The financial institution is being sued by the US Virgin Islands over its apparently cozy relationship with the infamous pedophile
JPMorgan dealt with greater than $1 billion of Jeffery Epstein’s cash over a interval of 16 years, whereas administration on the financial institution ignored calls to sever ties with the convicted intercourse offender, legal professionals for the US Virgin Islands claimed on Thursday.
The transactions befell between 1998 and 2013, lawyer Mimi Liu mentioned in a listening to in Manhattan, based on Reuters.
The US Virgin Islands, the place Epstein’s personal island of Little Saint James is situated, introduced its lawsuit in opposition to JPMorgan final 12 months. In response to the swimsuit, the financial institution’s prime executives had usually joked concerning the financier and his fondness for younger women. That was regardless of compliance staffers repeatedly trying to have Epstein’s account classed as “excessive threat,” and urging administration to chop ties with the pedophile, who was convicted of procuring a baby for prostitution in 2008.
The Virgin Islands argued that the federal government might have been tipped off to Epstein’s crimes earlier if JPMorgan had correctly reported suspicious transactions on his account. These included a fee of $600,000 to move a 14-year-old woman to the US from Europe, whom executives described as his “assistant or younger girl he introduced over from Prague (or some place like that).”
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Thursday’s listening to marked the primary time that the sum of money JPMorgan dealt with for Epstein was made public. “JPMorgan was a full service financial institution for Jeffrey Epstein’s intercourse trafficking,” Liu argued in court docket.
The Virgin Islands is looking for a minimal of $190 million from the financial institution.
JPMorgan denies sheltering Epstein. Legal professionals for the financial institution have argued that a number of workers reported suspicious transactions from Epstein’s account to the US Treasury Division way back to 2002, and requested federal authorities to research his conduct. Moreover, JPMorgan’s authorized workforce has accused the Virgin Islands of turning a blind eye to the alleged intercourse crimes that befell on Little Saint James.
Earlier this summer season, JPMorgan claimed that it had severed its ties with Epstein in 2013. Nonetheless, Liu accused the financial institution of processing greater than $1.1 million in funds from Epstein to “women or ladies” after that date.
READ MORE: Epstein continued socializing with A-listers despite conviction – media
Epstein was arrested in 2019 and charged with the trafficking of dozens of underage women, however was discovered useless in his Manhattan jail cell earlier than he may very well be dropped at trial. His loss of life was dominated a suicide, though this official clarification was met with skepticism by some resulting from his ties to rich and highly effective figures, together with former US President Invoice Clinton, present CIA Director William Burns, and Britain’s Prince Andrew.
JPMorgan settled a separate Epstein-related lawsuit in June, paying $290 million to a bunch of ladies who mentioned they had been sexually abused by the billionaire whereas he was a shopper of the financial institution.
