Jeffrey Epstein jail guards charged

NEW YORK >> Two jail guards responsible for monitoring Jeffrey Epstein the night he killed himself were charged Tuesday with falsifying prison records to conceal they were sleeping and browsing the internet during the hours they were supposed to be keeping a close watch on prisoners.

Guards Tova Noel and Michael Thomas were accused in a grand jury indictment of neglecting their duties by failing to check on Epstein for nearly eight hours, and of fabricating log entries to show they had been making checks every 30 minutes, as required.

Prosecutors allege that instead of making required rounds, the guards sat at their desks just 15 feet from Epstein’s cell, browsed the internet for furniture and motorcycles, and walked around the unit’s common area. During one two-hour period, the indictment said, both appeared to have been asleep.

The charges against the officers are the first in connection with the wealthy financier’s death in August at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, where he had been awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

The city’s medical examiner ruled Epstein’s death a suicide even as conspiracy theories arose, with some questioning how he could die in such a secure setting. Dr. Michael Baden, the forensic pathologist hired by Epstein’s family to observe his autopsy, recently suggested some of Epstein’s injuries were more consistent with homicide rather than suicide, though other experts disputed that.