Jeffrey Epstein in a photograph taken for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Service, March 28, 2017. (Handout/Reuters)

Two employees at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan were arrested Tuesday morning for failing to check on Jeffrey Epstein the night he died in prison, the first move in a possible criminal inquiry surrounding Epstein’s death.

The workers were arrested for falsifying records to cover up that they had fallen asleep instead of checking on Epstein, according to the New York Times. The guards, one of whom was working his fifth straight day of overtime, were required to check on Epstein every 30 minutes but failed to do so the night that he died.


The circumstances around Epstein’s death have come under scrutiny in recent weeks, after a famous forensic investigator disputed the ruling of “suicide” by the New York City’s chief medical examiner, and claimed the autopsy was more consistent with homicide.

“It appears that this could have been a mistake,” Dr. Michael Baden told Fox & Friends on October 30. “There’s evidence here of homicide that should be investigated, to see if it is or isn’t homicide.”

On Monday, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) threatened to call ABC executives before Congress to answer questions about their handling of reporting on the Epstein story. The threat came one day after McCarthy sent a letter to ABC News president James Goldston asking why network executives prevented ABC anchor Amy Robach from airing an interview she conducted in 2016 with Epstein victim Virginia Roberts.


“The [British royal] Palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a million different ways,” Robach said in a hot mic recording released by the right-wing group Project Veritas. “ . . . She told me everything. She had pictures, she had everything. She was in hiding for 12 years. We convinced her to come out, we convinced her to talk to us. It was unbelievable what we had.”


In response to the news of the arrests, Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) released a statement that “heads needed to roll the day Jeffrey Epstein died.”

“The Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Justice need to start giving the public some answers. These arrests are important, but they’re not the end of this: These guards aren’t the only ones who should stand trial — every one of Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirators should be spending the rest of their lives behind bars,” the statement read.

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