“Bombshell” is a word that gets overused, but it is the correct word for the information that just dropped in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation this week. One of the two prison guards on duty the night he allegedly killed himself has been caught lying about what went on that night, and she was receiving mysterious deposits into her bank account for months prior to his death to the tune of thousands and thousands of dollars. It was to the point where her bank flagged the deposits as “suspicious activity” to the FBI in November 2019. Epstein died on August 10, 2019.
This is a crazy, crazy story.
The New York Post exclusively reported that one of guards in Epstein’s special housing unit Googled him minutes before he was found dead and also made a mysterious $5,000 cash deposit 10 days before his alleged suicide, per new documents from the Department of Justice. Tova Noel, 37, was one of the two Metropolitan Correctional Center workers accused of falsifying records to say that she and her colleague checked on Epstein throughout the night before his August 10, 2019, suicide.
Both guards were fired because they said they checked on Epstein and they didn’t. The criminal charges against them were later dropped, but the investigation into them revealed a lot and there is a real question about whether those criminal charges should have been dropped and whether they were the correct charges to begin with.
The Internet Searches
According to an FBI record of her internet search history, Noel Googled “latest on Epstein in jail” at 5:42am and then again at 5:52am on August 10, 2019. Why does she need to Google that? Why don’t you get your ass up, walk down the hallway, and take a look? Was she looking to see whether somebody else had broken news? This was less than 40 minutes before her colleague, correctional officer Michael Thomas, found Epstein dead in his cell by hanging at 6:30am. Was she expecting something to happen 40 minutes later or some time around when she was googling the latest? Why does the guard responsible for keeping an eye on him have to Google what the latest is on him “in jail”? This is highly suspicious.
Earlier in that shift, the Post reported that prosecutors alleged Noel shopped for furniture online and snoozed on the job instead of making the mandated checks on Epstein every 30 minutes, while Thomas perused motorcycles. The FBI highlighted the 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.
“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.” So, she seemingly lied, which is a federal crime.
The Cash Deposits
And then there is the issue of the cash deposits. Pay attention to the timeline here. According to The New York Post, a DOJ file revealed Chase bank flagged cash deposits in Noel’s bank account in a “suspicious activity report” to the FBI in November 2019. That would have been a couple months after Epstein died. It turned out a total of 12 deposits had been made, culminating in the largest one for $5,000 on July 30, 2019 – 11 days before he died.
Noel didn’t start working in the special housing unit where Epstein was held until July 7, 2019, weeks before his death. But 12 deposits totaling $11,880 were made beginning in April 2018. It wasn’t until November 2018 that The Miami Herald even dropped its massive report that would lead to all the trouble for Epstein. He was arrested on July 6, 2019. On July 7, 2019, Noel was transferred to the special housing unit. On July 30, 2019, she deposited $5,000. On August 10, 2019, Epstein was found dead.
Maybe some of the deposits are unrelated. How could the person giving her money in April 2018, before The Miami Herald piece, have known that Epstein was going to be arrested by federal prosecutors in New York and that he was going to be in her housing unit? She hadn’t even been moved to that unit yet. It seems farfetched, but the timeline of the transfer and $5,000 deposit is suspicious.
When the DOJ interviewed Noel, she was not asked about the cash. Why not? Might we need to reopen that investigation?
Here’s another thing I don’t understand: Why, knowing all this, was the FBI so quick to say he killed himself? Kash Patel and Dan Bongino went on Fox & Friends to say, ‘That’s what we believe. We’ve seen the videotape.’ Why did they come out and say that presumably having seen this report? She denied googling him during a sworn statement to the DOJ in 2021 and apparently we knew that wasn’t true. Why hasn’t this been completely ruled out as a nothingburger? I would love to know more. The New York Post does not explain it and, presumably, does not know.
I mean, this is pretty extraordinary.
The Prison Video
The Post also reviewed an internal FBI briefing released in the DOJ files that revealed the agency thought Noel was likely the mysterious orange shape spotted in a blurry surveillance video near Epstein cell around 10:40pm August 9, 2019 – hours before he would kill himself. There has been a question about who that was.
Well, the Post reported a correctional officer believed to be Noel carried linen or inmate clothing up to the L-Tier at approximately 10:40pm. That was the last time any correctional officer approached the only entrance to the special housing unit tier, according to the FBI. Epstein apparently hanged himself with strips of orange cloth.
In the sworn statement, Noel, who was working a double shift that day, told investigators she last saw Epstein alive “somewhere around 10” and that she “never gave out linen – ever” or clothing to inmates because that was done during the prior shift.
We have always wondered how Epstein got the extra linens in his cell with which he killed himself, if he killed himself. If he was murdered, he was murdered. If he killed himself, someone made it very easy for him by providing the extra linen; or somebody made it very easy for the murderer to cover up the murder by having all this extra linen that made it look like he used it.
Noel testified she did not know why Epstein had extra linen in his cell and said the other guard on duty was sleeping between 10pm and midnight.
All the Epstein so-called conspiracy theorists have been shamed as nut cases for years now. You tell me, even if you sincerely believe that he killed himself, what is an innocent explanation for all this? Hell if I know. I have more questions than answers, and somebody should answer these.
The Autopsy Report
There is also new information about the medical examiner’s report on Epstein’s cause of death. Forensic pathologist Michael Baden was brought in by Epstein’s brother, Mark Epstein, to observe the autopsy and here is what he told Tucker Carlson shortly after on his then-Fox News show:
BADEN: I was present at the autopsy, and there were three fractures in the windpipe that are much more typical of crush injury from homicidal strangulation than from hanging… Hemorrhages in the eyes, again, more typical of homicide, and the ligature imprint on the neck didn’t match the ligature that was present in the cell… So, I thought that made it more likely that this was a homicide… But we never got to find out how the body was found. Was he found hanging or not, for example? Because the two guards were sleeping… The body was just cut down and brought out to a hospital where it was pronounced dead.
Now, Business Insider has a new report that the doctor who performed the autopsy Baden observed, Kristin Roman, was less sure about homicide initially but did not select the boxes for “homicide” or “suicide” on the death certificate. Instead, she marked “pending studies.”
“Five days later, Barbara Sampson, the chief medical examiner of New York City and Roman’s boss, ruled that Epstein died by suicide after what she said was a ‘careful review of all investigative information,'” Business Insider reported. “Sampson, who did not attend Epstein’s autopsy, did not elaborate on the findings.”
So, she didn’t have additional information, but she declared that it was a suicide.
Business Insider reported that “Roman’s initially ambiguous classification of Epstein’s death, combined with Baden’s frequent media interviews, helped fuel conspiracy theories that Epstein, a financier with ties to elite figures in politics and business, was murdered as part of a cover-up.”
As the outlet noted, the public was not aware that Roman agreed with Samson’s declaration until some four years later when the DOJ Inspector General’s report was released. But even that report did not shed light on Roman’s reasoning. That transparency has finally arrived via a transcript of her interview with the DOJ that was made public as part of this year’s Epstein Files release.
In the May 2022 interview, the doctor told investigators she was just “being thorough” by not immediately confirming the cause of death. “If he had been a less high-profile person who there weren’t people wanting to kill, I would have probably called it a hanging on the day of autopsy,” she said, according to the transcript. She also confirmed that she is certain Epstein hanged himself. “It was pretty clear cut,” Roman said.
According to Business Insider, Roman pointed to the same fractures in Epstein’s neck that Baden said were inconsistent with a hanging as part of her reasoning. Baden, meanwhile, told Business Insider last week that he has never seen three fractures in a suicidal hanging while working as a New York City medical examiner for 25 years, nor while serving for decades on a New York state commission that oversees prison deaths.
So, there is a discrepancy between what Baden concluded and what the medical examiner concluded, which we have kind of known about. We knew that the chief medical examiner, Samson, had concluded something different than Baden did. And now we know that Roman, the woman who actually did the exam, had her doubts as initially expressed but that she was definitely leaning suicide. I wonder how she would react if shown the latest on the guards testimonial per that FBI investigation.
Unanswered Questions
Will we ever know? I just don’t think we are going to know. I think if somebody had this guy murdered, then they have every incentive in the world to continue covering it up and clearly they are very well placed in terms of power and connections. And if somebody just made it simpler for him to kill himself – getting the additional linens in there, getting the guards to look away – same. To me, it seems the least likely outcome right now is he just killed himself on his own and no one had anything to do with it.
This guard’s testimonial, this guard’s money, the guard’s apparent lies under oath – that’s too many coincidences. This is quite damning info.
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 1,269 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.