This archive report was first published on 26 November 2019.
Epstein Suicide: Guards Blamed for Systemic Failures ¶
On August 10, 2019, financier Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, where he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. An investigation by the New York Times revealed that two guards on duty that night, Michael Thomas and Tova Noel, had been charged with making false records and conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Prosecutors alleged that the guards had browsed the internet and napped during their shift, instead of checking on Epstein every half-hour as required. They also lied on official logs, claiming they had made the rounds when they had not.
Attorney General William P. Barr described the circumstances surrounding Epstein's death as a 'perfect storm of screw-ups.' However, lawyers for the guards argued in court that their clients were being made scapegoats for larger problems in the federal prison system.
The Manhattan jail where Epstein died has long struggled with staff shortages, and the two guards had already worked several tours of overtime that week. Epstein was also left alone without a cellmate, despite having attempted to take his own life three weeks earlier.
Montell Figgins, the lawyer for Michael Thomas, said, 'Unfortunately, the decisions that led to the death of Mr. Epstein were not only because of what my client did or did not do. It was because of a system that failed completely.'
Jason E. Foy, the lawyer for Tova Noel, said he had not seen the evidence against his client but vowed to investigate her case vigorously. He suggested that there were 'outside circumstances that are driving this prosecution.'
The indictment charging the two guards highlighted lapses in the operation of the high-security unit at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. It also offered the first official narrative of the events preceding Epstein's death, stating that security cameras did not show anyone entering the cell block where Epstein was housed.
On November 24, 2019, Judge Richard M. Berman, who had presided over Epstein's criminal case, published a letter in The New York Times, stating that the indictment of the two guards was not a 'full accounting' of the circumstances surrounding Epstein's death.
