Reposted from my Substack: frankvyanwalton.substack.com/…
Yeah, this is a lot. Where journalist Julie K Brown reports that some FBI Interview notes of the guard apparently were heard exclaiming, “You killed this dude,” while another guard responded that it was ok, “We’re going to cover it up.”
Summary:
An inmate reportedly told the FBI that he overheard prison guards talking about covering up Jeffrey Epstein’s death on the morning it occurred (referring to Epstein’s 2019 death in federal custody, officially ruled a suicide).
Investigative reporter Julia K. Brown from the Miami Herald joins the program to explain the document’s significance and provide additional context on this new detail in the long-running Epstein case.
The segment ties into broader ongoing coverage of newly released or declassified Epstein-related files, fueling discussions and speculation about the circumstances of his death.
The inmate claims to have heard commotion inside the Special Housing Unit where he and Epstein were being held, according to a five-page handwritten FBI report.
He alleges that officers were frantically saying “Breathe” Breathe!” as they scrambled to resuscitate Epstein at 6:30am.
Moments later, the witness claimed one guard worried: “Dudes, you killed that dude.”
A woman’s voice then fired back: “If he’s dead, we’re going to cover it up and he’s going to have an alibi – my officers”, the inmate claimed, according to a report of the five-page interview.
DEATH RIDDLE
Epstein prison guard Googled paedo minutes before he was found dead in cell
The inmate believed the voice belonged to Tova Noel, according to the report , the prison guard who allegedly Googled Epstein in the hour before he was discovered hanged.
Noel, 37, and her colleague Michael Thomas were sacked after claims that they falsified records saying they checked on Epstein during the night of his death.
Prosecutors alleged the pair failed to conduct the mandatory checks on Epstein every 30 minutes during the overnight shift.
They were later charged over the claims, but the case was ultimately dropped.
This was also covered by Status Coup via the New York Post and Miami Herald.
The inmate interviewed by the FBI stated “Miss Noel killed Jeffrey.” Guard Tova Noel had been investigated for falsifying records involving the incident, but charges were dropped. Records also indicate that Noel received many mysterious payments in the weeks leading up to Epstein’s death, including one payment of $5000.
From the New York Post
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.
Criminal charges against Noel and the other guard were dropped in December 2021 by a federal judge. AP
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.
Epstein was found dead in his cell when Thomas and Noel brought him breakfast at 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 10, 2019. William Farrington
“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, another file from the DOJ revealed.
A total of 12 deposits began in April 2018, the bank said, and culminated in the largest deposit, for $5,000, on July 30, 2019, the records showed.
Dr. Michael Baden has argued that Epstein’s body shows signs of strangulation, not a suicide.
A forensic pathologist hired by Jeffrey Epstein’s family said he believes Epstein’s autopsy suggests homicide rather than suicide. But New York City’s chief medical examiner stands by her conclusion that Epstein died by hanging himself.
Michael Baden is a private pathologist who was briefly the chief medical examiner for New York City in the late 1970s, before going on to become a celebrity forensic witness. He has weighed in on scores of high-profile cases, including as a defense witness for O.J. Simpson.
Baden told Fox News on Wednesday he believes the evidence points to homicide rather than suicide in Epstein’s death because of three fractures of Epstein’s hyoid bone and thyroid cartilage, injuries he says are more indicative of homicidal strangulation than suicide.
The original Medical examiner still stands behind her original findings that Epstein killed himself.
But on Wednesday, New York City Chief Medical Examiner Barbara Sampson, whose office performed the autopsy, reiterated her findings.
“Our investigation concluded that the cause of Mr. Epstein’s death was hanging and the manner of death was suicide,” Sampson said in a statement.
“We stand by that determination. We continue to share information around the medical investigation with Mr. Epstein’s family, their representatives, and their pathology consultant. The original medical investigation was thorough and complete. There is no reason for a second medical investigation by our office.”
So there’s that then.
Just as a side note, Epstein died on August 10, 2019. There was an unsigned version of his death notice from the jail which was dated August 9th.
Newly released Epstein files include a draft statement attributed to federal prosecutors that is dated the day before Jeffrey Epstein was found dead.
The draft appears among at least 23 documents in the disclosure labeled as statements from the Southern District of New York’s U.S. Attorney’s Office.
A review of the records shows multiple versions of similar statements with inconsistent redactions—some leaving phone numbers or names visible, others blacking out nearly all identifying information.
One draft bears a date of Aug. 9, 2019, the day before Epstein was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
So that’s weird.
It’s also weird that just 3 days before Epstein died, a Jane Doe who accused him of years of sexual assault was interviewed by the FBI. That interview oddly was not included in the Epstein files until a few days ago, possibly because that witness also made sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump.
