FBI Probing “Criminality” in Jeffrey Epstein’s Death; Prison Guards Charged

By: Clement McDermott

It seems like each and every day, the notion that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide seems less and less plausible.

Here’s the latest: the FBI is said to be investigating a so-called ‘criminal enterprise’ in Epstein’s death.

A pair of federal Bureau of Prisons employees, Tova Noel, 31, and Michael Thomas, 41, have reportedly been charged on over their failure to check on Epstein.

They had been ordered to guard the convicted pedophile at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on the night he – according to some — killed himself. The two stand accused of failing to check on Epstein every half-hour, as they were required to do, and later of making up log entries to indicate that they had.

According to report, the guard sat only 15-feet from Epstein’s cell, and were absorbed in surfing the internet instead of doing their jobs. They failed, in fact, to check on inmates for eight hours, insiders say, and didn’t discover Epstein’s corpse until they served him and other prisoners their breakfast at about 6.30 the next morning.

Their reported excuse once a jail supervisor showed up in response to an alarm: “We messed up… we didn’t do any rounds.”

Bureau of Prisons’ director Kathleen Hawk Sawyer testified in front of a Senate Judiciary Committee earlier today and confirmed the FBI investigation.

Noel and Thomas “entered the tier where Epstein’s cell was just after 6.30am to serve breakfast to the inmates. An alarm was activated in the unit at 6.33am after the officers found Epstein unresponsive in his cell with a noose around his neck,” Britain’s DailyMail reported.

The pair are expected to be charged in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan later on today “over their alleged failure to check on the millionaire pedophile in his cell the night he took his own life,” the DailyMail added.

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman “said the two guards “had a duty to ensure the safety and security of federal inmates in their care at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. Instead, they repeatedly failed to conduct mandated checks on inmates, and lied on official forms to hide their dereliction,” according to nbcnews.com.

A lawyer for Thomas, Montell Figgins, said both guards are being “scapegoated,” The Associated Press reported. “We feel this a rush to judgment by the U.S. attorney’s office,” Figgins said. “They’re going after the low man on the totem pole here.”

“Epstein was arrested July 6 at an airport in Teterboro, New Jersey, as he returned from Paris on a private jet. He was charged with one count of sex trafficking conspiracy and one count of sex trafficking and faced up to 45 years in prison if found guilty,” added nbcnews.com. “He pleaded not guilty and was denied bail.”