A US JUDGE has ordered that the charges be dropped against two prison guards who admitted falsifying records after Jeffrey Epstein died in his cell over two years ago.

Tova Noel and Michael Thomas agreed to deferred prosecution deals last May that required them to admit their guilt, with the understanding that charges would be dismissed if they followed the rules of their agreement for six months.

Prosecutors last week requested the charges be dropped and Judge Analisa Torres ordered the dismissal on Monday.

Convicted sex offender Mr Epstein was awaiting a sex-trafficking trial when he died at the now closed Metropolitan Correctional Centre in August 2019.

Prosecutors said Ms Noel and Mr Thomas were asleep at their desks, just 15 feet away from Mr Epstein’s cell when he died, supposedly by suicide. 

Ms Noel’s lawyer blamed “the toxic culture, sub-par training, staffing shortages, and dysfunctional management” of the jail for his client’s apparent mistakes. He said Ms Noel had been “put in a position to fail.”

Mr Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted in a Manhattan court last week of sex-trafficking and conspiracy charges.

In a separate but related matter, documents unsealed in court on Monday showed that Virginia Giuffre, the woman who says she was sexually trafficked to Prince Andrew by Mr Epstein, accepted $500,000 (£370,200) in 2009 to settle her lawsuit against the US millionaire and anyone else “who could have been included as a potential defendant.”

Ms Giuffre is suing Andrew in a civil case for allegedly sexually assaulting her two decades ago, when she was a teenager. He denies the accusations.

The prince’s lawyers say that such terms should bar Ms Giuffre from suing Andrew now, though he was not a party to the original settlement, but other experts say that the settlement was so ridiculously vague and wide-ranging as to be meaningless.