide.
The guards were fired but criminal charges against both were later dropped.Noel googled “latest on Epstein in jail” at 5:42 a.m.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., according to an FBI record of Noel’s internet search history that night.Earlier that 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, prosecutors said.The FBI highlighted the eerie 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.When questioned during her sworn statement to the DOJ in 2021, Noel denied googling Epstein.“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, who 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, 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.
Meanwhile, Chase Bank flagged cash deposits in Noel’s bank account in a “suspicious activity report” to the FBI in November 2019...