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: ‘Survivor’ Host’s Awkward Blunder During Live Finale Spoils Results

Breaking: NASCAR Champion Kyle Busch Dead at Age 41

‘Botched’ lethal injection earns Tennessee death row inmate reprieve

College students accused of turning popular beach town into booze-soaked free-for-all in takeover chaos

Single Chart Shows DNC’s Downfall Among the American Electorate Since 2009

Man arrested for allegedly hurling beer keg through window of famous Georgetown Cupcake bakery

Sanders caught on camera snapping at reporter over Platner’s posts: ‘Get a better job’

Former Detroit mayor blows governor’s race wide open in surprise move

Trump Admin Moves to Supercharge Deportations with Unprecedented Immigration Judge Addition

Arts commission approves plans for Trump’s triumphal arch

NASCAR Star Kyle Busch Hospitalized with ‘Severe’ Medical Issue

Senate Republicans Deal a Serious Blow to Trump’s White House Ballroom Project

RNC legal victory clears North Carolina voter roll purge of noncitiznes through jury responses

Rep. Jim Jordan asks whether Southern Poverty Law Center paid Jan. 6 confidential sources

‘Seattle can’t survive this’: Critics hammer socialist mayor after Starbucks reversal

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.