Warden at NYC federal jail charged with killing husband

Antonia Ashford was charged with murder and weapons possession after police found her husband dead in their home. Photo / AP

The associate warden at the federal jail in New York City has been charged with killing her husband after she shot him in the face in their New Jersey home.

Antonia Ashford is the associate warden at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, which houses British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein who is facing sex trafficking charges.

Ashford, 44, was charged with murder and weapons possession after police found her husband dead in their Jackson Township home around 2.15am, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors allege Ashford pulled out a gun, pointed it at her husband and then shot him in the face. Officers discovered Roderick Ashford lying unresponsive on the floor of their home, where he was pronounced dead.

The Metropolitan Detention Center has been under fire from federal judges in New York over the conditions that inmates face there, according to two people familiar with the matter. Her husband was also a Bureau of Prisons employee, who worked in New Jersey, the people said.

Her arrest is the latest black eye for the Bureau of Prisons, which has been besieged for years by chronic violence, mismanagement and a severe staffing crisis.

Several inmates, including Maxwell, have also complained about the jail's conditions and an overwhelming stench from overflowing toilets. In 2019 the Bureau of Prisons badly botched its response to a week-long power failure at the Brooklyn jail amid a winter cold snap, fueling rumours and sparking unrest among shivering inmates.