Union: Short-Staffing a Factor Behind Lapses That Enabled Epstein’s Death

MAKING A FEDERAL CASE OF IT: U.S. Attorney General William Barr has expressed outrage about how Jeffrey Epstein was able to apparently commit suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Facility, aided by a lack of mandated half-hour checks by correction officers, but the lower Manhattan jail has long been the source of complaints about its maintenance, and union officials say staff shortages that have been compounded by a hiring freeze have left officers exhausted from excess overtime and sometimes disoriented.