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.

Spanish prime minister promises to release all files on Ceuta invasion as thousands of illegal immigrants remain in enclave

Maria Bartiromo no longer with Fox News

Plane Carrying DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin Forced to Make Emergency Landing

Lindsay Clancy Effect? Child, 2, Pronounced Dead, Mother Hospitalized in ‘Domestic-Related Homicide’ in Sleepy Suburb

Blue state governor candidate claims he ‘met Satan in person’ in resurfaced podcast episode

Mamdani gives influencers special access as Signal use raises records-law questions

Democrats in Close Midterm Races Keep Telling Kamala Harris to Stay Away

Lindsay Clancy Fans Start Sick TikTok Trend Pretending to Kill Their Babies

Minneapolis apartment shooting suspect was facing eviction: report

Powerful union leader backs Republican in key Senate showdown

Maduro claims immunity, asks judge to dismiss drug-trafficking charges against him and his wife

When gunman forced his way into Virginia elementary school, superintendent says lockdown procedures worked

Gloria Steinem, outspoken feminist leader, dies at 92

Newsom’s South Carolina trip doubles as test of Democrats’ rebuilding strategy

High School Football Hotshots Snub Opponents in Pre-Game Handshake, Get Taught a Lesson on the Field

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.