AP Sources: Epstein Jail Guards Had Been Offered Plea Deal

Federal prosecutors offered a plea deal to two correctional officers responsible for guarding Jeffrey Epstein on the night of his death, but the officers have declined the offer, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.The existence of the plea offer signals the Justice Department is considering criminal charges in connection with the wealthy financier’s death at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York in August. The city’s medical examiner ruled Epstein’s death a suicide.

The guards on Epstein’s unit are suspected of failing to check on him every half hour, as required, and of fabricating log entries to show they had. As part of the proposed plea deal, prosecutors wanted the guards to admit they falsified the prison records, according to the people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to publicly discuss the investigation.

Wisconsin Dem’s bar laments ‘we almost got free beer day’ for Trump assassination

Full WHCD Shooter Manifesto: He Told Family He Was Willing to Kill ‘Most Everyone’ at Dinner to Get to Trump

The Reasons Why TDS Still Exists Despite Trump’s Historic Wins

At Least 4 Christian Farmers Gunned Down in Their Fields by Motorcycle Mounted Islamists in Nigeria

WHCD shooting suspect planned to target Trump officials, manifesto reveals

What to know about Cole Thomas Allen, the Trump dinner shooting suspect

Breaking: WHCD Gunman Manifesto, Social Accounts Found – He Targeted Trump, Was a ‘No Kings’ Rally Attendee

White House Correspondents’ Dinner suspect checked into Hilton hotel one day before the shooting: sources

Son warns suspected killer may ‘get away with murder’ after conviction tossed in mom’s execution-style slaying

CNN Journo Called Trump ‘a Guy Who Wants Us Dead’ Minutes Before Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting

Trump faces unprecedented third assassination attempt

Flashback: When a Magnificent Cathedral Was Torched by an African Illegal Who Murdered a Priest He Lived With

Mass shooting near Indiana University injures 9, no arrests made yet

Trump’s DC beautification push wins rare Dem praise as president snaps landmarks back to life

White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting sharpens focus on Trump’s ballroom construction proposal

The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan had no comment on the plea offer. Both guards were working overtime because of staffing shortages. They have been placed on administrative leave while the FBI and the Justice Department’s inspector general investigate the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death. The 66-year-old had been awaiting trial on charges of sexually abusing teenage girls. Epstein was placed on suicide watch after he was found on his cell floor July 23 with bruises on his neck. Multiple people familiar with operations at the jail have said Epstein was then taken off suicide watch about a week before his death, meaning he was less closely monitored but still supposed to be checked on every 30 minutes.

Epstein’s death exposed mounting evidence that the chronically understaffed Metropolitan Correctional Center may have bungled its responsibility to keep him alive. Guards often work overtime day after day, and other employees are pressed into service as correctional officers. Falsification of records has been a problem throughout the federal prison system. Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, who was named director of the Bureau of Prisons after Epstein’s death, disclosed in a Nov. 4 internal memo that a review of operations across the agency found some staff members failed to perform required rounds and inmate counts but logged that they had done so anyway. “Falsification of information in government systems and documents is also a violation of policy, and may be subject to criminal prosecution as well,” Hawk Sawyer wrote in the memo to top prison officials, a copy of which was obtained by the AP.