The associate warden at the troubled Brooklyn federal jail that houses alleged Jeffrey Epstein madam Ghislaine Maxwell is accused of fatally shooting her husband in their New Jersey home, authorities said.
Antonia Ashford, 44, associate warden of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, was charged with murder for allegedly blasting her husband, Roderick Ashford, in the face, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Police responded to the couple’s Jackson Township, N.J., home about 2:15 a.m. Monday after getting a 911 call that a man had been shot. They found the body of Roderick Ashford, 47, on the floor. Medics pronounced him dead at the scene.
The Ashfords moved into their suburban home only a few months ago, a neighbor told app.com. Public records show they bought the house earlier this year for $600,000.
Antonia Ashford was also charged with possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. She remains locked up at Ocean County Jail, awaiting a detention hearing.
Conditions at the MDC — where Maxwell is awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges related to her association with Epstein — are so bad a federal judge last week called them an “ongoing disgrace.”
That jurist, Brooklyn Federal Judge William Kuntz, said he might seek a first-hand look after a prisoner complained the toilet in his cell was broken and hadn’t been fixed for days — and that jail staff wouldn’t let him use another toilet because of a lockdown.
Maxwell herself has complained through her lawyers of a “stench” that’s “overwhelming” in her cell because of “overflowing of toilets in the cellblock above.”
The MDC suffered a blackout during a cold spell in winter of 2019, and the deaths of four inmates in custody since 2020.
