JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States, has reached separate extrajudicial agreements with the Virgin Islands and with former executive Jes Staley, who was the former director of the group’s private banking sector, to settle the final blows in a scandal that has tarnished the entity’s reputation for months due to its links to Jeffrey Epstein, the financier arrested for trafficking and abusing minors…
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JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States, has reached separate extrajudicial agreements with the Virgin Islands and with former executive Jes Staley, who was the former director of the group’s private banking sector, to settle the latest blows in a scandal that has tarnished the entity’s reputation for months over its links to Jeffrey Epstein, the financier arrested for trafficking and abusing minors who committed suicide in his cell last August 2019.
After paying $290 million in June for the claims of dozens of mostly anonymous women — they are known as Jane Doe in summaries — the two agreements end the last pending litigation in a long list of lawsuit from alleged victims of abuse by pedophile Epstein. The scandal surrounding the financier involved powerful figures in finance and business, American high society and even the British royal house, such as Prince Andrew of England.
Through a statement released this Tuesday in New York, JPMorgan explained that the agreement with the Virgin Islands, for a total amount of 75 million dollars, plans to allocate 30 million in aid to charitable organizations , 25 million in the fight against human trafficking and 20 million in lawyers’ fees. The terms of the bank’s agreement with Staley are confidential. Staley, the group’s former private banking director, is accused of “aggressively abusing” a woman and informing her that he did so “with Epstein’s consent,” thanks to a child-trafficking scheme run by died pedophile with the help of his right. -hand woman, Ghislaine Maxwell to satisfy his sexual appetite and his group of elite friends. The rape was supposed to have taken place at the financier’s mansion on a private island in the Virgin Islands, a US territory that is part of the indictment because it is believed that the bank facilitated the operation of Epstein’s prostitution network.
The complaint against Staley, known in May in New York, added more pressure to the head of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon. The former manager exchanged 1,200 emails with Epstein between 2008 and 2012, the period in which he was the subject of the first judicial proceedings: in 2006 he was arrested for prostitution and two years later he pleaded guilty. the. The billionaire, whose wealth has always been a mystery – he grew up in a poor house in Coney Island – then spent 13 months behind bars, but was released on the streets thanks to a lenient sentence, which appreciates of his confession and allowed him to avoid charges. .more serious federal charges, including life in prison.
The shadow of Epstein’s impunity in the following years led to a softening of the banking entities where he deposited his fortune, which was worth $500 million at the time of his last arrest, in July 2019. Deutsche Bank agreed to pay a $75 million in May, as did JPMorgan. for allegedly intentionally benefiting from the economic activities derived from his former client’s sex-trafficking scheme.
Epstein was a client of JPMorgan from 1998 to 2013, when the bank ended its relationship. “The company deeply regrets any association with this man, and would not have continued to do business with him if it suspected that he used the bank in any way to commit his heinous crimes,” it said. JPMorgan.
The attorney general of the Virgin Islands, Ariel Smith, called the agreement a “historic victory for survivors and for the rule of law, and should sound the alarm on Wall Street about the responsibilities of banks to them and prevent human trafficking,” according to a statement collected by the Reuters agency.
Despite the huge ink stain that the Epstein case meant for celebrities like Andrés in England and even Bill Gates, as well as for important financial entities like the two mentioned, Epstein posthumously became the most famous who are sexual predators in the United States. , with the producer Harvey Weinstein, revealed thanks to the activism of Me Too, the movement of complaints of systematic sexual abuse in Hollywood and, by extension, of people with power, like Epstein.
