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.

Chip Roy fields proposal to block pay and power for longtime lawmakers

Second Amendment fights grow across several states over 3D-printed gun laws

DEADLY PHOTO: We Now Know What Karmelo Anthony’s Knife Looked Like, and It Was No Quaint Leatherman Multitool

LGBT People Surge Into Seattle from Republican States, Demand More Public Resources

Spencer Pratt’s Los Angeles mayor run ends in defeat, but the spotlight stays on

Toledo police name suspect Ka Nye Taylor in festival shooting that injured 12, hunt second gunman

Prosecutors won’t seek death penalty in Minnesota Democrat’s assassination

Ohio approves nearly billion dollar payment after court ruled state shortchanged nursing homes

Minnesota man marks FBI’s first arrest from DOJ’s ‘Most Wanted Fraudsters’ list

Musk’s xAI and SpaceX sued over ‘inescapable’ noise from data center plant

‘He Was Licking His Lips With the Blood’ – Witness to Would-Be Beheading in N. Ireland Shares Grotesque Details

House Dem lashes out at GOP efforts to probe foreign donations with stunning claim on motive

Undefeated lacrosse team’s championship dreams end in controversy after players punished over fake cigars

Video: Christian Coffee Shop Hosts Worship as Vicious Trans Activists Scream, Attack Right Outside Their Door

Trump Says US Has Gotten ‘Millions of Barrels’ of Oil Through the Strait of Hormuz ‘Every Night,’ and Iran Just Realized

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.