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.

Supreme Court blocks California ban on notifying students’ parents about gender transitions

Cornyn wants to work with Trump to fix ‘broken’ immigration system if reelected

BREAKING: US Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Hit by Multiple Iranian Drones

Markets Handle Iran Strikes Brilliantly as S&P 500 Has Biggest Intraday Recovery in 5 Months Finishing Positive for the Day

Trump sends official notification to Congress on strikes against Iran

Virginia Mom Allegedly Murdered by Illegal Alien with 30 Priors Only Weeks After Dem Governor Blocks ICE Cooperation

Department of Education Honors Charlie Kirk with Banner as Part of America’s 250th Birthday Celebration: ‘Heroes in American Education’

Musk, xAI tout newest Grok update as only ‘non-woke’ platform: ‘Doesn’t equivocate”

Trump admin warned lawmakers Israel was ‘determined to act with or without us’ before massive Iran strikes

Tarot influencer’s claims in Idaho college murders case spark courtroom reckoning

New Jersey-bound United flight makes emergency landing at LAX after engine fire

What We Know About the African and Extremely Likely Jihadist Mass Shooter in Austin

Radical US mosques honor Iran’s Supreme Leader’s ‘martyrdom’ with memorial services, eulogy: ‘Our leader’

Bill Clinton reveals Trump ‘never said anything’ linking himself to Epstein’s crimes

WWII Hero Awarded Medal of Honor for Refusing to ID Jewish Americans While at Gunpoint: ‘We Are All Jews’

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.