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.

Thune goes all-in on campaign trail as Schumer stays on bench, faces rejection from fellow Dems

DHS investigates massive data breach exposing 40,000 employees, including ICE and Border Patrol agents

Haley Stevens’s Democratic fiance backs Mike Rogers, says el Sayed imperils Jewish community

MAHA heavyweights try to put Lahn over the top in Iowa governor’s race

Mamdani Keeps Taking Over NYPD Training Facility for Personal Use, and Police Union Officials Are Furious

Bill Gates Claims Artifical Intelligence Will Force Some to Choose an ‘Amish’ Lifestyle

Watch: Anti-ICE Protesters Accidentally Infuriate Immigrants While Blocking Brooklyn Bridge

Emergency declared at South Carolina nuclear site after fire erupts at lab

Conservative Journalists James O’Keefe and Cam Higby Indicted in Minnesota After Exposing Election System in Undercover Video

Legendary Sports Announcer Who Used Platform to Honor God Announces Departure

Alaska Dems Spent Months Finding a Duplicate ‘Dan Sullivan’ to Confuse GOP Voters Ahead of Senate Race

Convicted murderer got over 5-hour head start after prison escape before local police were notified: official

Judge Overseeing Maduro Case in New York Dies Before Trial

ALERT: Dominion-Related Lawsuit Dismissed Against Patrick Byrne Over ‘The Deep Rig’ Film – No Legal Basis for Key Claim

Radicals bring life in America’s largest city to screeching halt and vandalize 9/11 Memorial

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.