Action taken on warden, guards in Epstein case

NEW YORK — The warden of the federal jail in Manhattan where Jeffrey Epstein apparently killed himself was temporarily reassigned Tuesday, and two correctional officers who were guarding him were placed on administrative leave, pending the outcome of an investigation into the death, the Justice Department said.

The warden, Lamine N’diaye, will be transferred to a Bureau of Prison office in Philadelphia while the FBI and the Justice Department’s inspector general conduct investigations into Epstein’s death. The Justice Department said it might take additional punitive actions.

The attorney general, William Barr, on Monday ordered the inspector general to look into how Epstein had managed to kill himself while in custody and why he had been taken off a suicide watch 12 days earlier.

Jail guards discovered Epstein, 66, dead in his cell in at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan at 6:30 a.m. Saturday, officials said. He had apparently hanged himself with a bedsheet.

Under the jail’s protocol, Epstein would not have been given a bedsheet had he been on suicide watch.

Epstein had been awaiting trial on charges he had sexually abused scores of teenage girls. He had apparently tried to kill himself once before, on July 23. That resulted in him being placed on suicide watch, prison officials have said.

Six days later, prison officials determined he was no longer a threat to his own life and put him in a cell in the protective housing unit with another inmate, officials said. That inmate was later transferred out of the cell, leaving Epstein alone on Friday night.

It is standard practice to house people who have recently been taken off suicide watch with another person. A pedestrian takes a photo Tuesday of Jeffrey Epstein’s townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

The two guards in the protective housing unit where Epstein was held — 9 South — were supposed to check on him every halfhour, but they did not look in on Epstein for about three hours before he was found, two prison officials said.

The guards are now suspected of falsifying log entries to show they were making the checks, according to another person familiar with the probe.

In addition, one of the guards was not a regular correctional officer but a prison employee who had been pressed into service as a guard because of a staff shortage. Both were working on overtime.

The Justice Department did not immediately identify the two correctional officers.

James Petrucci, the warden at a federal prison in Otisville, New York, has been named acting warden, officials said.

Some union leaders for prison workers expressed dismay about Barr’s decision to allow the warden to continue working, even as the two staff members were placed on leave.

“The warden made the call to take Epstein off suicide watch and to remove his cellmate,” said Jose Rojas, an official in the prison employees’ union. “That is egregious.”