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.

White House-backed GOP bill would revoke citizenship after Somali fraud scandal

Law Professor: Anti-ICE Governors Are Acting Like Anti-Civil Rights Segregationists

Google Rolls Back Disturbing Policy: They Emailed 13-Year-Olds Instructions on How to Remove Parental Controls

Trump asserts Ilhan Omar should be jailed or booted to Somalia

‘Protecting Child Rapists and Killers’: ICE Lists Off Illegals They’ve Caught as Liberal Protests Rage On

California gubernatorial hopefuls have a Gavin Newsom problem

Lindsey Graham meets with Mossad director during trip to Israel

Unearthed Data Makes Pennsylvania’s Puberty Blocker Payouts Look Even Sketchier

Trump’s ‘first resort’ use of military has succeeded but it has its limits

Rand Paul says US in ‘active war’ with Venezuela: ‘I still hope it works out for the best’

Viral video shows ICE agent telling agitators they’re disrupting arrest of child sex offender in Minnesota

ICE says 2 demonstrators were arrested in Minnesota for allegedly assaulting officers

Anti-ICE mob storms Minnesota church over pastor’s alleged ties to immigration enforcement

Nancy Pelosi faces social media backlash over behavior at Bob Weir tribute event

Newsom defies Trump administration, declares free parks for MLK Day

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.