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.

WATCH: Dem senators excuse Platner’s conduct at crisis huddle with embattled Maine candidate

Trump-backed candidate ‘confident’ Republicans will have great night in California: ‘Very excited’

Jill Biden Claims Joe Would Have Beaten Trump If Democrats Hadn’t Forced Him Out

Trump Signs Modified AI Executive Order Behind Closed Doors

Graham Platner makes Senate Democrats squirm with blitz through DC

Blanche says Garland ‘didn’t own up’ to involvement in Trump cases

Platner Self-Destruction Worsens: Dem Now Caught Bragging on Prices He Got for Cocaine, Doing Drugs in Military

Watch: Harold Ford Jr. Comes Out Guns Blazing Against Dems on Anti-ICE Riots – Brilliant 1 Min Monologue from ‘The Five’

Newsom slams MAGA for its ‘melt down’ over Pride Month

Acting AG Blanche reveals fate of Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization fund’ under pressure from House lawmakers

Illegal immigrant flashes courtroom grin after allegedly killing baby, mother and grandmother

Dr. Oz unveils Medicaid overhaul, clamps down on $2B for illegal immigrants and mandates work for able-bodied

Trump reveals new WHCA Dinner venue after shooting chaos derailed gala

Don’t Forget: Key Platner Staffer Talked About His Penis in Book for 10-Year-Old Boys, Said He Wanted Them to See Images of It

Obama judge clears left-wing group to fly ominous flag aimed at Trump on his own turf

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.