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The Epstein Chronicles
Tova Noel And The Transcript From Her Congressional Testimony (Part 11) (6/24/26)
00:12:15
Tova Noel, one of the two correctional officers assigned to the Metropolitan Correctional Center’s Special Housing Unit on the night Jeffrey Epstein died, told the House Oversight Committee that she failed to conduct the required inmate checks and...
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What's up, everyone? And welcome to another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to pick up where we left off with Toven a well and her discussion with Congress. Question. Okay, who found Mr. Epstein and his cell? Answer, Thomas. Question. Thomas, can you walk us through, step by step, the events unfolding of discovering Mr. Epstein in the cell? The breakfast came up. It was time to feed breakfast. Thomas said that he'll do it because, you know, he was sleeping all night. I open the grill. Epstein is the first cell. So we started there. Thomas, I'm standing out on the grill. Thomas goes in the cell block, knocks on the door, doesn't get an answer because he would have to come to the door to receive the tray. He knocks again. He doesn't get an answer. He opens the door. When he opens the door, he yelled, pass me a cutter. So I hit my body alarm, and I go back down the stairs to go look for a cutter. When you hit the body alarm, the whole building's coming. Everybody's coming. When I went back up to the stairs, he had already ripped because you hear ripping. And he was doing CPR. Question. Officer Thomas was doing CPR. Correct. Question on Mr. Epstein. Answer. Correct. Is that standard protocol? Answer. No. Question. Why do you think he started administering cpr? The standard protocol is he's not supposed to open the door. Question. So he decided to open the door? Correct. Did he see Mr. Epstein? What did he see when he looked in? Oh, I don't know. We never spoke about the incident or after the incident, so I don't know what he's seen. And from where I'm standing, I can't see. Question. At what point did you join him? After he hit the body alarm or before then? Answer. After I hit the body alarm, I go downstairs to look for the cutter. And then I came back upstairs, and I could see, like, his feet, because by this time, he has them on the floor. I could see his feet, but I'm still outside the grill. Foy, whose feet? Noel Epstein's feet. Question. Epstein's feet on the ground. Correct. Did you ever go into the cell? No. Did you stand outside and wait for help? Yeah. And help came really fast. How fast would you say? Like five minutes. Okay. And is Officer Thomas standing in the cell at that point? He's on the floor with him doing CPR. Question. The entire five minutes? Correct. Did Mr. Epstein respond to the CPR at all? I don't know. By Mr. Grant, you said that help arrived in about five minutes. Do you know who came as part of the help. Noelle? I don't remember everybody but Lieutenant Jean and the whole bunch of other people, but I can't remember exactly who. Approximately how many people came? Noel? Maybe like five. Grant. Thank you. Now back to Ms. Firebend. At no point during those events transpiring did you see inside the cell? Yeah. No. Okay, so just to be clear, you didn't see anything inside that cell that could have been out of place? No. No bedding or linens? No. Did you ever see Mr. Epstein's body when they were bringing him out on the stretcher? How soon after help arrived were they bringing him out on the stretcher? Maybe 10 minutes. Question. You said he was doing CPR. If either one of you discovers an inmate that requires medical attention, was there any specific procedure that you had to follow? As far as the shoe goes, I know that you're not supposed to enter a cell alone. You're supposed to like, call for help and wait for help and then you can start administering. But as far as that, I don't know. Do you know why the procedure is that way? No, I do not know. And you said you never spoke to Mr. Thomas afterward? No. So you don't know why he would have gone in by himself? Correct. Question. After Mr. Epstein's body was removed from the cell. Well, he was pronounced dead at 6:39am in the morning. Did you. What did you do after that? Answer. Next. I was in the shoe for a while because everybody was gone. And I was calling to ask where's my relief? Because remember, by this time now, it's. It's time for me to leave. Question. Sure. Answer. Psychologist came upstairs and asked did I need to speak to anyone. I said no. I went downstairs after. I don't remember who relieved me, to be honest. And then I went downstairs and the lieutenant asked me what happened. But I spoke to my union rep and they told me not to say anything and I left. Question. Who was your union rep? Answer. I can't even think of his name and I see him in front of me. I. I can. He works in R and D. I'm having a blank. Foy, Tyrone. Noel. Uh huh. Question. That's okay. Was your union rep at MCC when you were talking to him about this? Yes. Question. And why would he say not to talk about it? I don't. I guess because the lieutenant was asking me and that's not like protocol. If you want to question me like the union rep should be there. Did you leave your shift at the normal time at 8am in the morning. I think it was after 8am because there was not a lot going. Because there was a lot going on. How long after 8 do you think? Maybe a half an hour. Okay. Were you ever told anything before you were, before you left? No. Question. Was that your last ever shift at MCC? Correct question. How soon after your last shift? So August 10th, did you answer questions in an interview by MCC about what happened that day? Mr. Foy? That was even after the OIG, right? Noel I'm thinking Foy. So it was more than two years? Noel yeah, it was a long time ago for sure. Firebend about how long if you had to guess estimate Mr. Foy I'd say more than two years. But because, because it was after OIG. Noel like about two years. Foy more than two years. Fair Bend. Question I know we discussed whether or that Officer Thomas was sleeping while on midnight to 8:00am shift. Correct answer. Correct question. How long was he sleeping for? Answer. So it varies. Cuz he had went upstairs at one point to 10 south so I can't really say like how long he was sleeping pretty much for like the duration of the shift. But at one point he left and he went upstairs to 10 south and then he came back and he went back to sleep. Okay. And Officer Bonhomme on the shift before that you said, I think you said he was sleeping, is that right? Correct. About how long was he sleeping for? So he went to sleep towards the last hour or maybe the like last two hours of his shift. And that was around the time that you had done your 10:00pm count. Correct. And then we mentioned the 10:38 in the video you were walking off. Was Officer Bon Homme asleep at that time? He was. Question. Okay. And at 10:39 when we discussed the flash of orange in the video camera, he would have been asleep then as well, Correct? Okay, thank you. Were you at any point sleeping on your shift between 4pm before. Excuse me. On the night of August 9th or the morning of August 10th? Answer no question. I'd like to ask a few more questions about the payments. JPMorgan Chase had reported that you received a total of 12 suspicious cash deposits beginning in April of 2018. These were included in the most recent release of the Epstein Files Transparency act and there's been lots of reporting about them since then. JP Morgan's suspicious activity report in the Epstein files included the $5,000 cash deposit that we discussed earlier in the first hour, but it also included 11 deposits from an unknown sender. Cash deposits under 10,000 usually are not flagged as Suspicious. However, they flagged all of these deposits. Are you familiar with these 12 suspicious deposits that they flagged? So Chase never informed me of anything suspicious on my account. When you say unknown sender. Nobody deposits money in my account. I do. So I don't know who or what would have been an unknown sender. Question. So no one else had access to your JP Morgan account? Correct? Just you? Answer me. Correct. There was also bank records from the DOJ that showed that there were seven cash deposits totaling $11,080 that began in December of 2018. Was that also from you distributing the cash deposits? Correct. Okay. Is your testimony today that these cash deposits that were flagged by JP Morgan were sent to you by yourself, within your own account? Not sent. I make the deposit deposited. Uh huh. Question. And that none of these cash deposits had anything to do with with Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell? Answer. Correct. Question and we discussed that during the first hour. As far that you knew about Mr. Epstein when he was incarcerated, it seemed at some point you learned that he was a wealthy individual. Is that right? Answer. I mean, I knew he was high profile. Question. Would it be safe to assume that your co workers at MCC would have known that he was a wealthy individual? Answer I don't know. Question. So my question is, are you aware of Mr. Epstein paying anyone else that was employed by MCC? Answer no, I'm not aware of that. Foy. Anyone else? Emmer. Paying any employee at MCC for anything? Noel? No. Emmer, you mentioned earlier that there was medication that Mr. Epstein had in his cell that you didn't know, or that how he would have had access to it. Is that correct? Is it possible that an employee at MCC may have been working with Mr. Epstein to bring medication to him? I don't know who that would be. Question. Okay, I know we've mentioned this before, but for the record, were there any security cameras in the shoe? Yes. How many security cameras? That I don't know. How many? Okay. Where do you know there would be. Answer. On the tiers? Question. On the upper or lower tiers? Answer. There's one on the upper and I'm not sure if there's one on every tier, but on the tier center. Question. When you were working at your station, were you able to see the camera footage from that station? Answer like see where the camera is? Question Typically. Well, maybe not typically, but were you able to see a screen that showed video surveillance? Answer no. Question. Would you ever see the security camera footage? Never. Question Was that handled by other people? I don't know who handled it? MCC staff? I don't know. So you don't know whether MCC hired outside parties to install or manage? Yeah, I don't know how that works. Okay. Do you know how often the MCC upgraded their security camera systems? I don't know. Do you know whether the cameras would often fail or malfunction? That I don't know. During your time in the shu. The shu, did you ever have problems with the security cameras not working? No. Did you ever know about the security cameras not working? No. Conversations, other people that you would have had? No. Have you ever handled anything relating to security camera footage? Answer no question. Okay. All right, folks, we're going to wrap up right here and in the next episode, we're going to pick up where we left off. All the information that goes with this episode can be found in the description box.