NEW YORK (AP) – A federal correctional officer was arrested Friday for lying to investigators after a loaded gun was found in an inmate’s cell at a federal jail in New York City – the same troubled lockup where financier Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in 2019.
Greg McKenzie, a guard at the since-shuttered Metropolitan Correctional Center, used a prepaid cellphone to communicate with the inmate and the inmate’s wife prior to the gun’s discovery in March 2020, but denied doing so when federal agents interviewed him about it last year, prosecutors said.
McKenzie, 35, of Danbury, Connecticut, was scheduled to appear in court Friday in Manhattan to face charges of obstruction of justice and making false statements. They carry a combined maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.
Online court records did not list a lawyer who could speak on McKenzie’s behalf. The union representing correctional workers said it does not routinely comment on pending criminal litigation. A message seeking comment was left with the federal Bureau of Prisons. The inmate was not identified in McKenzie’s charging documents.
Special Agent Ryan Geach of the Justice Department’s Inspector General’s office said in a statement that McKenzie’s alleged lying and obstruction are especially troubling “because a loaded firearm in the hands of an inmate endangers not just the prison, but the entire community.”