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.

Star Fox News Reporter Explains How One Midterm Result in Particular Sets the Stage for an Unprecedented Border Disaster

NYC’s Mamdani says Abdul El-Sayed’s Senate victory in Michigan ‘means so much to so many’

Trump ‘couldn’t transfer the love’ of his supporters to other Republicans amid historic midterm loss

Helicopter crash near Miami leaves at least 1 dead, 2 injured: report

Armed security guard hailed as hero after fatally shooting gunman at massive Tampa Citibank site

El Sayed celebrates ‘delicious irony’ that ‘habibi’ Vance has to swear him in: ‘Call me senator’

Rep. Jim Jordan Launches Bid to Become House Minority Leader: Report

Breaking: Mike Johnson Bows Out as House Republican Leader

Majority of Americans broadly reject socialist ideology even as far left surges to power

Democrats seize majority of governors’ offices in election-night shift

Scott Jennings Highlights the ‘Silver Lining’ Hidden in Republicans’ Midterm Disaster

Crashed Learjet Audio Recorded Months Ago Captured Exasperated ATC Ordering Male, Female Pilots to Correct Flight Maneuver

After Feigning Concern About Affordability for Months, Top Dem Reveals It’s All Just About Lawfare Now That They Control Congress: ‘LAWYER UP’

From Texas to Kansas, 6 stunning midterm results that upended the political map

Meet the far-left socialists coming to Congress next year

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.