(New York) The day after the judgment against Ghislaine Maxwell, found guilty in New York of sex trafficking of minors, the American justice announced Thursday the abandonment of the proceedings against the prison guards who had not monitored her accomplice, the financier American Jeffrey Epstein, the night of his suicide in 2019.
In a court order from Manhattan Federal Court, made public Thursday, prosecutor Damian Williams signed “the discontinuance of charges” (“nolle prosequi” to use the legal formula) against Tova Noel and Michael Thomas.
Justice indicted in November 2019 these two guards of a New York prison, three months after Epstein’s death by hanging in his cell on August 10, before his trial for sex crimes.
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The two prison officers were accused of not having made their rounds of surveillance on the night of August 9 to 10, 2019 and of having remained at their office, riveted on the internet. Mr. Epstein, a multimillionaire financier of the American and international jet set, was found dead at dawn on August 10 and the autopsy had concluded a suicide by hanging, not without controversy and conspiracy theories.
The then American Minister of Justice, William Barr, had denounced “serious” dysfunctions in this reputedly safe prison, where Epstein had been held since his arrest in July 2019 and prosecuted for sex crimes, in particular against young girls.
In his filing order, the Manhattan prosecutor recalls that the two guards had “willfully” and “knowingly” falsified “documents” to make it appear that they had made their rounds that night.
At the time, the director of the prison, the Metropolitan Correctional Center, had been transferred and the two officers suspended.
As part of their agreement with justice, MM. Noel and Thomas were simply forced to do community service, according to the ordinance.
On Wednesday evening, the former companion and accomplice of Epstein, the former British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty by federal court in Manhattan of a series of sex crimes, in particular the most serious: trafficking in young girls minor between 1994 and 2004, for the benefit of Epstein.
Mme Maxwell, 60, also French and American, faces decades in prison, but a sentencing date has not yet been set.
His lawyers announced that they would appeal and his brother Kevin Maxwell said he was convinced of his sister’s innocence, calling the verdict “a great injustice” Thursday to the ABC channel.
The victims of the Maxwell-Epstein couple have for their part expressed their relief at the outcome of the trial which would tend to prove that “no one is above the law”.