Two corrections officers who were supposed to be guarding Jeffrey Epstein’s jail cell the night he committed suicide cut a deal with prosecutors Friday that will allow them to avoid jail time.
Under the deferred prosecution agreement, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas will admit that they falsified records and will be sentenced to 100 hours of community service, according to a letter written by federal prosecutors Friday.
Prosecutors said that the pair browsed the internet and slept at their desks just 15 feet from Epstein’s cell instead of making their scheduled rounds every half-hour.
Under the deal, Noel and Thomas “admitted that they ‘willfully and knowingly completed materially false count and round slips'” for the housing unit they were assigned to.
According to the original indictment, Thomas admitted to a supervisor that they “messed up” upon finding Epstein unresponsive, adding, “I messed up, she’s not to blame, we didn’t do any rounds.”
One of the guards was working their second eight-hour shift of the day, while the other was working a fifth straight day of overtime. Many Bureau of Prisons workers regularly work overtime due to massive staffing shortages.
The pair will undergo supervised release, cooperate with the Justice Department’s inspector general, and complete 100 hours of community service.