Prosecutors are preparing charges against two guards who were on duty the night financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell. The charges are expected to be filed as soon as Tuesday, two people familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News.
The guards are expected to be charged with falsifying records the night they were on duty but are not said to have any bearing on the determination that Epstein died by suicide. The guards were said to have falsified documents to indicate they were regularly checking on the inmate.
Two spokespeople for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment on the reported charges.
The Associated Press reported Friday that federal prosecutors had offered a plea deal to two officers responsible for guarding Epstein the night of his death, but the officers declined the offer.
Epstein was arrested July 6 at an airport in Teterboro, New Jersey, as he returned from Paris on a private jet. He was charged with one count of sex trafficking conspiracy and one count of sex trafficking and faced up to 45 years in prison if found guilty.
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He pleaded not guilty and was denied bail.
The indictment in his case alleged that he sought minors, some as young as 14, from at least 2002 through 2005 and paid them hundreds of dollars in cash for sex at either his Manhattan townhouse or his estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring a person younger than 18 for prostitution and felony solicitation of prostitution. He served a 13-month sentence in a Florida county jail and was granted a federal non-prosecution agreement.
Epstein, 66, was found dead in his downtown Manhattan federal jail cell Aug. 10 as a result of suicide.
He was not on suicide watch at the time of his death despite a possible attempt weeks earlier, multiple people familiar with the investigation told NBC News.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr, who ordered the reassignment of Metropolitan Correctional Center’s warden and the leave of the two guards following the financier’s death, has pledged a thorough investigation.
“We will get to the bottom of what happened, and there will be accountability,” Barr said earlier this year.
Following Epstein’s death, federal prosecutors shifted their focus to possible charges against anyone who assisted or enabled Epstein in his alleged sex crimes. Agents searched his private island home off the coast of St. Thomas in the Caribbean in their quest for evidence, and Barr had a message for any potential accomplices.
“Let me assure you that this case will continue on against anyone who was complicit,” Barr said at a law enforcement conference in New Orleans. “The victims deserve justice, and they will get it.”
