An attorney for the U.S. Virgin Islands argued in federal court docket that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and ex-top rated financial institution govt Jes Staley were conscious of sex trafficking by the bank’s notorious shopper Jeffrey Epstein.
The lawyer’s argument pushed back again at JPMorgan’s transfer earlier this month to change any lawful duty for its organization relationship with the late Epstein on to Staley alone.
“Jamie Dimon realized in 2008 that his billionaire consumer was a sex trafficker,” lawyer Mimi Liu told Manhattan U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff at a hearing late Thursday, referring to the year Epstein was very first criminally billed with intercourse crimes.
Jamie Dimon, CEO, JP Morgan Chase, during Jim Cramer job interview, Feb. 23, 2023.
CNBC
“If Staley is a rogue staff, why is not Jamie Dimon?” Liu claimed at the listening to, which dealt with JPMorgan’s efforts to dismiss the Virgin Islands’ lawsuit from the lender above its connection with Epstein.
The lawyer ongoing: “Staley understood, Dimon understood, JPMorgan Chase realized” about Epstein’s prison conduct.
Liu mentioned there had been various hard cash transactions and wire transfers by Epstein, such as sending hundreds of thousands of pounds to various women, which need to have been formally flagged as suspicious.
“They broke each and every rule to aid his sexual intercourse trafficking in exchange for Epstein’s wealth, connections and referrals,” Liu argued
“This situation was not just Jes Staley … there will be various files that go significantly past his business to the executive suite,” she mentioned.
A attorney for JPMorgan disputed these arguments, “in individual the position about Jamie Dimon acquiring any distinct awareness.”
Dimon is not a named defendant in the fit against the bank.
Jes Staley, main government officer of Barclays Plc, speaks in the course of a Bloomberg Television interview on working day three of the Environment Financial Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019.
Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
JPMorgan spokeswoman Patricia Wexler in a assertion mentioned, “It is unfair for CNBC to report lawyers’ unsubstantiated arguments as details.”
Wexler also mentioned, “Jamie Dimon has no recollection of reviewing the Epstein accounts.”
Staley has denied recognizing about Epstein’s unlawful conduct. He was CEO of Barclays from 2015 until late 2021, when he stop after a probe by British financial regulators into his ties to Epstein.
Lawyers for the Virgin Islands beforehand have highlighted an August 2008 interior electronic mail at JPMorgan which suggested that Epstein’s account would be closed that year simply because of worries about his carry out.
“I would rely Epstein’s property as a possible outflow for ’08 ($120mm or so?) as I are not able to think about it will continue to be (pending Dimon overview),” an unknown worker wrote in that e mail, described in the Virgin Islands’ lawsuit.
That e mail arrived two decades after JPMorgan’s International Corporate Protection Division uncovered several newspaper content articles “that detail the indictment of Jeffrey Epstein in Florida on felony charges of soliciting underage prostitutes,” the lawsuit pointed out.
U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein appears in a photograph taken for the New York Condition Division of Legal Justice Services’ intercourse offender registry March 28, 2017 and obtained by Reuters July 10, 2019.
New York Point out Division of Felony Justice Providers | Handout | Reuters
The Virgin Islands’ lawsuit towards the financial institution alleges that Epstein’s 15-year shopper romantic relationship with the lender served him transport younger women, whom he and some others then sexually abused at his house in the Virgin Islands.
The suit was filed 3 several years just after Epstein, who was a previous buddy of ex-Presidents Donald Trump and Monthly bill Clinton, died by suicide in a Manhattan jail even though awaiting demo on federal little one sexual intercourse trafficking costs.
JPMorgan has claimed Dimon was not associated in selections relevant to Epstein’s account at the bank.
Very last 7 days, the financial institution sued Staley, its former chief of investment banking, alleging that he is legally accountable for lawsuits from the Virgin Islands and Epstein’s victims connected to Epstein’s romantic relationship with JPMorgan. The go well with seeks to claw back more than $80 million in compensation Staley received.
In arguments Thursday, a attorney for the financial institution explained “all roadways go to Mr. Staley.”
“He will be at the centre of this scenario whether there is just one or two” trials for each individual lawsuit, the lawyer claimed.
Epstein was a non-public prosperity shopper of the lender right until 2013, at the very least partly for the reason that Staley had vouched for him.
But in 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to a Florida point out cost of procuring an underage prostitute, a crime that was thoroughly described at the time. He afterwards served 13 months in jail.
“In 2013 — the yr that JP Morgan terminated its connection with Epstein — JPMorgan flagged in Epstein’s record that ‘[p]er bank plan, felons [like Epstein] are regarded as higher danger and involve added acceptance,'” the Virgin Islands’ suit notes.
Rakoff, the decide, did not rule on the movement to dismiss the match Thursday. He explained he would rule on that concern by the end of March.
But Rakoff did rule towards JPMorgan on another situation, finding that the Virgin Islands has the proper to file a lawsuit on behalf of any one who was a resident of the territory.
— More reporting by Eamon Javers
