Two jail guards to be charged over Jeffrey Epstein death: NY Times

Two federal workers who were on duty on the night financier Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell are expected to be charged yesterday in connection with their alleged failure to check on him, The New York Times said, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

The two Federal Bureau of Prisons employees are expected to appear in the federal court in Manhattan, the newspaper said. A spokesman for US Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan had no immediate comment. Epstein, 66, a well-connected money manager, was found unresponsive in his cell in August at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC).

His suicide came a little over a month after he was arrested and charged with trafficking dozens of underage girls as young as 14 from at least 2002 to 2005. He had pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors have said Epstein and his associates systematically recruited young girls for him to sexually abuse in his mansions in Manhattan and in Palm Beach, Florida.

An autopsy concluded that Epstein had hanged himself. Both Epstein’s brother and the lawyers who represented him in his criminal case have expressed doubts about the medical examiner’s conclusion. According to the prison bureau, which runs the MCC, the last inmate suicide at the facility was in 2006.