#Guard at Epstein jail coerced woman into sex after finding contraband

A guard at the Lower Manhattan jail where Jeffrey Epstein killed himself allegedly forced a woman to have sex with him after he found her passing contraband to an inmate, prosecutors charged.

The correction officer, Robert Adams, confronted his victim in July 2019, when he found unidentified contraband on a prisoner she had been visiting at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, prosecutors charged.

Instead of detaining the visitor, Adams asked to meet her at a nearby pizza shop, where he told her to come with her to a motel and have sex with him, according to a federal indictment.

Adams told the woman, “that unless she had sex with him, she would be prohibited from visiting the MCC and would be arrested,” the court papers state.

The woman then traveled with Adams to the motel and had sex with him, according to the indictment.

Adams was arrested Monday morning for the abuse and hit with bribery and blackmail charges, according to federal prosecutors.

In a statement, Acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss said Adams’ actions put his fellow officers at risk.

“Robert Adams was derelict in his duties as an MCC correctional officer, not only by turning a blind eye to the smuggling of contraband, thereby putting inmates and fellow officers at risk, but also by exploiting his position of authority to pressure a prison visitor into having unwanted sex with him,” Strauss said.

The MCC has a troubled history with guards allegedly abusing inmates. In August, several former female inmates sued the Bureau of Prisons, claiming supervisors at the jail turned a blind eye to a predator guard as he abused numerous inmates.

Epstein, who was detained at the MCC pending his sex-trafficking trial, died of an apparent suicide in a cell there while guards who were supposed to be monitoring him slept through their shift.