Jeffrey Epstein was once many stuff: a sexual predator, a pal to the wealthy and robust and, for a few years, a profitable buyer of the country’s greatest financial institution.
Now the financial institution, JPMorgan Chase, faces a reckoning for its just about 15-year dating with the disgraced financier, one that would price it a large payout in two civil complaints that declare the financial institution overlooked warnings that he was once trafficking teenage ladies for intercourse as it was once benefiting from its dating with him.
New disclosures attributable to the circumstances recommend that staff of the financial institution flagged Mr. Epstein’s process as suspicious on plenty of events, whilst different paperwork display Mr. Epstein’s familiarity with best executives on the financial institution, and his simple get entry to to them, even after his 2008 to blame plea in Florida to soliciting prostitution from a teenage lady.
Filed overdue remaining yr in federal court docket in Manhattan, the complaints — one introduced via attorneys representing Mr. Epstein’s sufferers and the opposite via the federal government of the U.S. Virgin Islands — are continuing on a quick observe, with dozens of depositions taken of sufferers, Virgin Islands officers and those that labored for the financial institution and Mr. Epstein.
The complaints will tackle a brand new urgency on Friday, when Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s leader government, is scheduled to be deposed on the financial institution’s headquarters in Manhattan.
Mr. Epstein died via suicide 3 years in the past whilst being held in federal custody on sex-trafficking fees. JPMorgan dropped him as a consumer a decade in the past. Many of the paperwork and shows filed within the litigation are beneath seal.
One record ready via the financial institution, an show off in a court docket submitting remaining week, suggests staff of JPMorgan filed a large number of suspicious process studies, or SARs, about a few of Mr. Epstein’s transactions. The names of a few 4 dozen staff who the financial institution stated had been “involved in reporting SARs relating to Epstein Accounts between 2000 and 2019” are redacted.
Banks will have to report a SAR with federal regulators once they suspect {that a} transaction would possibly contain cash laundering or fraud. The studies are stored confidential since the transactions may just turn out to be professional, even though they are able to supply investigative leads to the government.
A JPMorgan spokeswoman stated the financial institution had now not recognized of the rest that indicated Mr. Epstein was once interested by intercourse trafficking. In filings comparable to the case, the financial institution has additionally disclosed that it requested federal prosecutors in Florida in 2011 if there was once any lively investigation of Mr. Epstein. The financial institution stated the prosecutors had now not disclosed any investigation.
A separate cache of emails and partial calendar entries reviewed via The New York Times presentations that high executives on the financial institution had a degree of familiarity with Mr. Epstein.
“Still waiting for your call,” Mr. Epstein wrote in October 2011 to Mary C. Erdoes, the present head of the financial institution’s large asset and wealth control department.
Ms. Erdoes answered: “Seriously. It is 1 a.m. your time. I would say get a life … but you are at the Ritz and we aren’t.” Ms. Erdoes added that she had simply landed in California and would communicate to Mr. Epstein the following day.
The emails, and calender entries for Mr. Epstein whilst he was once staying at his Manhattan mansion, had been acquired via a public data request to the legal professional normal for the U.S. Virgin Islands. JPMorgan’s spokeswoman has stated touch between rich shoppers and financial institution executives isn’t unusual.
The emails equipped to The Times via the Virgin Islands additionally come with exchanges between Mr. Epstein and James E. Staley, the JPMorgan government with the nearest ties to him.
A couple of are of a private nature: In one dialog from 2015, Mr. Staley requested Mr. Epstein if he would meet along with his daughter to speak about her post-college plans. In a 2011 electronic mail alternate, there was once a dialogue about arranging a dinner with Mr. Epstein and Mr. Staley’s circle of relatives.
Other emails between Mr. Epstein, Ms. Erdoes and Mr. Staley concerned possible industry offers. A chain of exchanges occupied with Mr. Epstein’s effort to determine a charitable partnership between the financial institution, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others. He additionally inquired about assembly with Mr. Dimon to speak about the plan.
The financial institution’s spokeswoman stated Mr. Epstein had by no means met with Mr. Dimon. Mr. Epstein’s proposed charitable fund with the Gates Foundation and JPMorgan by no means complex a lot past the speaking degree in 2011 when Mr. Gates first met Mr. Epstein.
JPMorgan minimize ties with Mr. Epstein in 2013, even though that was once years after some individuals of the financial institution’s compliance division had raised alarms about doing industry with him. And it dropped him best after Mr. Staley had left for every other task.
Mr. Staley and Ms. Erdoes, The Times in the past reported, liked conserving Mr. Epstein as a consumer after his 2008 to blame plea, partly as a result of he helped deliver rich shoppers to JPMorgan’s private-banking department.
The dating between Mr. Epstein and Mr. Staley, who is understood as Jes, is a central query within the litigation. Lawyers for the Virgin Islands have claimed that the 2 males shared sexually suggestive emails about younger girls and that now and again Mr. Epstein despatched Mr. Staley “photos of young women in seductive poses.”
The Virgin Islands has stated the financial institution will have to had been acutely aware of the emails. Mr. Staley left JPMorgan in 2013 and in 2015 changed into the manager government of Barclays. He resigned that place in 2021 as a result of the fallout from an investigation via British regulators into how he had characterised his dating with Mr. Epstein.
JPMorgan has stated it was once now not acutely aware of any irrelevant behavior involving Mr. Staley. But the financial institution has named him as a defendant in a third-party lawsuit, in order that whether it is decided that Mr. Staley engaged in unsuitable process, he will also be held liable for any damages it’ll have to pay. A federal pass judgement on this week rejected Mr. Staley’s try to be disregarded from the litigation.
Neither Mr. Staley nor his attorneys spoke back to requests for remark, however in court docket papers, he has denied any wrongdoing and has stated he was once ignorant of any intercourse trafficking operation.
The attorneys for Mr. Epstein’s sufferers scored a large win in a equivalent case remaining week, when Deutsche Bank, which succeeded JPMorgan as Mr. Epstein’s number one banker, agreed to pay $75 million to settle a proposed class-action swimsuit filed in federal court docket remaining yr. The German financial institution in the past paid a $150 million penalty to New York regulators.
The proposed agreement with Deutsche Bank may just transform a template for any handle JP Morgan. JPMorgan had controlled 40 accounts for Mr. Epstein and treated maximum of his twine transfers, which incorporated bills to girls believed to be sufferers, other folks briefed at the topic stated.
“JPM was his true partner,” stated Bradley Edwards, who, together with David Boies, is a part of the felony crew representing the sufferers of Mr. Epstein within the lawsuit. “There is no real comparison between the two cases.”
To date, Mr. Epstein’s property — as soon as valued at $600 million — has paid out over $150 million in settlements to greater than 125 sufferers. Those sufferers may well be eligible to get probably the most cash from the proposed handle Deutsche Bank.
The Virgin Islands lawsuit towards JPMorgan arose from information the territory had accrued throughout litigation with Mr. Epstein’s property. The Virgin Islands had sued to recoup tens of tens of millions in tax advantages it had awarded to Mr. Epstein’s companies that had been based totally in St. Thomas, attaining a $105 million agreement in November.
The Virgin Islands’ personal dealings with Mr. Epstein even have raised controversy through the years. Not best did it award profitable tax breaks to his companies however in 2012, the federal government eased shuttle restrictions for Mr. Epstein after a request from his attorneys, in accordance to paperwork that The Times acquired via a public data request.
Because of his standing as a intercourse wrongdoer, Mr. Epstein was once required to notify government of any shuttle plans, however that advance understand was once minimize to in the future from kind of 3 weeks via the Virgin Islands’ legal professional normal on the time, the paperwork display.
JPMorgan has seized on a few of these criticisms of the Virgin Islands executive to argue the territory is in no place to sue for damages. The financial institution, in a court docket submitting on Tuesday, stated officers within the U.S. territory had an extended historical past of cozying up to Mr. Epstein and seemed “the other way when he walked through U.S.V.I. airports accompanied by girls and young women.”
The financial institution additionally famous Mr. Epstein made common marketing campaign donations to native politicians, and it has sought information about Cecile de Jongh, the spouse of a former governor of the Virgin Islands, who was once an established administrative center supervisor for Mr. Epstein’s corporations. It may be set to depose Albert Bryan Jr., the present governor, who was once the chairman of the company that awarded Mr. Epstein’s companies the massive tax breaks.