A past statement released by former Attorney General Bill Barr came under new scrutiny Friday after famed Jeffrey Epstein reporter Julie K. Brown flagged a series of overlooked remarks from two jail guards who were tasked with monitoring Epstein the night he died.
On August 10, 2019, the day Epstein was found dead in his New York jail cell, then-Attorney General Bill Barr released a statement on the disgraced financier’s death. Epstein’s death was ruled a suicide by hanging.
“I was appalled to learn that Jeffrey Epstein was found dead early this morning from an apparent suicide while in federal custody,” Barr said at the time.
The two correctional officers tasked with monitoring Epstein the night of his death were Michael Thomas and Tova Noel. Both were criminally charged in the wake of Epstein’s death with falsifying prison records after falsely claiming to have carried out regular checks on the disgraced financier throughout the night leading up to his death.
The charges against both Thomas and Noel were ultimately dropped in 2021 after they were offered deferred prosecution agreements from prosecutors. As part of those agreements, however, both were asked to speak with investigators, and their remarks, Brown argued, were telling.
“I have thus far found that only one person claimed Epstein was hanging. That person was Thomas,” Brown wrote in a report published on her Substack Friday.
“Noel, who was the second officer behind Thomas at Epstein’s cell that morning, told investigators that she actually didn’t see Epstein hanging. Nor did she see a ligature around Epstein’s neck. She said she only saw the top portion of Epstein’s body land on the floor of his cell after he presumably was taken down by Thomas.”
Given that only one of the two guards claimed to have seen a ligature around Epstein’s neck – and did not make that claim until two years after his death – Brown questioned how Barr was so quick to determine that Epstein had died by “apparent suicide.”
“At no time did [Noel] ever say she saw Epstein hanging or that he was even attached to a ligature,” Brown wrote.
“So when then-attorney general William Barr announced – the same day Epstein’s body was found – that he had died of an ‘apparent suicide’ – what was that based upon? Because all I’ve been able to find is that one corrections officer saw him hanging. And that guy worked a triple shift, slept almost the entire night, and wasn’t even questioned until two years after Epstein’s death.”
Barr’s father, Donald Barr, was the headmaster of the Dalton School in New York City, and had hired Epstein as a teacher in the 1970s, and despite Epstein lacking a college degree.
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