Bureau of Prisons guards charged in connection to Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide work out jail-free deal with prosecutors

[Tristan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

NEW YORK — Two federal jail guards who were assigned to monitor Jeffrey Epstein the night he committed suicide in his cell have been offered a deferred prosecution deal that would allow them to avoid incarceration for falsifying documents to cover up that they were not making required inmate checks, according to a new court filing.

Tova Noel and Michael Thomas were indicted in 2019 after prosecutors said they took naps and browsed the Internet — including over an eight-hour stretch where Epstein was not monitored — instead of making rounds at the Metropolitan Correctional Center’s special housing unit. The guards discovered Epstein dead around 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 10, 2019.

To try to conceal that they did not fulfill the mandatory inmate welfare and security checks, they made false statements on official paperwork indicating that their duties had been performed, prosecutors alleged.

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While the full scope of their agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan will not be public until it is reviewed by a judge as early as next week, prosecutors disclosed Friday that Noel and Thomas agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department’s review of the ordeal and that they would complete 100 hours of community service.

Noel and Thomas have admitted to lying on Bureau of Prisons documents about their failure to conduct counts and make rounds, per their assignments, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jessica Lonergan and Nicolas Roos wrote in a court filing Friday.

The guards were the only people charged in connection to Epstein’s death, which occurred while he awaited trial for sex trafficking of underage victims in the 2000s. Dozens of women have come forward to say they were abused by the wealthy pedophile at his properties around the world when they were minors.

Lawyers for the guards could not immediately be reached for comment.

Epstein’s death was ruled a suicide by the New York City medical examiner. It was seen as a massive failure by the Bureau of Prisons for not keeping such a high-profile inmate safe. It was also viewed as a crushing blow by the alleged victims who hoped to finally see justice served.

Epstein had been prosecuted once before, in 2008 in Florida, where he entered into a plea deal that landed him about a year in jail with extensive work-release time, despite the fact that a number of young victims had come forward with similar stories about being lured to his home to earn cash to come to his home and give him massages.

At his Palm Beach estate, the girls would be pressured into having sexual encounters.

Epstein’s longtime companion and alleged accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, is now facing charges in federal court in Manhattan for allegedly recruiting victims for Epstein.