JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon talks to reporters as he leaves the U.S. Capitol after an unannounced meeting with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, reportedly about U.S. debt, May 17, 2023 The possibility of default, outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Evelyn Hawkstein | Reuters
JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon will be fired at his bank’s New York headquarters on Friday amid allegations the firm sex-trafficked its longtime client Jeffrey Epstein Provide convenience and profit from it.
Dimon and JPMorgan deny any wrongdoing, responsibility the caselost an earlier effort to dismiss the plaintiffs’ suit — the U.S. Virgin Islands government and an anonymous Epstein accuser.
The lawsuit says JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank, will remain open after learning that Epstein was under investigation for sexually abusing underage girls in Florida and that he pleaded guilty to a state charge in the state in 2008. Epstein remained as a client. a minor.
In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the bank is accused of doing so to keep Epstein, who opened tens of millions of dollars in lenders there despite internal concerns about his reputation. account.
The Virgin Islands said Epstein routinely used the cash he withdrew from the accounts to pay young women to travel to U.S. soil so he and others could abuse them at residences on the private island he owned.
“Human trafficking was the (principal) business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JPMorgan,” the Virgin Islands lawsuit says.
Dimon’s testimony was conducted in private. The questions he was asked and the answers he gave were only made public if they were used or leaked in court documents and proceedings.
JPMorgan did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
In addition to questioning Dimon under oath, the Virgin Islands issued a series of subpoenas seeking documents related to Epstein and JPMorgan from some high-profile individuals the government suspects Epstein was trying to recruit as other clients of the bank.
they include tesla CEO Elon Musk, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, former Disney executive Michael Ovitz, Hyatt executive chairman Thomas Pritzker and billionaire real estate investor Mott Zuckerman.
Dimon’s testimony comes more than a week later Deutsche Bank Agreed to pay $75 million to Epstein’s victims to settle a potential class action lawsuit by one of his accusers. After JPMorgan severed ties with Epstein in 2013, Deutsche Bank counted Epstein as a client, with whom he had maintained a client relationship for 15 years.
JPMorgan has said it did not review Epstein’s accounts when Dimon was a client of Epstein from 1998 to 2013, the year the bank severed ties with him.
Six years later, Epstein committed suicide in a New York prison, and a month later, federal authorities charged him with trafficking girls for sex.
JPMorgan strikes back
In a related complaint, JPMorgan said any civil liability that Epstein’s actions might result from was the responsibility of its former executive, Jes Staley, a friend of Epstein’s and one of his co-authors at the time. The primary business contact for the bank.
Staley, who also denies any wrongdoing, failed earlier this week to dismiss JPMorgan’s complaint against him, which seeks, among other things, to recover $80 million in damages from him.
In addition to trying to shift the blame to Staley, JPMorgan this week accused the Virgin Islands of “complicity in Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes” in a court filing.
The Virgin Islands turned a blind eye to Epstein’s trafficking of young women because he offered money, advice and favors to senior officials there, the document said.
The document specifically states that Epstein John de Jongh and his wife Cecile pay the school fees for the children of John de Jongh and his wife Cecile, when John was Governor of the Virgin Islands, Cecile ) worked for Epstein, managing his companies in the region.
Cecil also allegedly worked to secure student visas for young women associated with Epstein, and was his “prime channel for spreading money and influence throughout the USVI government.”
Washington post Details of earlier testimony by Mary Erdoes, head of JPMorgan’s asset and wealth management division, were released Friday.
“Holy crap, Epstein was identified as a sex offender with Florid’s conviction,” Erdos wrote in an email to another bank executive in 2011, according to The Washington Post.
The paper said it was “at least the sixth time Erdos … has been told that Epstein faced criminal or civil legal trouble for his sex crimes.”