JPMorgan Chase reaches tentative $290M settlement in lawsuit with Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking victims

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JPMorgan Chase & Co. reached a tentative settlement Monday in a lawsuit brought by victims of Jeffrey Epstein, accusing it of facilitating their sex trafficking as teens by keeping the deceased pedophile’s cash flowing amid bright red flags.

The settlement, which follows weeks of bad press for the biggest U.S. bank, was confirmed in a joint statement by JPMorgan and lawyers for Epstein victims, who said the outcome was in everyone’s best interest, “especially the survivors who were the victims of Epstein’s terrible abuse.”

David Boies, an attorney for the victims, confirmed the banking empire had agreed to shell out $290 million. At least 100 women are expected to be compensated.

The lawsuit filed anonymously in November by Jane Doe, a former ballet dancer, accused the bank of greasing the wheels of Epstein’s global sex trafficking operation, alleging it couldn’t have succeeded without 15 years of access to JPMorgan’s deep reserves. A tentative $75 million settlement was reached in a similar lawsuit against Deutsche Bank last month.

“The settlements that have been reached are both life-changing and historic for the survivors,” Epstein victims’ lawyer Sigrid McCawley said.

“Money, which for far too long flowed with impunity between Jeffrey Epstein’s global sex trafficking enterprise and Wall Street’s leading banks, is decisively being used for good,” she added. “The settlements signal that financial institutions have an important role to play in spotting and shutting down sex trafficking.”

Victims’ lawyer Brittany Henderson said the mammoth settlement represented the scope of Epstein’s harm.

“A settlement of this size finally acknowledges the magnitude of the suffering of Epstein’s victims, the degree to which our system is broken and the extent of Epstein’s influence to corrupt our system,” she said.

In a separate statement, JPMorgan did not admit wrongdoing and maintained that it had been unaware of Epstein’s criminality when he was a client.

“Any association with him was a mistake and we regret it. We would never have continued to do business with him if we believed he was using our bank in any way to help commit heinous crimes,” reads the statement.

The women’s suit accused the decision-makers at JPMorgan of disregarding multiple red flags about its high-profile client, looking the other way because of his powerful connections.

Court filings show that staffers lodged multiple suspicious-activities reports, which long led nowhere, over Epstein’s large cash withdrawals, and that the bank’s asset and wealth management CEO, Mary Erdoes, admitted being aware of accusations as early as 2006.

“Suspicious wire transfers and withdrawals of millions of dollars in cash are basic hallmarks of any major criminal enterprise,” reads Doe’s suit.

“A bank that would allow Epstein to operate in this blatant criminal fashion was necessary for the growth of his trafficking operation and for the continued abuse of hundreds of young women.”

Epstein kept hundreds of millions of dollars with JPMorgan from 1998 to 2013, according to court filings, when authorities believe he committed some of his worst abuse. His right-hand associate Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for procuring and grooming his victims between 1994 and 2004.

Testimony and evidence at Maxwell’s trial showed the pair lived large when sexually tormenting minors, shuttling victims as young as 14 on the same private planes they used to host former Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, Britain’s Prince Andrew and other elite figures.

A JPMorgan executive testified about multimillion-dollar wire transfers Epstein made to Maxwell via the bank, including $18.3 million in the late 1990s and money to buy a helicopter in 2007.

Epstein remained a client of JPMorgan’s for years after his 2008 conviction in Florida for soliciting a 16-year-old for prostitution, at which point authorities believed he’d victimized many more than just that one high school student, law enforcement records show.

The new settlement, which Manhattan Federal Judge Jed Rakoff must approve, did not resolve a related lawsuit against JPMorgan brought by the U.S. Virgin Islands, where authorities believe Epstein committed much of his abuse on his private island, Little Saint James. Lawyers for the U.S. territory say Epstein’s abuse was so widely acknowledged at JPMorgan that bank staffers joked about his penchant for young women in work emails.

And messy litigation between the bank and its former private wealth executive Jes Staley remains ongoing. JPMorgan says Staley, described in court papers as having a “profound” friendship with Epstein and raping one of his victims, left the bank in the dark about the depravity and should have to pay the price for the lawsuits.

The recently deposed Staley, whose lawyer didn’t return a call seeking comment, denies both the rape allegation and awareness of Epstein’s sex trafficking. In court filings, he has argued that he shouldn’t be held responsible for the bank retaining the perverted money manager from Brooklyn as a client for as long as it did.

In a recent deposition, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said of Epstein that he’d “never even heard of the guy” until his August 2019 hanging suicide in federal custody at age 66.

The Wall Street billionaire said he knew nothing about Epstein promoting him to contacts as a candidate for secretary of the treasury. He also disputed the validity of a 2010 email to Epstein from an assistant setting up a dinner between him, Epstein and Staley.

Dimon pointed the finger at Staley and said what Epstein’s victims suffered was “atrocious,” but not directly the bank’s fault.

“We were trying to do our job as best as we can,” Dimon said. “We are not law enforcement.”

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