The day after the judgment against Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted 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 American financier Jeffrey Epstein, the night of his suicide in 2019.
Read also Epstein affair: silences and shadows at the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell
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 phraseology) 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.
Forged documents
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.
Jeffrey Epstein, a multimillionaire financier of the American and international jet-set, had been found dead at the dawn of August 10 and the autopsy had concluded in a suicide by hanging, not without controversies 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 prison director, the Metropolitan Correctional Center, had been transferred and the two officers suspended.
As part of their deal with justice, Noel and Thomas were simply forced to do community service, according to the ordinance.
Ghislaine Maxwell awaiting her sentence
On Wednesday evening, Epstein's former companion and accomplice, British ex-socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, was found guilty by Manhattan federal court of a series of sex crimes, especially the most serious: trafficking in young people. underage girls between 1994 and 2004, for the benefit of Epstein.
Ghislaine Maxwell, 60, also French and American, faces decades in prison, but a sentencing date has not yet been set.
His lawyers said they would appeal, but the victims of the Maxwell-Epstein couple expressed relief at a verdict that would tend to prove that "
no one is above the law
."
