SDNY Charges MCC Officers with Falsifying Prison Records

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK PRESS RELEASE CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS CHARGED WITH FALSIFYING RECORDS ON AUGUST 9TH AND 10TH AT THE METROPOLITAN CORRECTIONAL CENTER Date: November 19, 2019 This U.S. Attorney's Office release announces criminal charges against two MCC correctional officers, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, in connection with recordkeeping and supervision failures during the shift preceding Epstein's death. The release states that the officers were charged with conspiracy and false-record offenses tied to allegedly fabricated count and round entries. Prosecutors alleged that required checks in the Special Housing Unit were not conducted as logged and that records were created to make it appear that monitoring duties had been performed. According to the charging narrative summarized in the release, the period at issue covered overnight hours in which SHU rounds should have occurred at regular intervals. The government's account describes significant gaps between required procedures and actual conduct, followed by entries that represented compliance. The announcement situates the case in a broader institutional duty framework: correctional officers are responsible for inmate safety and accurate records, and false logs can undermine immediate safety decisions and later investigative reconstruction. The release emphasizes that log integrity is a core correctional control, not a clerical formality. This record is important because it is the official prosecutorial statement at the time charges were filed. It provides the federal government's contemporaneous allegations, identified defendants, and statutory posture before later procedural developments in the case. For archival use, the release should be read alongside related court filings in 19-cr-830 to track how allegations were litigated, contested in discovery motion practice, and ultimately resolved. Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York Available at: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/correctional-officers-charged-falsifying-records-august-9th-and-10th-metropolitan