Guard who found Epstein dead in cell received mystery payments
The prison guard who discovered Jeffrey Epstein’s body in prison googled the billionaire paedophile just minutes before finding him dead when she delivered his breakfast.
Tova Noel was one of two workers at New York’s Metropolitan Correction Center who faced criminal charges for fabricating records to show they had checked Epstein the night before he had died.
Newly released documents show that Noel received a mystery payment just days before the disgraced financier took his own life in his cell.
On the night she was meant to be checking on Epstein every 30 minutes, Noel, 37, reportedly slept on the job, browsed furniture online and even searched ‘latest on Epstein in jail’ less than an hour before the sex offender committed suicide in August 2019.
Noel searched ‘latest on Epstein in jail’ and clicked on an article about documents related to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, her newly released search history reveals.
She also searched for the latest information on Omar Amanat – a film producer convicted of wire fraud and conspiracy in 2017 – who was locked up alongside Epstein at the time of his death.
Her colleague, Michael Thomas, shopped for motorbikes during the night shift.
Charges against both prison workers were dropped after the pair agreed to complete 100 hours of community service and cooperate with a Department Of Justice investigation.
Noel insisted during a Department of Justice interview in 2021 that she had no recollection of looking up Epstein that night.
However files show that the prison officer had received a series of 7 cash payments from December 2018 totalling more than $11,000.
A total of 12 transactions from April of that year were flagged as ‘suspicious’ by Chase Bank in a report submitted to the FBI, New York Post reported.
The largest of these was a $5,000 lump sum paid on July 30, 2019.
Noel, who drove a $62,000 2019 Land Rover Range Rover, wasn’t asked about the cash during her DOJ interview, files also showed.
Noel was also stated in a released FBI document as likely to be the ‘mysterious orange shape’ pictured on CCTV footage at 10.40pm near Epstein’s cell the night before his death.
The correctional officer denied claims she had brought linen or clothing to the Special Housing Unit where Epstein was held, and insisted she had no idea why the paedophile had extra sheets in his cell.
A 2023 Justice Department report said there was no evidence of homicide but cited serious negligence and failures by prison staff.
Around 6.30 am on August 10, 2019, Noel and Thomas were doing the morning inmate count.
When they reached Epstein’s cell, they found him not breathing and unresponsive.
They called in a medical emergency and attempted resuscitation before he was taken to hospital.
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