Court records reveal that Jeffrey Epstein made a first suicide attempt in a jailhouse in late July and was only put on suicide watch for 24 hours after he was discovered with a torn bedsheet tied to his neck. Epstein was also left unmonitored for 8 hours before he was discovered unresponsive in his jail room on August 9.
On Friday, an indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court charging that correctional officers selected to monitor Epstein’s cell at the Manhattan Corrections Center wrongly claimed that they completed their required rounds, reports that Epstein was discovered with a “strip of bedsheet around his neck” in his jail cell on July 23. On Tuesday, Michael Thomas, one of the two guards who was charged in relation to Epstein’s suicide, was among to first discover Epstein unresponsive in late July.
Epstein was placed on suicide watch for 24 hours after the suicide attempt and for close to a week after that, he was under continuous “psychological observation.” On July 30, he was returned to the Special Housing Unit (SHU), maintained for prisoners who are at a security risk.
The indictment, shared by a source, confirms earlier reports that psychological staff at MCC issued a directive that Epstein has a cellmate. But on the August 9 morning, Epstein’s cellmate was removed out of the facility in a “routine, pre-arranged transfer” and was not displaced. The 66-year-old, who was awaiting trial on physical trafficking charges, was discovered hanged in his jail cell at about 6:30 the next morning.
The second guard charged with lying logs, Tova Noel, began her shift at 4 p.m. on Friday, August 9. She was listed to work a double, 16-hour-shift, the indictment says. By 10 p.m., all prisoners were in their cells for the night, and Noel was ordered to do an institutional count at the time. She did not count, although she submitted a “count slip” declaring that she had. According to the indictment, this would continue overnight, and after Thomas started his shift at 12 a.m,, when the two corrections officers were the only guards assigned to the SHU, where Epstein was alone in a cell: Both guards allegedly neglected to do any of the institutional counts throughout the night, or do the necessary rounds in the SHU every 30 minutes.
The indictment shows that the corrections officers would submit count slips approximately every two hours, suggesting that they could not have been asleep for longer than two hours at a time, though the indictment asserts there was one two-hour period in which the guards seemed not to move at their desks, implying they were asleep.
At about 10:30 p.m., “Noel briefly walked up to, and then walked back from, the door to the tier in which Epstein was housed,” the indictment states. Neither guard inspected on Epstein’s cell at any time after that, till he was discovered unresponsive at 6:30 a.m. the next day.
The indictment asserts that Noel used the computer “periodically during the night,” when she browsed the internet for furniture sales and benefit sites. Thomas also used the computer 3 times between 1 a.m. and 6 p.m., when he searched for motorcycle sales and sports news.
Citing law enforcement sources, a source reports that Thomas and Noel both pleaded not guilty to lying the jail logs and each person has been released on $100,000 bail.
