Jamie Dimon has considered JPMorgan Chase’s former general counsel as the “final decider” who has the authority to place Jeffrey Eppard, according to sworn testimony from JPMorgan’s chief executive. Stan (Jeffrey Epstein) was fired as a client.
Even though other executives like Mary Erdos, one of the bank’s top executives, have been vouching for sex offenders, the bank’s top lawyer is someone “with the ability to overturn” their decisions, Dimon said.
Dimon made the assertion during seven hours of testimony last week, a transcript of which has been seen by the Financial Times. He was responding to suggestions that the decision to retain Epstein was made by Erdos and the disgraced financier’s former personal banker, Jess Starley.
Lawyers for the U.S. Virgin Islands — one of two lawsuits being filed against JPMorgan — said Steve Cutler, the bank’s top lawyer from 2007 to 2016, had appointed El Erdoes and Staley were the executives responsible for keeping Epstein. He was first arrested for sex offenses in 2006.
“If (Cutler) allowed them to make that judgment, it’s because he didn’t step in and say, you have to go,” Dimon said. “But he could have done that.”
Dimon’s testimony involved two cases in which JPMorgan was accused of ignoring red flags related to Epstein and profiting from human trafficking. One was brought in by a woman who said she had been abused by Epstein, and the other was brought in from the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the late sex offender had a home.
Court documents in both cases detail how Erdos and Staley, who now oversee the bank’s $4 trillion asset and wealth management division, were involved in multiple internal conversations about whether Epstein’s clients should be dropped, and how they Visited his residence in person.
In 2011, Cutler sent an email that read: “I want to put that and (Epstein) behind me. Not someone we should be doing business with, that’s all.” He also wrote: “That’s not a respectable person in any way. He shouldn’t be a client.”
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to one count of soliciting minors for prostitution in Florida. He was a client of JPMorgan until 2013.
“Mr. Cutler has the ultimate power to kick him out if he thinks he’s gone too far,” Dimon said in his testimony. “I think the ultimate decision maker should be the company’s general counsel.”
Cutler, a former SEC enforcement chief who left JPMorgan for private practice at Simpson Thacher, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Epstein would not have been retained as a client if the firm believed he was involved in an ongoing sex trafficking operation. In hindsight, we regret that he was ever a client,” JPMorgan said.
Dimon, 67, said in his testimony that he first learned that Epstein had held accounts at JPMorgan for 15 years about four years ago, when the disgraced financier was arrested on federal sex crime charges.
“It didn’t occur to me that I knew nothing about Jeffrey Epstein until the story broke sometime in 2019,” Dimon said. “I’m surprised I . . . Never heard of his relationship with so many people.”
David Boies, an attorney for the unnamed Epstein plaintiffs suing JPMorgan, said Wednesday that Dimon acknowledged that the bank’s “senior executives knew for years that Epstein was a convicted sex offender.” perpetrators and continue to target young women”.
“Epstein withdrew hundreds of millions of dollars in cash every year to fund what he did, and . . . used his network of JPMorgan accounts,” Boyce said.
He added: “If, as he claims, Mr. Dimon is the only person in New York who had never heard of Epstein before July 2019, then this is an indictment, not a defense.”
Dimon also denies being informed of Epstein’s accounts or actions by Staley, and the bank is suing him for allegedly withholding information about Epstein and vouching for him internally.
Earlier Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Staley claimed to have personally spoken to Dimon repeatedly about the account — an allegation JPMorgan called “false.”