Congress seeks to depose prison guard on duty at death
In this Nov. 25, 2019, file photo, Tova Noel, wearing a yellow top and the federal prison guard responsible for watching Jeffrey Epstein the night he killed himself, leaves federal court in New York.
Craig Ruttle | access point
The House committee investigating disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein announced Friday that it has sought testimony from a prison guard who was on duty the night the New York financier died.
In a letter to the House Oversight Committee x accountChairman James Comer, R-Ky., called Tova Noel. allegedly searched for Epstein on Google Moments before his body was found for deposition on March 26.
“Due to publicly available reports, documents released by the Department of Justice, and documents obtained by the Committee, the Committee believes you have information that will assist in the investigation,” the letter to Noel said. The statement is included.
Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on federal child sex trafficking charges and died by suicide weeks later in a federal prison in New York City. Noel was on duty that night and allegedly failed to make routine checks on Epstein. He and another guard were accused of falsifying records to cover up missed checks, but criminal charges were not filed. finally fell.
Noel’s testimony is part of a broader investigation into the circumstances of Epstein’s death, as well as his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and potential accomplices.
Noel did not immediately respond to a request for comment through his attorney or to a voicemail left at his public phone number.
The committee recently impeached Bill and Hillary Clinton and Les Wexner, the billionaire founder of L Brands, the former parent company of Victoria’s Secret. They all denied involvement in Epstein’s illegal activities. Last week, the committee subpoenaed Attorney General Pam Bondi.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), speaking as ranking member Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA); On January 21, 2026, Washington, D.C., at the U.S. Capitol, watches a vote on whether to detain former U.S. President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas to testify in the panel’s investigation of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
The Epstein files have roiled Washington in recent years. President Donald Trump, a former friend of Epstein’s, tried for months to suppress the files, then changed his mind as the bill mandating their release was about to be passed by Congress.
The House Oversight Committee did not request testimony from Trump about Epstein.
Since the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Department of Justice has released millions of documents related to Epstein. However, the ministry missed the December deadline specified in the 2025 law for the full release of the files and faced criticism over the way the files were organized.
This week, a bipartisan group of senators called on the Government Accountability Office to investigate the workings of the Justice Department, particularly the process by which it decides what to fix.
Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. “Contrary to Congress’s express mandate to protect victims, these records contained email addresses and nude photographs from which the names and faces of victims, public and non-public, could be identified,” wrote Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
“However, when it comes to information identifying powerful businessmen and political figures who are alleged collaborators or material witnesses, the Department of Justice appears to have largely redacted those records,” the lawmakers wrote.
