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==================== DOCUMENT: Court Records__United States v. Noel, No. 119-cr-00830 (S.D.N.Y. 2019)__001.txt ====================
METADATA_SOURCE: Court RecordsUnited States v. Noel, No. 119-cr-00830 (S.D.N.Y. 2019)
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Case 1:19-cr-00830-AT Document 1 Filed 11/19/19 Page 1 of 20
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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TOVA NOEL and
MICHAEL THOMAS,
Defendants.
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INTRODUCTION
INDICTMENT
830
1.
On or about August 10, 2019, TOVA NOEL and MICHAEL
THOMAS,
the
defendants,
in dereliction
of their duties
as
correctional officers at the Metropolitan Correctional Center
("MCC"), repeatedly failed to perform mandated counts of prisoners
under their watch in the MCC' s Special Housing Unit
("SHU").
Instead, for substantial portions of their shifts, NOEL and THOMAS
sat at their desk, browsed the internet, and moved around the
common area of the SHU.
To conceal their failure to perform their
duties, NOEL and THOMAS repeatedly signed false certifications
attesting to having conducted multiple counts of inmates when, in
truth and in fact, they never conducted such counts.
As a result
of those false statements, the MCC believed prisoners in the SHU
were being regularly monitored and accounted for when, in fact, as
a result of the defendants'
conduct,
no correctional officer
conducted any count or round of the SHU from approximately 10:30
Case 1:19-cr-00830-AT Document 1 Filed 11/19/19 Page 2 of 20
p.m. on August 9 until approximately 6:30 a.m. on August 10, at
which time, as alleged herein, NOEL and THOMAS discovered the body
of an MCC
inmate, Jeffrey Epstein, who had committed suicide
overnight while unobserved.
RELEVANT INDIVIDUALS AND ENTITIES
2.
The
MCC
is a
federal administrative detention
facility located in Manhattan that is run by the Federal Bureau of
Prisons ("BOP").
The MCC is one of several facilities used to
house inmates who have been charged with federal crimes in the
Southern District of New York and are awaiting trial.
The MCC
employs correctional officers, whose primary duty is to ensure the
care, custody, and control of the inmate population of the MCC.
3.
TOVA NOEL, the defendant, has been employed as a
correctional officer at the MCC since approximately 2016.
As of
August 2019, NOEL's primary assignment was the SHU.
On August 9,
2019, NOEL worked a regular shift from 4 p.m. to 12 a.m. in the
SHU, and then worked an overtime shift from 12 a.m. to 8 a.m. on
August 10, 2019, also in the SHU.
NOEL had also worked a regular
shift in the SHU the day before, August 8, 2019, from 12 p.m. to
p.m.
4.
MICHAEL THOMAS, the defendant, has been employed as
a
correctional officer at the
MCC
since approximately 2007.
Beginning in approximately 2013, THOMAS was assigned to work as a
Case 1:19-cr-00830-AT Document 1 Filed 11/19/19 Page 3 of 20
materials handler supervisor, al though THOMAS regularly worked
overtime shifts as a correctional officer, including in the SHU.
THOMAS worked an overtime shift in the SHU on August 10, 2019,
from 12 a.m. to 8 a.m.
THOMAS did not work his regular shift on
August 8 or August 9, 2019, but did work an overtime shift in the
SHU on August 9, 2019 from 12 a.m. to 8 a.m.
5.
As
detailed
herein,
Jeffrey
Epstein
was
incarcerated at the MCC between his arrest on July 6, 2019, and
his suicide on August 10, 2019.
Epstein was detained pending
trial in the Southern District of New York on sex trafficking
charges.
THE MCC AND INSTITUTIONAL COUNTS
6.
The MCC, which houses approximately 750 inmates at
any given time, assigns inmates to various housing units within
the MCC.
The SHU is a housing unit within the MCC where inmates
are securely separated from the general inmate population to ensure
their own safety as well as the safety of staff and other inmates.
The SHU is located on the ninth floor of the MCC, and access to
that floor is controlled by a locked door that can be opened
remotely only by an officer in the MCC's centralized control center
(the "Control Centern), which is located on the first floor of the
MCC.
Access into the SHU is also controlled by a second locked
door to which only correctional officers assigned to the SHU have
Case 1:19-cr-00830-AT Document 1 Filed 11/19/19 Page 4 of 20
keys while on duty.
Within the SHU, inmates are assigned to six
separate tiers, each of which can be accessed only via a single
locked door to which the correctional officers assigned to the SHU
have keys while on duty.
Each tier has eight cells, each of which
can house either one or two prisoners, and each individual cell -
which is made of cement and metal -
is accessed only through a
single locked door, to which only correctional officers assigned
to the SHU have keys while on duty.