Associated Press/Craig Ruttle
Michael Thomas, left, and Tova Noel, right, have been criminally charged for their actions as jail guards on the night Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide.
- Lawyers for the two guards charged with falsifying jail records the night Jeffrey Epstein died said their clients are being scapegoated while the Justice Department sidesteps broader dysfunction in the prison system.
- The guards, Michael Thomas and Tova Noel, have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
- An indictment said the pair browsed the internet and napped during their shift instead of performing mandatory 30-minute rounds to check on the inmates.
- But even Attorney General William Barr has described Epstein's death as a "perfect storm of screw-ups" and pointed to policy failures, such failing to ensure Epstein had a cellmate.
- "Where are the supervisors?" Thomas' lawyer asked. "Where are the people who make the policy decisions? Why didn't Mr. Epstein have a cellmate at the time that this happened?"
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Lawyers for the two jail guards accused of falling asleep on the job while Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide said their clients are being scapegoated while the federal prison system suffers from dysfunction.
Michael Thomas and Tova Noel, officers at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, were tasked on August 10 with supervising the inmates and doing regular headcounts in the jail's Special Housing Unit. It's where Epstein, the convicted sex offender awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, was detained just weeks after making a suspected suicide attempt.
"Instead, for substantial portions of their shifts, Noel and Thomas sat at their desk, browsed the internet, and moved around the common area of the SHU," a federal indictment against the guards alleged.
The indictment added that Noel had been surfing the internet for furniture sales and benefit websites while Thomas searched for motorcycle sales and sports
"For a period of approximately two hours, Noel and Thomas sat at their desk without moving and appeared to have been asleep," the indictment continued.
Thomas and Noel have been charged with falsifying jail records to make it appear that they had completed the required rounds to check on inmates throughout the night. Both have pleaded not guilty. A trial has been set for April 20.
Even the attorney general says it was a 'perfect storm of screw-ups'
But their lawyers told the court on Monday that their clients were being unfairly blamed for system-wide failures within the jail, and the broader federal prison system.
"Unfortunately, the decisions that led to the death of Mr. Epstein were not only because of what my client did or did not do," said Thomas' lawyer, Montell Figgins, according to The New York Times. "It was because of a system that failed completely."
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Metropolitan Correctional Center, June 9, 2009 in New York City.
Attorney General William Barr appeared to acknowledge such failures in a November 22 interview with the Associated Press, calling Epstein's death a "perfect storm of screw-ups."
Barr pointed out that Epstein didn't have a cellmate at the time of his death, despite his prior apparent suicide attempt.
The Bureau of Prisons has also come under fire for its severe staffing shortages, which resulted in both Thomas and Noel working extreme overtime shifts on the night of Epstein's death.
"Where are the supervisors?" Figgins asked. "Where are the people who make the policy decisions? Why didn't Mr. Epstein have a cellmate at the time that this happened?"
Amid the conspiracy theories suggesting Epstein was murdered, a smaller contingent of criminal justice reform advocates have sought to highlight instead how Epstein's experience in jail wasn't unexpected or out of the ordinary.
Rather, overworked and inattentive guards, insufficient medical care, and a failure to follow written jail policies are entirely normal experiences for inmates across the country.
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