- JPMorgan Chase has briefed the Treasury Division on greater than $1 billion in suspicious transactions involving Jeffrey Epstein, which came about 16 years after the infamous intercourse offender dedicated suicide in 2019, a U.S. Virgin Islands legal professional informed a federal choose at a listening to .
- “Epstein’s whole cope with JPMorgan and JPMorgan’s whole cope with Epstein was human trafficking,” Mimi Liu, a US Virgin Islands legal professional, informed US District Court docket Decide Jed Rakoff in Manhattan, in response to The Every day Beast.
- The financial institution denies any wrongdoing within the case.
Jeffrey Epstein in Cambridge, MA in 1984.
Rick Friedman | Corbis information | Getty Photographs
JPMorgan Chase has reportedly briefed the Treasury Division on greater than $1 billion in suspicious transactions by Jeffrey Epstein, which came about 16 years after the infamous intercourse offender’s suicide in 2019, a U.S. Virgin Islands legal professional informed a federal choose a listening to.
“Epstein’s whole dealings with JPMorgan and JPMorgan’s whole dealings with Epstein had been human trafficking,” Mimi Liu, a Virgin Islands legal professional, informed U.S. District Court docket Decide Jed Rakoff in Manhattan, in response to The Every day Beast Thursday.
Citing the financial institution’s submitting with the Treasury Division, Liu argued that Rakoff ought to challenge a abstract judgment towards JPMorgan, which is being sued by the Virgin Islands authorities for allegedly aiding and abetting the intercourse trafficking of younger girls by Epstein when he was a shopper of the financial institution from 1998 to 2013 .
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Citing a $9 million wire freeze to girls and suspected withdrawals from Epstein’s accounts at JPMorgan, the legal professional stated it entails “facilitating” greater than 20,000 sexual acts, The Every day Beast reported, given the behavior of Epstein to pay a number of hundred {dollars} for each sexual encounter.
“JPMorgan was a full-service financial institution for Jeffrey Epstein’s intercourse trafficking operation,” Liu stated on the listening to, Bloomberg reported.
“The one purpose JPMorgan reported $1 billion in suspicious transactions after 16 years was as a result of he was arrested after which useless,” Liu stated, in response to Bloomberg.
She accuses the financial institution of constant to do enterprise with Epstein regardless of repeated inside purple flags and his 2008 request for forgiveness over a Florida intercourse crime, the report stated.
Epstein, 66, took his personal life in a New York jail in August 2019, a month after he was arrested on federal little one trafficking costs. Along with a residency in Manhattan, Epstein owned a personal island within the Virgin Islands, the place he has been accused of sexually abusing girls.
A lawyer for JPMorgan, who denies wrongdoing within the case, dismissed the Virgin Islands’ declare that they need to be held accountable for aiding and abetting Epstein’s abuse of ladies.
The Virgin Islands is in search of at the very least $190 million in damages on this case. The trial shall be heard on October 23 if Rakoff doesn’t grant abstract judgment to both aspect.
The financial institution’s legal professional, Felicia Ellsworth, informed Rakoff that the Virgin Islands had “not produced a shred of proof” that JPMorgan violated intercourse trafficking legal guidelines, in response to The Every day Beast.
Ellsworth additionally argued that the Virgin Islands lacked authorized standing to sue the financial institution. JPMorgan stated the American Territory can solely sue to implement residents’ rights and that there isn’t any proof that any of Epstein’s victims had been residents of the Virgin Islands.
“There’s closely disputed testimony and proof,” Ellsworth informed Rakoff, in response to Bloomberg.
A JPMorgan spokeswoman declined to remark to CNBC on the Virgin Islands’ claims that the financial institution had knowledgeable the Treasury Division of greater than $1 billion in suspicious transactions by Epstein.
JPMorgan agreed in July to pay $290 million as a part of a settlement with Epstein victims to resolve the same lawsuit filed by one of many accusers in Manhattan federal courtroom.
In June, Deutsche Financial institution, which took on Epstein as a shopper after he was kicked out by JPMorgan in 2013, agreed to pay $75 million to Epstein’s victims to settle a 3rd lawsuit in the identical courtroom.