Newly released Department of Justice records are raising fresh questions about the night Jeffrey Epstein died behind bars, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
Documents reviewed from the DOJ reveal that one of the guards responsible for monitoring the disgraced financier searched for updates about him online just minutes before he was discovered dead inside his Manhattan jail cell.
Googling Jeffrey Epstein
Tova Noel, a correctional officer at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, was one of two guards previously accused of falsifying records to claim they conducted routine checks on Epstein during the night shift leading up to his August 10, 2019, death, according to documents seen by The New York Post.
Prosecutors had alleged that Noel and fellow guard Michael Thomas failed to perform the required 30-minute checks while the convicted sex offender was being held in the Special Housing Unit.
According to an FBI forensic review of prison computer activity, Noel searched “latest on Epstein in jail” at 5:42 a.m. and again at 5:52 a.m. on the morning of Epstein’s death. Less than 40 minutes later, Thomas reportedly found the 66-year-old financier hanging in his cell at 6:30 a.m.
The FBI flagged the searches in a 66-page forensic examination of Bureau of Prisons desktop computers used by the two guards. The search for Epstein was the only internet activity highlighted in the report.
Earlier during the shift, investigators said Noel spent time browsing furniture online while Thomas looked at motorcycles instead of carrying out the mandatory inmate checks.
When Noel was questioned under oath by the Department of Justice in 2021, she denied looking up Epstein online.
“I don’t remember doing that,” she said during the interview, according to the transcript.
She also challenged the accuracy of the records. “I don’t recall looking him up,” Noel insisted, adding that the FBI’s computer data was not “accurate.”
Strange Deposits
The documents also revealed financial activity that caught investigators’ attention. Chase Bank filed a “suspicious activity report” with the FBI in November 2019 after noticing a pattern of cash deposits into Noel’s account.
Bank records showed 12 deposits beginning in April 2018, with the largest — $5,000 — made on July 30, 2019, just 10 days before Epstein’s death.
Available records show seven deposits totaling $11,880 between December 2018 and the time of Epstein’s suicide.
Noel had begun working in the Special Housing Unit, where Epstein was being held, on July 7, 2019, only weeks before the financier died.
The DOJ files indicate Noel was not questioned about the deposits during her interview with investigators. Records also noted that she drove a $62,000 2019 Land Rover Range Rover at the time.
Odd Orange-Colored Blob
Another newly released internal FBI briefing sheds light on a mysterious figure captured in blurry surveillance footage outside the Special Housing Unit on the night Epstein died.
Investigators said the figure — described as an orange-colored shape moving through the hallway around 10:40 p.m. — was likely Noel.
“At approximately 10:40 pm, a correctional officer, believed to be Tova Noel, carried linen or inmate clothing up to the L-Tier, last time any correctional officer approached the only entrance to the SHU tier,” the FBI wrote in the briefing.
Epstein later died by hanging, using strips of orange cloth.
The identity of the figure in the video has fueled speculation since the footage surfaced publicly last year.
An earlier inspector general report released in 2023 described the individual only as “unidentified correctional officers,” making the FBI briefing the first time Noel’s name has been linked to the person seen on camera.
During her sworn interview, Noel said she last saw Epstein alive “somewhere around after 10.”
She also denied providing the inmate with linens or clothing that night.
“I never gave out linen — ever,” Noel told investigators, explaining that distributing linens was normally done during an earlier shift.
Tova Noel’s Denial
Noel also claimed that skipping rounds and falsifying log entries was common practice at the facility.
“I’ve never worked in the Special Housing Unit and actually done rounds every 30 minutes,” she said.
According to Noel’s testimony, the other guard assigned to the unit was asleep for part of the night between 10 p.m. and midnight.
Correctional staff have said that entering the area of Epstein’s cell alone would violate prison policy.
When asked directly whether she played any role in Epstein’s death, Noel responded simply: “No.”
Noel and Thomas were both charged in 2019 with falsifying prison records related to the monitoring of Epstein. However, the criminal case against them was later dropped, and both guards were fired from the Bureau of Prisons.
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Epstein files on woman’s unproven claims about Trump released by DOJ
Washington — The Justice Department released additional Jeffrey Epstein files Thursday that included uncorroborated accusations by a woman against President Trump that the department said had been mistakenly withheld during an earlier review.
The department said last week that it was working to determine if any records were improperly withheld after several news organizations reported that the massive tranche of records that had been made public didn’t include some files documenting a series of interviews conducted in 2019 with a woman who made an allegation against Mr. Trump.
The accuser was interviewed by the FBI four times as it sought to assess her account but a summary of only one of those interviews had been included in the publicly released files.
On Thursday, the department said those files had been “incorrectly coded as duplicative” and therefore were inadvertently not published along with other investigative documents related to the disgraced financier, who killed himself while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019.
“As we have consistently done, if any member of the public reported concerns with information in the library, the department would review, make any corrections, and republish online,” the department said in a post on X.
Mr. Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. The department noted in January that some of the documents contain “untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, “These are completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence, from a sadly disturbed woman who has an extensive criminal history.” She also pointed out that the Justice Department under the Biden administration knew of the accusations “and did nothing with them — because they knew President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong.”
The new disclosures come as Attorney General Pam Bondi faces continued criticism over the department’s handling of the files released under a law passed by Congress after months of public and political pressure. Five Republicans on the House Oversight Committee joined Democrats in voting Wednesday to subpoena Bondi, demanding that she answer questions under oath in a sign of mounting frustration among members of the president’s own party.
The Trump administration has faced constant political headaches over the Epstein files since the rollout of the files began in December, with critics accusing the department of hiding certain documents, over-redacting files, or in some cases, not redacting enough. In some cases, the department inadvertently released nude photos showing the faces of potential possible victims as well as names, email addresses and other identifying information that was either unredacted or not fully obscured.
Department officials have defended their handling of the files, saying they took pains to release them as quickly as possible under the law while also protecting victims. Department officials have said errors were inevitable given the volume of material, the number of lawyers viewing the files and the speed at which the department had to release them. The department has said it’s entitled to withhold records that exposed potential abuse victims, were duplicates or protected by legal privileges, or related to an ongoing criminal investigation.
Some of the records published Thursday pertained to a woman who contacted the FBI shortly after Epstein’s 2019 arrest and claimed that a man named “Jeff” living in Hilton Head, South Carolina, had raped her there in the 1980s when she was around 13 years old. The woman told the agents she didn’t know the man’s identity at the time but decades later concluded he was Jeffrey Epstein when a friend texted her his photo from a news story.
In a follow-up interview a month later, the woman added a host of other claims, including that Epstein had schemed to have her mother sent to prison, beaten her, arranged sexual encounters with other men and once flew her to either New Jersey or New York, where she alleged she bit Donald Trump after he tried to sexually assault her.
Agents spoke with the woman two more times, at one point asking her to provide more detail on her alleged interactions with Mr. Trump, but reported that she declined to answer additional questions and broke off contact. There’s no indication that Epstein ever lived in South Carolina and it was unclear whether Mr. Trump and Epstein knew each other during the time period involved.
The woman’s report was one of a number of uncorroborated reports that federal agents received from members of the public alleging misconduct by Mr. Trump and other famous people in the months and years after Epstein’s arrest.
Separately, it has emerged that the Justice Department has been taking down files on Epstein it had released. After removing tens of thousands of files, the department currently makes public about 2.7 million pages of documents related to Epstein, a CBS News analysis found, a number below the Department’s initial claim of 3 million and which continues to fluctuate.
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DoJ releases Epstein files containing uncorroborated abuse allegations against Trump
The US justice department released additional files related to Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday, including FBI memos describing interviews with a woman who made uncorroborated allegations against Epstein and Donald Trump.
The documents were not included in the justice department’s earlier releases of Epstein-related records, which began in December. Justice department officials have said the files were initially withheld because they were mistakenly categorized as duplicates.
Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein or any knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activity.
The materials released on Thursday, which the Guardian obtained and reported on last week, describe a series of FBI interviews conducted in 2019 with a woman who alleged that she had been sexually assaulted by Epstein, and by Trump, in the 1980s, when she was a minor. The woman had contacted the FBI shortly after Epstein’s 2019 arrest on federal sex trafficking charges.
Her allegations have not been verified, and the FBI never brought charges related to her claims. The Guardian reported last week that some of her statements appear to contradict what is known about Epstein’s life in the early 1980s.
In a statement to the Guardian, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, called the woman’s allegations “completely baseless” and said that they are “backed by zero credible evidence”.
“The total baselessness of these accusations is also supported by the obvious fact that Joe Biden’s department of justice knew about them for four years and did nothing with them – because they knew President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong,” Leavitt said. “As we have said countless times, President Trump has been totally exonerated by the release of the Epstein Files.”
In January, the justice department said that “some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election”.
“To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already,” they added.
On Thursday, the justice department said in a statement that it had “reviewed public allegations” that some documents were missing from the Epstein files release and said that it had identified “15 documents were incorrectly coded as duplicative”.
“Additionally, the southern district of Florida separately determined that five prosecution memos that were initially marked as privileged could be released while still protecting the privileged materials,” they said. “All 20 of these documents are now live.”
The new release comes as Democrats last week launched an investigation into whether the justice department had intentionally withheld materials in its releases of the Epstein files related to allegations involving Trump.
It also comes as last week, five Republicans on the House oversight committee joined Democrats to subpoena Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, to answer questions about the justice department’s investigation into Epstein, and its handling of the document releases.
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