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.

NBC News Buries Background of Latest Trans Mass Shooting Suspect – He ‘Also Went by the First Name Roberta’

Obama dragged for ‘headache’-inducing presidential center update that has visitors squinting

Minnesota Democrats demand reparations from ICE after losing $18 billion to Somali fraud

Dems Try to Cancel Republican Congressman After He Declares Americans Will Not Give Up Dogs to Appease NYC’s Muslims

Hamas dismisses Israel threat to ‘complete the mission’ if terrorist group doesn’t disarm

Mainstream liberals join Soros in bankrolling group backing DC jury nullification effort

Trump hammers AOC Munich stumbles as ‘not a good look for the United States’

Election integrity groups press Supreme Court to require ballots by Election Day

Alert: Hillary Just Signaled a Massive Narrative Change on Immigration – Remember How They Tried to Steal ‘No Tax on Tips’ From Trump? They’re About to Try the Same Move Again

BREAKING: Trans Bombshell in Hockey Shooting – Murderer Robert Dorgan Went by ‘Roberta,’ – This as Reports Killer Wore Women’s Clothing Already Circulating

Georgia father on trial, accused of giving son rifle before school shooting

Rhode Island ice rink shooting suspect’s gender identity was source of past family conflict: docs

House Dem’s graphic chicken decapitation ‘horrified’ her college roommates: ‘Blood went everywhere’

What Republicans do, and don’t, want to hear from Trump at State of the Union

Cruz calls Newsom ‘historically illiterate,’ posts clown emoji after governor fires back

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.