An inmate housed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York told the FBI he overheard guards talking about covering up Jeffrey Epstein’s death on the morning he died.

The federal government’s online Epstein library contains a five-page handwritten report of an FBI interview with an inmate who awoke the morning of Aug. 10, 2019 to the loud commotion in the Special Housing Unit, or SHU, where he and Epstein were jailed.

“Breathe! Breathe!” he recalled officers shouting about 6:30 a.m.

Then he said he heard an officer say “Dudes, you killed that dude.”

A female guard replied “If he is dead, we’re going to cover it up and he’s going to have an alibi — my officers,” the FBI notes said. The inmate claimed the whole wing overheard the exchange.

Later, after learning Epstein had died, he said inmates said “Miss Noel killed Jeffrey.”

He identified the female guard as Tova Noel, one of two correctional officers who were later charged with falsifying reports so that it appeared from their records that they had made their rounds that night – when they had not. The charges against her and the other officer, Michael Thomas, were later dropped, but both were fired.

The inmate’s account has not been substantiated, but it nevertheless raises questions about Epstein’s in-custody death. The New York Medical Examiner and the U.S. Department of Justice concluded that Epstein died by suicide. Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist hired by Epstein’s estate to attend the autopsy, has said he believes the injuries to Epstein were more akin to strangulation than suicide.

But the FBI report is likely to fan suspicion, as The New York Post also reported on Saturday that Noel’s bank flagged a $5,000 cash deposit she made to her Chase Bank account on July 30, 2019 – a week after Epstein was found in his cell in what prison officials concluded was a suicide attempt on July 23, 2019. The official reports into that incident show that Epstein initially told prison officials that his cellmate had tried to kill him after extorting him for money.

The Post also reported that on the morning of Epstein’s death on Aug. 10, Noel searched the term “latest on Epstein in jail” twice – once at 5:42 a.m. and again at 5:52 a.m., about 40 minutes before the other guard, Michael Thomas, found Epstein.

Her bank records, which are in the files, showed that Noel received thousands of dollars in cash and Zelle payments in the months before Epstein died. She has not been charged with any crime. The Miami Herald was unsuccessful in reaching her attorney on Saturday.

Epstein’s former cellmate, Efrain Reyes, told prison officials that he told Epstein he would be safer if he paid inmates and guards for protection. Sources have told the Herald that Epstein did make protection payments.

Noel’s bank records also reveal that she was making payments on a brand new Range Rover.

But she was not asked about the cash during her DOJ interview.

Epstein had three fractures on the left and right sides of his larynx, and Baden said it is rare for any bones to be broken in a hanging, let alone for multiple bones to be fractured. “Those fractures are extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation,” said Baden, who added that there were hemorrhages in Epstein’s eyes that are also more common in strangulation than in hangings.

The DOJ’s official death investigation noted that “none of the inmates who were interviewed had any credible information suggesting Epstein’s cause of death was something other than suicide.”

The investigation also concluded that that three interviewed inmates with a direct line of sight into Epstein’s cell door stated that “no one entered or exited Epstein’s cell” after Epstein was locked into his cell the night before.

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