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Ammon News - Michael Thomas and Tova Noel browsed the internet and went for naps when they should have been checking on Epstein.

Jail guards responsible for watching Jeffrey Epstein have admitted lying about monitoring him on the night he died.

Michael Thomas and Tova Noel had been accused of falling asleep and surfing the internet when they should have been keeping an eye on the millionaire paedophile.

And they have now admitted falsifying records claiming they conducted regular checks on him on the day in question.

But the pair would avoid prison under an agreement with U.S. prosecutors to resolve the criminal charges against them.

Financier and registered sex offender Epstein, 66, was found hanging in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, in downtown Manhattan, on August 10, 2019..

Under a deferred prosecution agreement, disclosed late on Friday, Noel and Thomas admitted "wilfully and knowingly" filling in documents saying they conducted regular checks in the housing unit where Epstein was held.

Both would serve six months of supervised release, have to complete 100 hours' community service, and cooperate with a probe by the U.S. Department of Justice's inspector general, into the circumstances surrounding Epstein's death.

At the time of his death he was being held on remand accused of sex trafficking charges.

Prosecutors said "the interests of justice will be best served" by the agreement, which requires a judge's approval, and could be confirmed next week.

Lawyers for Noel and Thomas, were charged in November 2019 and have been free on bail, did not respond to requests for comment today.


Epstein's death, which was ruled a suicide by New York City's top medical examiner, angered then-Attorney General William Barr, and prompted a management overhaul at the Manhattan jail.

During Epstein's final hours, according to prosecutors, Thomas looked up sports news and motorcycle sales, Noel shopped online for furniture, and both appeared to have taken naps.

Ben Sasse - a Senator who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee and is a critic of the government's handling of the Epstein case - said the public deserves an accounting of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' failures.

In a statement, the Nebraskan Republican said: "Epstein's victims have been failed at every single turn. One hundred hours of community service is a joke - this isn't traffic court."

British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime Epstein associate, has also denied sex trafficking offences and charges that she procured underage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse.

Maxwell's lawyers have complained that guards in the Brooklyn jail where she is being held on remand regularly shine flashlights into her cell during the night, ostensibly to ensure her safety.

They have also said Maxwell, who is expected to go on trial in November, is not a suicide risk and wants her day in court.

*dailyrecord