Tova Noel, one of Jeffrey Epstein's prison guards, had looked up the notorious sex offender on Google just minutes before he was reportedly found dead in his cell, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Saturday.
Noel had also received a mysterious $5,000 cash deposit just 10 days before the sex offender's alleged suicide, the DOJ added, as per a New York Post report.
JUST IN🚨: New DOJ documents show Jeffrey Epstein’s Metropolitan Correctional Center guard Tova Noel googled “latest on Epstein in jail” at 5:42 a.m. and again at 5:52 a.m. on August 10, 2019 — less than 40 minutes before her colleague found him dead by hanging at 6:30 a.m.… pic.twitter.com/hIXH1OUn3o
— Melissa Hallman (@dotconnectinga) March 7, 2026
She is one of two prison officers—apart from Michael Thomas—at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), who had been accused of falsely claiming that they had checked on Epstein as per routine at the time of his death back in August 2019.
The guards were fired amid the criminal case that followed Epstein's death, which was later dropped.
The two guards who discovered Jeffrey Epstein’s body are Tova Noel and Michael Thomas.
— Paul Bond (@WriterPaulBond) February 6, 2026
Thomas said, “Breathe, Epstein, breathe,” and, “We’re going to be in so much trouble.”
He also defended Noel later, telling a lieutenant, “It’s not her fault, we f***ed up.”
Noel said when… https://t.co/6wUXZngP8j pic.twitter.com/K9sBLf97zg
According to an FBI record of Noel's search history on the night of Epstein's alleged death, as revealed by the DOJ, she had googled 'latest on Epstein in jail' twice that night—once at 5:42 AM and then again at 5:52 AM.
Less than 40 minutes later at about 6:30 AM, Thomas reportedly found Epstein had hung himself in his cell.
Prosecutors have once more alleged that 37-year-old Noel's internet history also showed that she had shopped for furniture online and had fallen asleep on the job, missing some of her routine 30-minute checks on Epstein.
They added that Thomas had been looking at motorcycles on his phone.
“I don’t remember doing that,” she claimed, according to a transcript from her 2021 statement to the DOJ. She also alleged that FBI records were not “accurate".
"I don’t recall looking him up,” she had added at the time.
Apart from the bizarre search term flagged by the FBI, Noel's banking company, Chase Bank, had also flagged a cash deposit of $5,000 into her account, which it claimed was part of a set of seven cash deposits between December 2018 and July 2019, totalling $11,880, as per the DOJ files.
She had not been questioned about the cash deposits in the 2021 deposition, the DOJ files showed, as the investigation continues and Noel denies any involvement in the death of the notorious sex offender.
