A warden at the federal jail where Ghislaine Maxwell and R. Kelly are being held has been charged with murdering her husband


The Metropolitan Detention Center in New York.

The associate warden of a New York federal jail - which is currently housing Ghislaine Maxwell and R. Kelly - has been charged with murdering her husband at their New Jersey home, authorities said.

Authorities say Antonia Ashford, 44, of Jackson, shot her 47-year-old husband, Roderick Ashford, with a handgun on Monday.

Officers with the Jackson Township Police Department responded to the couple's home at around 2:15 a.m. Monday and found Roderick Ashford lying unresponsive on the floor with a gunshot wound to the face, officials said.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Roderick Ashford worked as a drug treatment specialist at the Federal Correctional Institution, Fort Dix in New Jersey, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons told Insider.

Antonia Ashford is an associate warden at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center where Maxwell - a longtime Jeffrey Epstein confidant - and R. Kelly are being held as they await their trials.

Maxwell, though charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, was housed in the Brooklyn detention center after Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial in the federal Manhattan jail.

Inmates like Maxwell have criticized the conditions of the jail. Maxwell's lawyers have told the judge in her case that jail guards routinely don't grant her the privacy and laptop access she needs to review documentation for her case.

They have also argued in court filings that staff members deprive her of sleep, don't properly heat up food, and that the stench of sewage permeates her cell.

Prosecutors have responded that nighttime checkups on inmates are normal and that Maxwell leaves her toilet unflushed.

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