Epstein guards to skirt jail time in deal with prosecutors

…from Politico

[ Editor’s Note: This looks like a deal to get the out of the public eye. The underfunding and understaffing seems to have gone on for ages, so we must ask if funding is being diverted to other areas where it is easier to steal.

We see a climate below of guards subject to being shanghied for double shifts on short notice, something that a short search on Google will reveal the disruptions that causes with the circaidian clock and extensive long term health damage.

This sleep-wake cycle can influence eating habits, digestion, body temperature, hormone release, and other bodily functions. Detrimental effects on sleep can negatively affect a person’s ability to properly function and can result in many disorders. The various chronic health conditions linked to irregular rhythms include diabetes, obesity, depression, bipolar disorder, seasonal affective disorder, and other sleep disorders.

The guards response to this seems to have been to chill out on the night shifts, fudging on mandatory activity records, something the institutions have to have been aware of, and playing on their computers of phones.

That said, one would think that with a high priority prisoner like Esptein an infamous institution like Riker’s Island would have been extra caefully to keep a closer supervision of Esptein’s guards.

So far we don’t see much interest in the prison higher ups being looked at for negligence on their parts, something that most unions are not like to encourage, preferring to cut off the screw up damage in the lower ranks.

If losing someone like Epstein and taking his secrets to the grave will not trigger a reevaluation of Rikers Island I do not know what will if state authorities refuse to make the appropriate changes.

There is a whiff of curruption in the air on this thing, either on the Epstein case, or more skeletons in the closet the facility wants to keep far away from a down to the bedrock investigation…Jim W. Dean ]

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First published … May 05, 2021

The two Bureau of Prisons workers tasked with guarding Jeffrey Epstein the night he killed himself in a New York jail have admitted they falsified records, but they will skirt any time behind bars under a deal with federal prosecutors, authorities said Friday.

The prison workers, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, were accused of sleeping and browsing the internet instead of monitoring Epstein the night he took his own life in August 2019.

…The two have “admitted that they ‘willfully and knowingly completed materially false count and round slips regarding required counts and rounds’” in the housing unit where Epstein was being held, the letter says.

…Prosecutors alleged that Noel and Thomas sat at their desks just 15 feet from Epstein’s cell, shopped online for furniture and motorcycles, and walked around the unit’s common area instead of making required rounds every 30 minutes.

…The falsification of records has been a problem throughout the federal prison system. Union officials have long argued that the reduction of staff is putting both guards and inmates in danger, but they’ve faced an uphill battle getting attention.

You can read the full Politico article here.

Jim W. Dean

Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus.  He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022.  He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews.  He now writes and posts periodically for VT.

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