Two correctional officers responsible for guarding Jeffrey Epstein when he took his own life are expected to face criminal charges this week for falsifying prison records.
The federal charges could come as soon as Tuesday and are the first in connection with Epstein´s death, sources told The Associated Press.
The wealthy financier, 66, died on August 10 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York while awaiting trial on charges of sexually abusing teenage girls.
The officers on Epstein’s unit at the federal jail in New York City are suspected of failing to check on him every half-hour, as required, and of fabricating log entries to claim they had.
Two correctional officers responsible for guarding Jeffrey Epstein when he took his own life are expected to face criminal charges this week for falsifying prison records
Federal prosecutors offered the guards a plea bargain, but the officers reportedly declined the deal.
The expected charges will be filed by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who have been investigating Epstein´s August 10 death.
The people familiar with the matter insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
Both guards were working overtime because of staffing shortages when Epstein was found.
The officers have been placed on administrative leave while the FBI and the Justice Department’s inspector general investigate the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death.
The city´s medical examiner ruled Epstein’s death a suicide, but that hasn’t stopped conspiracy theories. A forensic pathologist hired by Epstein´s family to observe the autopsy has said authorities could help clear things up by being more transparent.
Epstein’s death ended the possibility of a trial that would have involved prominent figures, and it sparked widespread anger that he wouldn’t have to answer for the allegations.
He had pleaded not guilty to sexually abusing girls as young as 14 and young women in New York and Florida in the early 2000s.
Even with his death, federal prosecutors in New York have continued to investigate the allegations against Epstein. The Justice Department has vowed to aggressively investigate and bring charges against anyone who may have helped him.
There is also a related investigation in Paris, where accusers are complaining police haven’t done enough to track down potential witnesses.
Epstein was placed on suicide watch after he was found July 23 on his cell floor with bruises on his neck.
Multiple people familiar with operations at the jail have said Epstein was 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.
Investigators believe those checks weren’t done for several hours before Epstein was discovered in his cell with a bedsheet around his neck, another person familiar with the matter told the AP.
The falsification of records has been a problem throughout the federal prison system, which has been plagued for years by systematic failures, from massive staffing shortages to chronic violence.
In an internal memo earlier this month, the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ new director, Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, said 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.
Staff members who are indicted by a grand jury will be placed on indefinite, unpaid suspension until the resolution of the criminal case, Hawk Sawyer wrote in the memo to top prison officials, a copy of which was obtained by the AP.
Conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death were reignited after Dr. Michael Baden, who was in the room for Epstein’s autopsy and has been called as an expert witness in high-profile cases suggested that Epstein’s death could have been a homicide.
Baden said that injuries found on Epstein’s body, including fractures to his larynx and hyoid bone, were “extremely unusual in suicidal hangings” and more consistent with “homicidal strangulation.”
“There’s evidence here of homicide that should be investigated, to see if it is or isn’t homicide,” he said.
But Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Barbara Sampson said she stands “firmly” behind her findings in the August autopsy report, which ruled Epstein hanged himself and temporarily quelled much of the speculation surrounding the financier’s death.
Following Baden’s comments she said: ‘I stand firmly behind our determination of the cause and manner of death for Mr. Epstein. The cause is hanging, the manner is suicide.’
Other experts have said injuries to the hyoid bone do happen in suicidal hangings, and while not common are more likely to happen in hangings involving older people. Epstein was 66.
Sampson said no conclusions should be drawn from a lone injury or piece of evidence.
‘In forensics, it’s a general principle that all information from all aspects of an investigation must be considered together.
‘Everything must be consistent and nothing can be inconsistent, and no one finding can be taken in isolation. You can’t draw a conclusion from one finding. Everything about the case has to be considered.’